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Help: No Artwork on Flash USB storage

Posted: Tue Jun 11, 2019 10:36 pm
by doane2u
I'm getting really frustrated. I used to be able to synchronize playlists to flash USB storage units and when I plugged them into my Onkyo receiver or my Samsung TV USB jack and played the files I would have album art. Now I suddenly don't have artwork for many of the files. I used Windows explorer to actually look at the flash device file tree and this is what I noticed, although I may have screwed up some other setting?

Using Explorer the folders that are in the path of "Flash" (G:)\Music\Album\file (FLAK, MP3) have album art when played but no folder.jpg file in the folder and they seem to load very slowly.

Using Explorer other files that are Classical selections end up in "Flash" (G:)\Music\Classical\Album\Composer\Album\file (FLAK, MP3) have no album art when played but do have folder.jpg file in their folder.

If I am in MM and plug the flash drive into my computer and look at the contents it has it broken up into different sections as follows

Folders\Music\Albums with no folder.jpg and there is no album art in the MM view
And
Folders\Music\Classical\Composer\Album with no folder.jpg and no album art in the MM view

If I then look at the other sections using MM of Artist,Album, Genre or Composer under the Music section I also see no folder.jpg files, but the art is embed in the view of some of them and not in others

This is really confusing

In the main MM Settings I have save images to tag and folder.jpg
In the MM options for the flash drive I checked the box to sync all artwork to folders <album>.jpg and I checked the box to copy artwork to file tags.

If I connect to MM through the MM server and navigate to a folder and select any music to play I have album artwork for any of these paths, it is only when I have the same folders and files on a synchronized flash device that it is missing the artwork. I think the path is screwed up somehow?

If I look on my computer tree path for the files I have:
D:\MyMusic\Non-Classical\Artist\Album\files (FLAK, MP3) and the folder.jpg image
and
D:\MyMusic\Classical\Composer\Album\files (FLAK, MP3) and the folder.jpg image

And I have album art for anything I play on the computer.

I have obviously messed up some settings someplace and don't know how to fix this.

I am running the latest MM gold on Windows 7 64x and am connected from the computer to the router with CAT7 Cable and from there to the TV and receiver with CAT7 cable.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Re: Help: No Artwork on Flash USB storage

Posted: Tue Jun 11, 2019 11:35 pm
by doane2u
Maybe there is some way to reset all of this to defaults as I have obviously screwed up something/

Re: Help: No Artwork on Flash USB storage

Posted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 11:29 am
by doane2u
Been fiddling with this most of the day yesterday. I tried changing the plug in device from the MM d.wmdm.dll to the usbmass1.dll and it didn't solve the problem. And after trying that I tried to remove the plugin in the Portable Device Sync list and I can't remove it.

I think there is some path problem but I can't figure out what it is.

Re: Help: No Artwork on Flash USB storage

Posted: Thu Jun 13, 2019 11:28 pm
by doane2u
Well, I didn't get much help here, but maybe it was too complicated to easily diagnosis?

Anyway, I figured out what the problem was... one little setting that somehow got changed, don't know how. Anyway, this was the problem:

Under System - Options - Portable Device Sync - The plugin used for the USB flash device - Configure button opens the Device Profile panel
Options Tab - Auto Conversion - Supported Formats per Device there was nothing listed for Playlist type. From the drop down for Set Formats I chose Playlists and checked all of the ones available.
Then on the Options Tab - Playlists Format I from the drop down for Set Format I chose M3U
Now when I choose a Playlist, right click and send to the USB flash device I get folder artwork on everything and very fast, even though many of them are 1000x

*********************************************************
One thing that I am still having trouble with though:
In the Options - Auto Sync --> Device Tab I have the Delete files and playlists with the All Other Media Files or with the Unselected Library Files (either one) but when I delete things from the playlist, they aren't deleted on the flash drive when I sync them to it.

Can anyone help with this?

Re: Help: No Artwork on Flash USB storage

Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2019 12:00 am
by Lowlander
That's odd, that Playlist affects Artwork.

How exactly are you syncing?

Re: Help: No Artwork on Flash USB storage

Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2019 12:58 am
by doane2u
I right click on the playlist and select "send to" and the flash drive that is in the list. It's been working fine now, except for not removing items that I removed from the playlist. I have to go in and delete them on the flash drive and also delete the playlist on the drive before syncing from the play list if I removed anything on the playlist.

Re: Help: No Artwork on Flash USB storage

Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2019 10:13 am
by Lowlander
That's not a sync, thus it does not remove files. You'll need to do an actual sync from the Device Profile. Make sure you have the right content selected to sync in the Device Profile before initiating the sync.

