Ok... RESTORE option from iPod Updater software worked as expected, however, now the artwork's gone again?!?!?!?!

Well, so try to clean it with the iPod Updater and ensure that you are using the newest firmware.

I have a iPod Video 60GB and the album arts are visible.

Big_Berny

Hi guys... when I rebuilt my PC to Windows MCE 2005, iTunes 6.0.5 would not install anymore. Then upon looking, I found that 6.0.5 was a bad version and many had problems with it. My search for an alternative began at that time. I found MediaMonkey which does so much more than iTunes and I'm totally in love with it besides the artwork issue... I wiped my iPod clean... just deleted all the songs off it (not using iPod Updater), and made custom playlists to sync with it... still no luck.... no artwork.

Any help would be appreciated!

Thanx!
Robin

[quote]jiri, can you comment if the synch is different depending on how items are selected for synch within mediamonkey?[/quote]

No, this really shouldn't matter.

Jiri

[quote="holidayidol"]
But that's all ok. It lead me down a tough path of worthwhile troubleshooting. To make a long story short, the solution to my problem (and likely many others with the same issue) was that I was transferring the songs to the iPod through the [b]My Computer[/b] node instead of through the [b]Library Database[/b]. I knew this all along, and it was intentional, but I didn't think it mattered which way. When you transfer files from the My Computer node you are still pressing a button that says "Sync to iPod", but apparently it syncs in a manner that writes to the iPod database in a slightly different manner.
[/quote]

I am leery that this is the true explanation for the problem.... I have had many problems with this art display issue, and tend to have to use the itunes program to fix it in a long and painful album art remove/restore process (documented elsewhere in this forum). It takes about 45mins to an hour on my 60gb ipod video. I tend to have to do it after I add a fair amount of new music to the ipod.

My concern is that people who ONLY use itunes (never mediamonkey) also have this album art display issue, just like you have had. That really leads me to believe that a fix does not lie within mediamonkey, but within the ipod firmware.

jiri, can you comment if the synch is different depending on how items are selected for synch within mediamonkey?

Is there anybody with an ipod VIDEO (not photo) who has NOT had problems with album art display like described in this post?

It's probably 'cause I'm dutch, but I don't get that part with ''My Computer Node"

Could you explain it to me? Please :P

My iPod works fine with MM, but the albumart won't work (empty box) except for One song...How???

Hope you guys can read and understand it...

nice to see that it's ok now.

so happy ipodding :)

Holidayidol, I would send an email to the dev's support email address (s u p p o r t at mediamonkey . com without all the spaces) with your findings (if they don't notice and reply here), its possibly a bug and not something intentional.

Well that's good to know. I didn't realize there were that many different ways to sync in MM.

Ok guys, I've been down a LONG road to recovery !

First of all I tried each and every suggestion above. After I completely abolished all things iTunes (and any other iPod software) from my system, formatted/restored my iPod, and used MM as the sole proprietor to rebuild my iPod...you can imagine my distress when there was STILL no album artwork displayed after transfer, but only the "empty" box!!!

But that's all ok. It lead me down a tough path of worthwhile troubleshooting. To make a long story short, the solution to my problem (and likely many others with the same issue) was that I was transferring the songs to the iPod through the [b]My Computer[/b] node instead of through the [b]Library Database[/b]. I knew this all along, and it was intentional, but I didn't think it mattered which way. When you transfer files from the My Computer node you are still pressing a button that says "Sync to iPod", but apparently it syncs in a manner that writes to the iPod database in a slightly different manner.

It's all good now, though. All artwork files show up on initial transfer with no further a-do, and I'm organized even further by using the MM Library.

I do have a question, though. It really was a shortcut to me (in both time and organizational efforts) to be able to transfer files directly from the My Computer node... instead of adding them to the Library database initially, and then sync'ing them. Will it ever be possible within MM to transfer/sync from the My Computer node, and have it write to the iPod database in the exact same manner that it does from the Library ?

Also, please forgive me if I've mispoken in any way in my understanding of the MM vs iPod databases. But this has certainly fixed my issue.

Thanks to all who helped me in this thread!

One thing to check before you do all the restoring...

When you're done transferring in MM, are you clicking "Safely Remove Device" WITHIN MediaMonkey?

I found that if I unmounted the ipod outside of MM, it sometimes did things like this.

i think this could be the way. but first of all wipe itunes if you don't need the video stuff

if you restore the ipod to factory defaults then let MM do the rest.
so i would suggest restore the ipod with the latest updater, connect it to your pc and after MM recognized it set up the device configuration.

under the "Device configuration" Tab i have checked the
"Force iTunes-style folders (\iPod_Control\Music\F00\, etc.)",
"Trim path and/or filename length to 31" and
"Update database based on all Track changes (takes longer)".

and that works for me (i hope for you too) with my ipod color.
but if you need videos on the ipod i don't know if there is an other way
to get them on it except with itunes :( .

I can't be sure if it will make a difference, but check this out.

I've been having a problem synching my nano correctly. Not sure what the issue is, but my playcounts are not being correct copied back to my computer. I suspect the issue might be caused by running iTunes while the nano is connected to my computer. I don't even sync using iTunes. I use the podcast manager in iTunes, then synch them using MM. I haven't had a chance to really test this theory yet, but I've restored my nano several times. I haven't turned on iTunes while the nano was attached for about 3 days now and the synching is working correctly so far in MM.

Like I said, I don't know if my theory is correct, but it could be that iTunes does something to the device database when it senses and iPod - something that is not compatible fully with MM.

Just my theory. In your case, I would restore the iPod and start from scratch. It will be time-consuming, but you'll only need to do it once and hopefully the issues will be gone.

I restored my iPod over the weekend, erasing everything from it.
I opened up the iPod with iTunes before I did anything with MM, but I didn't transfer any tracks with iTunes. I may have transferred the very first tracks with another program called XPlay...maybe that program is similar enough to iTunes.

Since I went through the long and tedious effort of organizing all my files on the hard drive with MM this time, it would be no big deal if I restored/erased my iPod and started from scratch with using only MM to access and transfer files to the iPod. It would be somewhat timely to transfer this many files again, but it would be less time than using iTunes to repair the artwork database over and over again. Do you think doing this would be worth the try?

When you first started using MM, did you start from scractch and restore your iPod (erasing everything on it)? Or did you already have stuff on it from iTunes?

I restored both my "big" iPod and my nano to start them off clean before using MM. I've had the same issue as you where the album art just shows up as a blank square. Luckily for me, a database rebuild fixed it.