Missing music artwork

[scarlac]

Really, is this problem not fixed yet. It happened again. I had to clean install my macos, and i'm missing all my album covers in catalina 10.15.7.

Been searching and haven't found any working solution yet, I tried:
- patience, they will come back: not working, been waiting 12 days now
- deleting the specific folder library/containers/com.apple.AMPArtworkAgent/, to force a refresh of the artwork: not working
- tried the dougscript 'Apply Embedded Artwork v1.1' to rebuild the specific album art folder: not working

I can't rely on the following:
- re-importing all music, even through the exported XML file, it doesn't included import date, I use some smart playlists based on import date
- can't use 'file > library > get album artwork', have to many specific albums not available on apple music
- manually adding the albumart, now way, 5000+ albums is a hell of work
- I won't use dougscripts to export and re-embed the artwork into the file tags, I prefer not manipulating my music after I cleaned and structured the tags as I need them. I once did it and it corrupted a third of my music collection.

It really gives me the impression Apple doesn't care anymore about those who like to own the music. Most of my music is purchased through bandcamp and other services, many of those albums aren't available on apple music.

Would like to know, Big Sur is coming soon, is this problem still present in Big Sur Betas.

Anyone a final working solution / tool / script / ... to solve this very persisting problem.

Thanks in advance.
Enjoy the day.

 

[Martin Ritchie]

This works for me. In a Playlist I scroll through each song and see which ones are missing the Artwork. I find the actual file (in my case in Folders in iTunes Music). In every case the artwork shows up on the thumbnail for the file, but not in Artwork in the Playlist. I make a Duplicate of the original file (Command +D). The Duplicate file name ends with copy. I drag the Duplicate file into the Playlist and the Artwork now appears. I delete the old song from the Playlist and delete the original file from iTunes (Keeping the Duplicate or copy). I can even go back to the Duplicated file and delete the word copy and the Artwork still appears in both thumbnail and in Artwork in Playlist. Very tedious but so far it works for me on IOS 10.15.7 Catalina.

 

[brianmowrey]

So you have a folder full of 5000 albums on a backup? I don’t think there has been any recent version of iTunes that, after a clean reinstall without recycling your library, would not leave you needing to reassign artwork for them. If I were in your boat, I would resign myself to importing albums one by one as a play them, and replacing the artwork then. But, I gave up the fight and subbed to Apple Music five years ago...

 

[Martin Ritchie]

Rather than duplicate each song file I copied folders containing all of the song files to a backup disc. Deleted the folders with song files from the hard drive then reinstalled them from the backup disc. That worked to get missing artwork back for me.