Re: Help: No Artwork on Flash USB storage

Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2019 11:35 am
by doane2u
When I insert a flash drive MM shows it down at the bottom of the Media Tree and it automatically scans it and I can look to see what is in it to delete files or what ever.
When I have inserted a flash drive, if I then right click on one of the Playlists I have made I will now see the name of the flash drive I have inserted with "Synchronize" after the flash name. When I click on it the playlist files are sent to the flash drive. And in the Device Profile for the flash device on the "Auto Sync --> Device" tab at the bottom is the choice to "delete other files and playlists from the device" I thought this was "Synchronizing?"

I didn't want to use the "Auto Sync to device as soon as it is connected" check box on the Summary tab because I don't want to always use the same playlist to send to the flash drive. Therefor, on the "Auto Sync to Device" tab I don't have a particular playlist checked either. From the choices in the profile I thought that if I changed a playlist, or decided to use a different one for that flash drive it would remove files not in the playlist and add ones in the playlist that I have selected.

Am I completely not understanding how this works?

Thanks,

Re: Help: No Artwork on Flash USB storage

Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2019 11:43 am
by Lowlander
You don't have to enable the option to auto-sync on connection, but you're not running a full sync, instead your telling MediaMonkey to sync a selection of files which does not include removal of files not on that Playlist.

So connect the device, select what you want on the device in the Device Profile and then select the Sync button on the Device Profile. This will run a sync and should prompt to remove any files not on the sync-list. You need to set it to all other media files for removal if you want files not in MediaMonkey (because you deleted them) to be removed on sync.

Re: Help: No Artwork on Flash USB storage

Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2019 12:38 pm
by doane2u
Ahh.. Okay, that worked, thanks so much for your help again!
It seems misleading to use the word "synchronize" on the right click "send to" choice, maybe you could change it to "copy to" instead, that would be what it is actually doing, not synchronizing!

I have a feeling that maybe the way my file tree is physically set up is causing problems so that I had to specify the supported playlist formats?

In Explorer under D:\My Music\ I have a folder "_Classical" with all the classical music in it and another folder "_Non-Classical" with all the other music. I use dbPower Amp to rip CDs and have it set up to put the different types of music in these physical path locations.

In MM this same path tree path can be seen under the "Entire Library"\"Location" folder.

Also, under the MM main Tree is located "Music" "Classical Music" "Playlists" (and media servers, search results and the connected device, etc.). The confusing thing to me is that here, under "Music" or "Classical Music" there is again the "Location" path tree. I sometimes get mixed up in which area I am looking for things because:
Under the "Classical Music" tree there are folders for Album, Conductor, Composer, Artist, Title, etc. and only classical music is listed... works great
Under the "Music" tree there are also folder for Album, Conductor, Composer, Artist, Title, etc. but they show ALL the music, not just the non classical.

I guess I'm still just not used to how this all works or I somehow have the file structure set up wrong?

I have no idea why I had to specify the playlist formats, but it is now working correctly. Before, pretty much only the album art under "Music" (Non-Classical) would end up on the flash drive with almost all the "Classical" music files missing album art. It didn't matter whether in the device profile I checked to include folder art or use embed tag art or both. I now have both of those options un-checked and I am getting art for all areas and it is in the tags on the flash drive. All my music files on the computer have tag art along with folder art in each album folder.


Thanks, Lowlander.

Re: Help: No Artwork on Flash USB storage

Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2019 1:13 pm
by Lowlander
It is synchronize, but on the selection only. So it takes account what's already on the device and only synchronizes the files not on device. Copy is a different option that's available as well.

Re: Help: No Artwork on Flash USB storage

Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2019 5:14 pm
by doane2u
Okay, thanks, any ideas about my file setup... is this normal?

Re: Help: No Artwork on Flash USB storage

Posted: Fri Jun 14, 2019 9:24 pm
by Lowlander
That should be fine.

BTW you can remove Classical Music from Music if you wish by editing the Collection (Gold feature under File > Manage Collections). Just remove Type = Classical Music from the Criteria for the Music Collection.

Re: Help: No Artwork on Flash USB storage

Posted: Tue Jun 18, 2019 10:17 am
by doane2u
Do you think my physical file system has caused problems with MM organizing it?
I would like to have the Classical music in one section of MM, which I can do, as you pointed out. But I can't figure out if there is a way to have the non classical music in another section, like the Classical one is organized. Anyway to do that other than by the location listing?

Thank you, Lowlander

Re: Help: No Artwork on Flash USB storage

Posted: Tue Jun 18, 2019 1:12 pm
by Lowlander
I'm not sure I follow. You can create (Gold feature) any number of Collections and have them Filter what should be shown in them based on Criteria. Criteria can be Type, Location, Genre, etc. Collections are a way to separate content in different Libraries while managing all content with one MediaMonkey Library.