Album Art

SanDisk MP3 players Sansa® Fuze™
1

I’m new at this so please bear with me.  I have a silver 8GB Fuze for myself and one for my husband.  Both players are having problems with displaying the album art.  It displays in Windows Media Player Ver. 11 but when we sync them to our players it is a ■■■■ shoot as to whether the art will display or not.  Some of the art will display or all of the art will display or none of the art will display after syncing.  I was told by Sansa Technical Support to use MTP for the USB mode in order for the art to be displayed.  Display art is set to on in System Settings. I have updated the Media Player to the current version.  I have downloaded the MTP Porting software through Tech Support.  Tech Support did something in my computer registery.  i have updated the firmware through Tech Support.  I am really frustrated because I called Sansa Support today and they were NO help with this problem.  I was told to try to sync using another computer with Media Player on it but we only have one computer at home and don’t know when I could try to do that.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the Fuze but this is not the only issue I am trying to get resolved!!  I just want my Fuze to work correctly.  HELP PLEASE

Thank you in advance.

2

The Fuze uses a file called folder.jpg (it may be just called folder, if you have windows set to hide extensions) to display the album art (it may use other files with different names, but folder.jpg is an “unofficial” standard.

When using media player 11, this folder.jpg file gets created in your “albums” directory (along with other .jpg’s that media player uses).  This is a “hidden” file, so you may have to setup your folder options in windows to view hidden files.

When you sync in MTP mode with media player 11, it’s supposed to transfer this folder.jpg file as well.  If it doesn’t you can drag and drop this file from your folder on your computer into the album folder on your Fuze.

If the file is there and you still aren’t getting album art, the file may be too high a resolution.  I believe 500x500 is the max resolution supported by the Fuze.

If you sync in MSC mode it’s likely that the folder.jpg file will not transfer, and you will need to move it manually.

Either way, the theory is the same.

3

Thanks so much for the info.  I can’t seem to find the folder.jpg on my Fuze.  When I go into the Fuze directory through My Computer inside the Internal Memory folder I see a Music folder and no Albums folder if I have no songs on the Fuze.  When I sync songs to the Fuze then open up the Internal Memory folder I see a Music folder and an Albums folder but the Albums folder is faded like it is hidden and the album art inside it is also faded like it is hidden.  There is no folder called folder.jpg.  I went to the Control Panel and then to Folder Options and checked the box to show hidden files and folders and unchecked the boxes to hide extensions and protected operating system files (I did this before looking at the internal memory for the Fuze as described earlier). So, is there a reason that the Albums folder and its contents are showing up as hidden folders and should and how do I fix that?  Also, since there is no folder.jpg where do I find it on my computer to copy it over to the Fuze and where exactly do I copy it to?  I hope this makes sense.  If you have any questions please let me know.  I really appreciate the help. Thank you so much.

4

folder.jpg is not a folder, it is a file.  It is a small “picture” file of your album art, and it is located in the same folder as your MP3’s. 

Look at your directory structure, and depending on how your program syncs, you may have to dig down into folders within your music folder.  A lot of programs will follow the following sorting routine…Music/<Artist Name>/<Album Name> and then place the associated tracks within that “album’s” folder.

The folder.jpg file should be located in the directory that each of your individual tracks are stored into. 

When the Fuze plays a track, it looks in the source directory of that individual track and searches for a folder.jpg file.  If it finds it, it displays it.  If not, you get the nice little “notes and CD” generic picture.

Most sync programs like Media player should already be placing that file on your MP3 player, but if it does not you will need to do it manually.

Programs like MP3Tag can be used to embedd album art into the MP3 tag on the track itself, and while the Fuze can’t read it, it is handy in that later, you can use the same program to export the embedded art into a folder.jpg file, and it will automatically write it to the folder the track is in.

There is a bit of a learning curve in managing Album Art, and you have to decide how much you think it’s worth to see the small picture of your Album on your player.

Since I have gotten into a set pattern.  It really is not an issue for me.  I can embedd an entire album in less than 30 seconds, and if my sync program doesn’t auto transfer the folder.jpg, I can run MP3 tag on the whole player and export the embedded art on all the tracks in less than a minute.  If you have a large number of files already that you don’t have art for, it can be a rather daunting task, but once you are “caught” up, if you include album art management as part of your “Ripping” process then it is much easier to manage.

5

I have read this thread and it was very helpful.  When I was following the steps I considered turning off the album art settings on my player and thenshuting it down.  Then when I turn it back on the art was working… The odd thing is that my setting is still set to off… Strange but true.  Hope this will help…

I Bleed METAL!!!

6

The album art setting on the player only affects on whether small album art is available from the “albums” list or any list that show albums.  When it is on, a small thumbnail picture will appear next to your album title from the album selection list.  The maximum amount of albums per page shown with this activated is 4.  When you turn off the Album art, you don’t get a small album art next to the album name in the selection list, and the maximum number of albums shown per screen is 6.

So you have to make a choice.  Either scroll longer to get through the list and see album art pop up next to the album title, or just show the name of the album and scroll through your list in a shorter amount of time.

Regardless of the album art setting, the “now playing” screen will still display album art if available, along with Artist, Album and Track information.

Hope this clears things up.

7

Thanks so much for all the info.  This is what I’ve found out so far.  If I look in the My Music folder on my PC (C:) drive I do see the files named folder.jpg in the same location as the music file.  But when I look at the internal memory of my Fuze it does not show any of the folders in the music file.  The Albums file does have the cover art displayed (hidden-faded) but they are .alb files with names such as AlbumName Artist.alb.  I hope this makes sense.  Also, I have been trying to research this through the Microsoft Windows Media Player site and I have uninstalled the driver for the Fuze as follows: (With the Fuze connected to my PC) Start button, Run, type in devmgmt.msc, Enter, Portable Devices, Select Fuze, Right click Fuze and select Uninstall. After uninstall is complete I reconnect my Fuze to my PC with the internet running and WMP open and it recognizes my Fuze (the internal memory and my MICROSD card are listed on the left side of WMP.  I sync music to my Fuze and unconnect the Fuze to make sure that the album art has transferred and it does.  So, I reconnect my Fuze to my PC with internet and WMP running and sometimes it syncs the songs with album art and sometimes it won’t. If it does GREAT!! If it doesn’t sync the album art I uninstall the device and reinstall it as described above and it will work again.  I don’t understand why the album art is transferred sometimes and other times it doesn’t and I’m syncing the music the same way each time.  Also, FYI my husband has the same Fuze (we have two total) and his does the same thing…sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Anyway, I just wanted to update you on my progress.  Also, I watched the video (from the Sansa site) on how to add album art to your music from the internet using images but it doesn’t work either.  I saved the image from the internet on my desktop and named it folder.jpg and then copied it into my Fuze in the Music folder in the same location as my music file.)For example I have a song that I can’t find album art for on the internet so I found an internet image to use and I copy and pasted it into the Library in WMP and that shows up fine.  But when I sync that song to my Fuze the art does’nt show up.  Any suggestions? Again, thanks for all the help.  Just curious what the heck is the difference in MSC and MTP USB modes??  Thank you in advance for any suggestions.