iOS 13 Music App album art is incorrect.

I've got an iPhone XR and just upgraded to iOS 13. I go to the Music App and the album art is associated with the wrong playlists for about 1/3 of the library - and when I close and reopen the app, the incorrect pairings of image to file has shifted (example: the album cover for a U2 album was showing for a YES album the first time, now the U2 album has the correct cover, but a Talking Heads album has the art work for a Dave Brubeck album...etc.)


I have rebooted the phone, re-synced the music library on the phone, even removed all of the playlists, etc. and re loaded them and the issue remains.

iPhone XR

Posted on Sep 19, 2019 7:35 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Aug 12, 2020 4:06 AM

Hi all,


I'm not sure if the following has already been discussed, but here's a solution that works for me. It's somewhat time-consuming, especially if you have thousands of files in your iTunes library. As an indicator, I have around 4,000 files and the following takes about 45 minutes to complete. :-(


Before you begin, understand that your iPhone's music library will be erased if you proceed. So please take this precaution: ensure that the iTunes library on your computer contains everything you want on your phone: songs, playlists and cover art.


  1. Disconnect your iPhone from your computer
  2. On your computer, open iTunes
  3. Navigate to: iTunes > Edit > Preferences > Advanced
  4. Ensure Keep iTunes Media folder organised is deselected
  5. OK
  6. iTunes > Edit > Preferences > Advanced
  7. Ensure that Keep iTunes Media folder organised is selected
  8. OK.


This forces iTunes to re-read its library and rebuild links between files and their metadata.

  1. Connect your iPhone to your computer via the cable
  2. Click the phone's icon, found immediately beneath the iTunes menu bar


** WARNING: HERE COMES THE RISKY AND TIME-CONSUMING PART **

  1. In the left panel: Settings > Music
  2. In the right panel: ensure that Entire music library is selected > deselect Sync Music
  3. Accept the warning, then click Sync. Your phone's music library will now be ERASED. Wait until this process is complete before proceeding.
  4. In the right panel: select Sync Music > apply. Your library will now be transferred from your computer to your iPhone, including cover art and playlists.
  5. Allow this process to complete, then confirm that your phone's music library looks as you'd expect.


You might be thinking, "Why do I have to blow away my phone's entire music library? Can't I just do a differential sync, and the errors that were corrected when iTunes re-read its library will be fixed on phone too?". I thought the same thing... but, sadly, it didn't work. Only a complete wipe/restore of the phone's library worked for me.


In case you're wondering, here's what caused my iPhone's cover art to go screwy in the first place:


  1. My phone was disconnected from the computer
  2. In iTunes I selected a playlist > clicked its cover art > selected a new JPG image when prompted
  3. I connected the phone to the computer via cable
  4. I initiated a library sync in iTunes.


Once the sync was complete I checked the playlists on the phone: the recently-tweaked playlist was showing the wrong cover art, as were several other items. Lesson learned: if changing a playlist's cover art, do it on the phone, not in iTunes.


Kind regards,


Jason Paris

EltonOutOfTheCloset.com

192 replies

Sep 26, 2019 8:26 AM in response to spridel

Yes, happening with Mac iTunes. On my MBP15 the images are correct in iTunes. But synching to iPhone 8, the images in the list of Playlists will show the correct images on playlists near the top, but as you scroll down farther they change randomly. If I scroll back to the top those have changed, scroll again back farther down and playlists there have new 'random' images of artists from my other playlists.

Sep 29, 2019 6:30 AM in response to LouScian

Also, I have a lot of playlist...I’ve noticed the first 14 in the list start out with the correct thumbnails. Then after that they repeat those same preview down the list (as others have stated too).


Now, I found, when I scroll thru all my playlists, to the last, back to the top, the art work randomly gets assigned to each playlist. When I scroll thru a few times, eventually some in the list don’t get a preview art work, so I selected one of the artless playlist, just to see if the correct art is under the actual song list is still there. When I do this, it’s a total blank page, no songs or anything. It will let you back out to select another list, but then with art work or not, all list are blank, forcing you to totally close out of the app, and restarting to the same ‘every 14 playlists the same art repeats’ . So, yeah it’s still useable, just don’t scroll to fast thru your lists, or it ends up crashing. I hope there’s a 13.1.2, or a 13.2 update soon.

Oct 16, 2019 12:10 PM in response to StuartDMT

No way. I will not do any investment of time in this - and I suggest everyone not to waste his/her time. It is a bug in the OS 13 and only apple can handle it.

As they have moved to Catalina, they have -a lot- of other preocupations, thousands ... so this issue is not on top.

Of course they want to pressure us to go to the new system.

Nope!

But that's ok - I will just not go to Catalina and less than ever buy any new products of them. I will keep the old ones as long as possible. By the way - one does not miss a thing in not renewing his hardware, they stopped to be visionary long ago. This skill dyed with Jobs.

Nov 11, 2019 2:09 PM in response to StuartDMT

1st post here . I've been having an artwork issue for about a year now myself . I manually manage my albums on iTunes . I`ll add an album to my iTunes from a CD then drag and drop it on my device and it'll give me the wrong artwork 99% of the time. I`ve got an iPhone 7 Plus on IOS 13 and just upgraded our Mac to Catalina last night hoping that would solve the problem but nope same thing . I've asked a few different employees at various Apple stores about it and it's stumped them. I've pretty much given up hope

Nov 24, 2019 2:46 PM in response to StuartDMT

Not sure if this has been mentioned (haven’t read entire thread) or if it’s consistent, but for me, at least, it only seems to be an issue on the list of playlists. If I select any playlist, the right icon shows up. On the list of albums, I get the right image. Just the list of playlists that’s the issue. Weird.

Dec 6, 2019 12:03 PM in response to StuartDMT

I find it strange that only some of us have this problem - album cover art and playlist art scrambled, as well as changing. It's not as if the wrong picture was somehow linked - it keeps changing.


It started when I upgraded to ios 12 on my iphone 6s.


It has continued with my brand new, fresh out of the box iphone 11 pro max.


I wonder why the bug doesn't affect everyone.

Feb 14, 2020 10:57 AM in response to Imahussey

I tried to avoid the issues as I'm a low-tech senior and just got my first phone, an iPhone (Pro Max). I just transferred all the music from iTunes library on my iMac directly to my iPhone and no loss of album artwork among 1500 songs. The Music app in the current OS seems problem prone, but if you're able to transfer a library from another device or external drive it might be easier. I also turned on Airplane Mode and turned off WiFi to make sure my device wasn't communicating with the iTunes Store, as that is where the "box set" of albums get thrown back to you on. your device.

Apr 13, 2020 11:21 PM in response to StuartDMT

iOS 13.4.1 on an 11Pro, syncing from a MBP running 10.15.4.

Everything was OK on my phone until I bought a new album, added to my "library" on the Mac and then tried to update the phone... now album art is a total clusterf*. I've got art from other artists showing on albums from other people, all over the place, it seemingly has no rhyme or reason.


Tweeted a link to this thread over to The Tim, although I doubt we'll see any action on it since Apple would obviously much rather we pay for their Music service. 😕

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iOS 13 Music App album art is incorrect.

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