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MP3 icon no longer displays artwork in finder

Hi there,

I'm not sure if this started since iTunes 9.2 or 10.6.4, but MP3 icons - in my documents folder, for example - don't display the artwork for the file anymore. I just see the 'musical notes' generic symbol instead. Even when I quicklook the item, it plays back, but again without the specific artwork for that file.

If I open the file in iTunes, the artwork is presented, however. Outside of iTunes in finder windows or folders, there's no artwork. This used to work until very recently, so I don't know what's changed. Can the finder no longer read MP3 artwork outside of iTunes?

Message was edited by: Micbarry

Message was edited by: Micbarry

Macbook 4,1 (White), Mac OS X (10.6.4), 4GB RAM, Samsung 500GB HD

Posted on Jun 17, 2010 12:13 PM

Reply
105 replies

Jun 17, 2010 7:06 PM in response to Michael271

I've been doing some testing on this for the last hour or so.

No cover art is being displayed through finder or quicklook. iTunes and Front Row seem to functioning ok. I understand iTunes 9.2 did adjust how album artwork was displayed (apparently to speed it up while browsing). Like I said in an earlier post, I only noticed this behaviour after I updated to iTunes 9.2. I've tried a combination of old and new MP3s, and used jaikoz to see if the artwork is in fact embedded (it is).

If anyone else can confirm this or knows of a fix it would be appreciated.

Jun 17, 2010 11:04 PM in response to mwarner

I am using Windows 7 and upgraded to 9.2, and not all of my album art is displaying properly. The musical note is displayed instead of the album art file.

I am also having difficulties editing album art. When I tried to change the file on an album, the new file does not display properly and I end up with the Note file again.

Clearly not enough beta testing was done on this before the release.

Jun 18, 2010 12:42 AM in response to Michael271

I also got the same problem after I upgraded to iTunes 9.2
Only the mp3 in the iTunes library folder can be shown album art icon preview in Finder, after upgrade, but not to any other songs which i have album art embedded in other folders.
But curiously, i did import some new songs to iTunes and edit the mp3 tags with "ID3tag" application (because of some wrong chinese encoding) and after that they are able to display the album art in icon preview... I will try better tonight.
Could someone from Apple fix this bug please? Not sure if this bug comes from iTunes 9.2 or OSX 10.6.4...

Jun 18, 2010 8:57 AM in response to Michael271

I didn't have this problem until after iTunes did the 9.2 update on my MacBook.

Files that were already on the desktop show the album art in finder. Multiple file types were affected by the 9.2 update. I've noticed it broke displaying album art for not only mp3 but also m4b and I'm sure there are others.

Is there a new file system option we have to enable to get this display back?

Jun 19, 2010 6:49 AM in response to Michael271

This definitely seems like this is going to be a widespread issue with iTunes 9.2. I submitted a bug report yesterday along with the URL to this thread. Hopefully we can get a fix soon.

On an interesting note, after playing around a bit with this, I can get the art to appear - but only when I'm not using Icon View in the Finder. The other view modes will display the artwork. Quicklook seems to be showing the album art as well again, at least on my system. However this may just be intermittent.

Jun 20, 2010 3:08 AM in response to Georg66

I have this problem too and I have updated just iTunes to 9.2. I haven't installed 10.6.4 yet. I am under the impression that iTunes no longer embeds artwork changed via the Get Info for an album. Prior to 9.2 when I changed it, iTunes would briefly show a progress bar saying that it was updating every track on the album. Now it applies the cover immediately. That suggests that it is no longer embedding the artwork in each file, wich is sad because I've went to a lot of trouble to make sure the artwork was embedded.

Like described by some other posters here, my artwork is displayed when it's on the iTunes Library folder, but when I move it or copy it anywhere else the covers are gone. After trying several times to reapply album covers, run scripts to embed covers I've got the cover showing on some copied files, but I didn't get consistent results, it just worked for some files. After trying to repeat the steps the covers were gone again. It's a very odd issue. Hope to hear some official response soon.

Jun 20, 2010 4:08 AM in response to kcfelix

Well, my suspicions where wrong. I've written a python script to show artwork embedded on a file and the artwork is indeed being maintained when copying files outside the iTunes folder, it just isn't shown on Finder. Also, some other music I had outside my iTunes Library that used to have cover icons aren't showing either. It's very odd. Maybe the finder is using the new iTunes cache to show cover art?

I'll try restarting the system since I havent' done it (and shouldn't need it) after updating iTunes.

MP3 icon no longer displays artwork in finder

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