Artwork not appearing for some tracks during playback on MMA, even though artwork is embedded

[bluesteeldriver]

For years I used MediaMonkey Pro Android on a Samsung Galaxy S8, without problems. Last month I upgraded to a Galaxy S25 and, using identical sync settings to what I had with the S8, I synced the same files to the S25. Those settings include embedding artwork into the mp3 tags, regardless of artwork size.

Now, about half the time, artwork does not appear while a track is playing on MMA. The artwork is there, in the file, and I can see it on MMA in views such as Album, Tracks, Artists, etc. The artwork is also present when clicking the track’s 3-dot menu and selecting Properties. But it doesn’t show on the Art tab while the track is playing; I see only the generic black-and-white monkey.

This problem appears to be random … sometimes artwork appears while playing a particular track, sometimes not, and it doesn’t seem to matter what the bitrate, file size, or encoding method are (e.g. CBR vs VBR). Also, these same files displayed fine during playback on my previous phone.

I've doublechecked my files, and the artwork is embedded in all of them. I don’t use folder.jpg or albumart.jpg for album art. I have verified the embedding with Mp3tag as well. As mentioned above, these same files displayed fine in MMA on my previous phone. I haven't changed anything on my Windows PC either.

Since the only thing that’s changed is the phone I’m using, I wonder if MMA behaves differently on Android 11 than it did on whichever Android version the Galaxy S8 had. Or, could it be that an updated version of MMA was released in January, around the time I switched phones, with a bug related to artwork?

My current MMA version is 2.1.1.1290. Thanks in advance for your help.