How do I stop MediaMonkey from arbitrarily suggesting album art?

[llamabear]

I imported my library over from iTunes, and a bunch of them have a disk icon on the corner suggesting alternative album arts. Some have been useful, but others not so much.

I've disabled background metadata lookup but that doesn't seem to do a thing.

I'm using ver. 5.1.0.2825 standard edition on Windows 10 Pro.

[Lowlander]

If you display Artwork in the Filelisting it will still be looked up, this can't be disabled. Note that when Artwork shows with the disc icon that it's not been saved to your media files, so it will only be shown in MediaMonkey and will be removed automatically once you associate Artwork.

[llamabear]

associate Artwork.

So I've found a workaround to make the disk icon disappear, but I think it's too clunky.

In iTunes, the album art was part of the image tag, and not a pic file in the album folder. As a result, some albums with album art have the image type in the Artwork panel set to "cover (front)" and others say "not specified."

When it's "not specified," and I choose "cover (front)", the disk icon disappears. When it's already "cover (front)," and I make sure the "apply to all files in the album/series" is checked, the disk icon does not disappear. But when I change the image type to something else, and then "cover (front)," the disk icon disappears.

Can you explain more about associating Artwork?

[Lowlander]

When you tag Artwork: https://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/WebHelp:Album_Art/5.0

It sounds like you're saving the automatically Artwork, thus it will no longer be unsaved.

[llamabear]

I see.

Either way, right now, it looks like iTunes does something weird with album art, and as a result, I am not seeing a lot show up on MM. I guess a lot of manual labor will be required one way or another.

[Peke]

I see.

Either way, right now, it looks like iTunes does something weird with album art, and as a result, I am not seeing a lot show up on MM. I guess a lot of manual labor will be required one way or another.

Most likely iTunes just saves AA to its library and not to tags, so MM can't picked them up

[llamabear]

I see.

Either way, right now, it looks like iTunes does something weird with album art, and as a result, I am not seeing a lot show up on MM. I guess a lot of manual labor will be required one way or another.

Most likely iTunes just saves AA to its library and not to tags, so MM can't picked them up

So I figure that since I am pretty much starting over with assigning or reassigning album art, I might as well do it right.

When I add the cover, do you recommend saving the image to tag, or saving the image to folder? Or both, since storage is not an issue for me?

[Peke]

Hi,
Image to tag always, you never know what app will read the file in future so correct metadata tags are essential.

[Lowlander]

Yes, iTunes uses a proprietary method for Artwork, thus not compatible with other applications. I also recommend to embed (uses more space as Artwork is saved per file on the Album) as it's far more reliable, especially when also using other applications/devices. External Artwork will always rely on the software/device associating it correctly.

Note that MediaMonkey can extract Artwork on Sync and copy it as an image file and resize it if the device doesn't read embedded Artwork.

[adhalejr]

If you display Artwork in the Filelisting it will still be looked up, this can't be disabled. Note that when Artwork shows with the disc icon that it's not been saved to your media files, so it will only be shown in MediaMonkey and will be removed automatically once you associate Artwork.

This is a huge problem for me. I use MediaMonkey to manage voice files (sermons, lectures, etc.). Obviously, there's nothing relevant to look up. MediaMonkey finds pictures, mostly of individuals, which have no relationship at all with these files. And it displays those pictures in multiple places in the UI.

So to confirm:

a) This can't be disabled at all? There's no way to either explicitly or implicitly tell MediaMonkey that these files should not have anything looked up about them, especially artwork?

b) Your message says "If you display Artwork in the Filelisting". I don't know exactly what that means, and I can't find any setting that disables the display of artwork. Is that possible? Note that the "view" I'm using is for a single album in the media tree. In the main, center panel it shows the list of files for that album with the artwork above the list. And on the right in the "Selected" view it shows artwork. If it's truly impossible to disable that automatic lookup, I'd like to disable the display of the artwork.

Is there perhaps a way to only show artwork if it's been explicitly saved with a file/song? I've explicitly saved artwork for all my music files, and I'd like to still display that.

Thanks.

[Lowlander]

Yes, if you use a View that displays Artwork in the Filelisting it will be looked up, this can't be changed. However you can use the List View, which doesn't display Artwork.

[Rob_S]

This seems wrong to me.

If he turns off the background metadata lookup of artwork and artist images, should that not prevent what he is seeing?

Why would there be unrequested image lookup happening when this is turned off?

Can we have a feature request to turn off any remaining lookup of artwork which has not been specifically requested?

[adhalejr]

Yes, if you use a View that displays Artwork in the Filelisting it will be looked up, this can't be changed. However you can use the List View, which doesn't display Artwork.

Thanks for the reply - I appreciate it. I figured out how to switch from "Browser" to "List" view in the main panel. Note, though, that that's not sufficient to stop displaying the artwork. I also had to uncheck "Info panel" (under View->Main panel view) for it to go away.

I still haven't found a way to disable the display of artwork in the "Selected" view (for me, the lower right of the UI). In Tools->Options->Layout->Preview, there's an "Advanced" which lets me pick from a list of fields. But "Artwork" isn't one of the fields, and it's always displayed. Is it possible to prevent displaying artwork there?

Thanks again.

[adhalejr]

This seems wrong to me.

If he turns off the background metadata lookup of artwork and artist images, should that not prevent what he is seeing?

Why would there be unrequested image lookup happening when this is turned off?

Can we have a feature request to turn off any remaining lookup of artwork which has not been specifically requested?

I second this feature request. I have absolutely nothing enabled in the "metadata lookup" options, from which it is reasonable to infer that no lookups should be made, period.

Thanks much.

[Lowlander]

Preview won't do auto-lookup with auto-lookup disabled. You can also right click in the Preview window and disable Show image.