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scarlac

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 30, 2019
15
9
I recently made a clean install of Catalina on my iMac 2017.
Way to much problems updating from Mojave to Catalina.
I always keep my itunes library files and music on a separate external HD.
After importing the XML in the new music app,
can't figure out how, but I 'm missing all my artwork in the music app.
Is there a way to rebuild the artworks cache.
Made several posts on apple forum, but nobody seems to have a solution.
I was told that I had to be patient, they will come back.
A week later, still no artwork.
 

jgrove

macrumors regular
Jul 18, 2006
167
129
Any solution would be welcome

Hi, I managed to get my library file from iTunes into Music, but the artwork was missing, all I did was select Library from the file menu and selected get album artwork, and they slowly reappered. Now I am aware this might not fix your issue, and that's largely because the TV and Music Apps in Catalin are riddled with bugs and software inconstancies, this coupled with software that has matured over the years and iTunes libraries that might not be fully compliant is a recipe for frustration. Alas you re not alone and if the above doesn't work, then you may need to wait for a fix from Apple or manually read them yourself, which I had to do for some of mine.

Regards
 

scarlac

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 30, 2019
15
9
I suppose when I click on 'get album artwork', it will get the artwork from the internet and not the embedded jpg.

If yes, this is not a solution to me, I spent a lot a of time fetching the correct album artwork, as I have many limited editions and special albums.
[automerge]1575297289[/automerge]
Just tried it on a few albums, no result

And yes it is frustrating
 
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boylerman

macrumors regular
Mar 17, 2010
145
52
Massachusetts
I'm in the same boat. When I upgraded to Catalina, my Time Machine backup broke, so I formatted the drive and did a clean Catalina install which fixed the Time Machine issue, but when I reimported thousands of songs into music to restore my music collection, none of my artwork was there. When I click on an album or song and click "Get Info", it shows the correct artwork in the dialog box, but the cover art does not appear in the album view.

Additionally, when I plug in my iPad, the music sync tab is not working - it is showing that I am using iCloud music sync which I am not.
 

scarlac

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 30, 2019
15
9
Very frustrating
How is it possible to release a software so buggy.
The first version of iTunes was released in 2001. It evolved very well during all those years.
They make a lite version of it, and it is the worst version every made.
I guess we will have to be patient
 

Bazza1

macrumors 6502a
May 16, 2017
755
588
Toronto, Canada
Pretty iffy fetching of artwork here - either from pre-existing files from iTunes, or it's own search online. In some cases, I ended up Googling for the album artwork and saving the images in a folder inside my Pictures folder. Then manually added them from there. And then its only a chance they'll make it over to iOS 13.

Unnecessarily time consuming, but I guess the boffins at Apple are too busy creating the next 'one more thing' than to actually ensure the existing products work as expected. See also, Mail.
 

philMBP

macrumors 6502
Nov 19, 2007
383
18
What about your finder files? See my post below. My finder files used to have the album art but now have been replaced with generic icons.

 

Vin2015

macrumors regular
Apr 26, 2015
120
65
Same here, I am missing all artwork and it will not play songs, says it is loading "iCloud music library, may take a few minutes", its been days now.
 

sponch

macrumors member
Jun 30, 2011
94
25
still got that problem... covers are embedded (see information of album) but are not shown in library...
only solution so far: opening information of album --> cover --> move the cover pic around. Then the cover appears
 
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John Cogdell

macrumors newbie
Apr 19, 2020
2
0
still got that problem... covers are embedded (see information of album) but are not shown in library...
only solution so far: opening information of album --> cover --> move the cover pic around. Then the cover appears
Thank you! Moving the artwork image around when in Get Info - Artwork on an album does the trick - amazing!
 

verdi1987

macrumors 6502a
Jun 19, 2010
656
420
I had some issues with my iPhone not displaying the right album art, so I deleted the album art cache and SQLite DB files in an attempt to get Music to rebuild its database. After a reboot, deletion of the OS and app caches, and several relaunches of Music.app, the DB was not getting rebuilt. (Almost all of my music has embedded art.) TV.app regenerated about six posters out of about 1,000.

I ended up restoring the cache I deleted.

I found this thread (and some others on other forums) about this problem. I am disappointed it is still an issue. (Music.app also refuses to remember the sort preference "Album by Artist/Year," but that is another issue.) iTunes was a beast, but I'd have it back in a heartbeat.
 

me55

macrumors regular
Jul 26, 2019
131
63
Catalina stores the artwork in a different folder, I got my artwork back after a clean install by copying this folder from a Time Machine backup:
Code:
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.APMArtworkAgent/Data/Documents
 

verdi1987

macrumors 6502a
Jun 19, 2010
656
420
That is the folder whose contents I deleted, expecting the cache to be rebuilt. It was not rebuilt.
 

me55

macrumors regular
Jul 26, 2019
131
63
I had to copy it over, even though my music files have the artwork embedded.
 

Konrad Gottlieb Kaufmann

macrumors newbie
May 8, 2020
3
0
i found a valid and SCALABLE solution. If you don't know about Tune Instructor i strongly recommend it, its a very useful tag editing tool. If you go under artwork and copy and swap you have to choose to swap the first album art with the second and choose to replace existing album artwork. Try with a small batch...
 

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Konrad Gottlieb Kaufmann

macrumors newbie
May 8, 2020
3
0
I recently made a clean install of Catalina on my iMac 2017.
Way to much problems updating from Mojave to Catalina.
I always keep my itunes library files and music on a separate external HD.
After importing the XML in the new music app,
can't figure out how, but I 'm missing all my artwork in the music app.
Is there a way to rebuild the artworks cache.
Made several posts on apple forum, but nobody seems to have a solution.
I was told that I had to be patient, they will come back.
A week later, still no artwork.
Don't rely on apple forum, it's crap. if researching an issue you should grow the habit of including "-apple.com" in your google query... XD
 

Konrad Gottlieb Kaufmann

macrumors newbie
May 8, 2020
3
0
i found a valid and SCALABLE solution. If you don't know about Tune Instructor i strongly recommend it, its a very useful tag editing tool. If you go under artwork and copy and swap you have to choose to swap the first album art with the second and choose to replace existing album artwork. Try with a small batch...
This method forces Music to refresh the image cache but it actually creates a duplicate of the artwork in the ID3 tags. Re-Embed Artwork form doug scripts actually does the trick.
It is ALWAYS advisable to do backups and experiment with small batches...
 
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