Album Art Not Visible

gab · Post by **gab** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 5:09 pm

Another in a long line of questions about maddening Album Art. Up until two days ago all my album Art is visible. Now only some of it is visible. All the Album folders have a jpg file with the art in them (I checked in Windows Explorer). All the jpg files (even the ones that are visible) have the "hidden" attribute checked in the file properties dialogue box. The "Hidden" checkbos is greyed out so yoiu can't uncheck it. One, of the many, perplexing issues is that some files are visible and some are not.

Any ideas.

PS - I've tried deleting the MM library and rescanning it and that has not worked. I've also deleted all the thumbs.db files that WMP and Windows MCE create.

Post by **Lowlander** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 7:29 pm

MediaMonkey can't see album art that has the properties set to hidden. It seems that your problem lies with either WMP or WinMCE as they control your album art and not you (reason the hidden option is greyed out).

The question is how can you get the control back and unfortunately I don't know the answer on that one.

Steegy · Post by **Steegy** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 7:37 pm

Hello

Indeed, for now, MM can't scan album art for hidden art files.

Try to find why the album art files got hidden, and then change the program that did this so you won't have this problem again.

To set the file properties to "not hidden" (visible), you can use programs for that (tools, file managers, ...). Do a google search or go to download.com or something like that.

You can also do it with the "attrib" command as explained here: http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... 2274#32274 and here: http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... 5361#35361

Cheers
Steegy

gab · Post by **gab** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 8:32 pm

Thanks everyone. the DOS command helped. This Album Art thing has me so crazy that i completely forgot that I had the SAME problem a few months ago. Moreover, someone psoted the same solution and it worked back then. I apologize for not even remembering and posting the same topic again.

Lowlander - You hit the nail on the head, either WMP or MCE "took" over the files. How, I don't know. But, and I'm not an MS basher, I feel like strangling someone for making me waste so much time for no reason. MS should have its software ASK you before it impacts your files.

Now that my ranting is done, I'll ask 2 more questions:

(1) If anyone ever figures out how to prevent WMP or MCE from "taking over" your files, I'd love to know how, and

(2) If anyone knows how to unhide locked files without going to CMD prompt I'd love to know how as well (that little black box scares me)

Thanks again everyone.

Post by **Lowlander** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 8:43 pm

Why not store the album art in the tags? That will prevent this whole problem.

trixmoto · Post by **trixmoto** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 5:44 am

1) Don't use WMP or MCE!

2) Create a .bat file - then you just have to double click on it and the black box will appear and disappear without you having to worry about it.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 8:15 am

Would this be any use?

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/script ... y0823.mspx

gab · Post by **gab** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 9:37 am

Lowlander - I would prefer to store the album art in the tags however I've encountered 2 issues: (1) My understanding is that some MP3 players (like ipod) will not recognize Album Art if it's in the tags and (2) I'm too lazy. There doesn't seem to be a way to copy the files to the tags in batch mode and I don't feel like re-tagging all my albums (~1,000). I fyou know of a way to this that would be great.

trixmoto - The idea of creating a .bat file to do this whenever I want is a good one if I knew what a .bat file was and how to create one.

. Also, I need to start MCE for certain activities (like watching a DVD) and it actually works quite well. I just wish I knew hot to "control" it so it wouldn't do things like hide my jpg files without asking me. Oh well.

Again, thanks to all for the help.

Post by **Lowlander** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 9:58 am

I don't know about the iPod and embedded album art. For batch processing you'll need to wait. Once new functionality is added to MediaMonkey someone already will create a script to batch process album art.

Steegy · Post by **Steegy** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 10:00 am

Unhiding files using a *.bat file:

Save this as a simple text file, and name it AnyThingYouWant.bat

Code: Select all

@echo off
attrib -s -r -a -h %1 /s /d
attrib -s -r -a -h %1\*.* /s /d

Drag&Drop a folder on the bat file and the folder and the files in it will be unhidden.

(A context-menu item could be easily created too, but maybe you're better of with some program that is made for these kind of things).

Cheers
Steegy

Post by **Lowlander** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 10:06 am

Steegy wrote:[Save this as a simple text file, and name it AnyThingYouWant.bat

Tip: You can use notepad for that.