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

Nov 11, 2019 1:50 PM in response to StuartDMT

Having this same issue, so glad there's a thread about it as I have a lot of playlists and have become dependent on the artwork to quickly find the correct playlist. I feel like syncing a device with an iTunes library of local mp3 files is becoming obsolete :( also for what it's worth, I've noticed that this issue does not appear in Apple Carplay. All playlist artwork is always correct on my vehicle dashboard in Carplay mode, even when my iPhone XS shows different (incorrect) artwork.

Nov 14, 2019 12:57 PM in response to StuartDMT

I have years of music on my Mac and the bigger question is why should we have to decide whether to delete and reinstall? It's clearly Apple poor quality control and it's more apparent every day they just don't care. This is the second App that has gone sideways since the iOS & Catalina upgrades. Already waiting a month with a case # for them to address the Books app.

Nov 19, 2019 12:43 AM in response to StuartDMT

I’m having exact same issue, and I was hoping to find out that rebooting or re-adding the music and playlists would fix it. Instead I read that that hasn’t been a help to anyone. I don’t know whether or not this matters, but I am on an iPhone 7, with the latest iOS version, 13.2.3. Needless to say this has been a little nerve-racking, seeing my album artwork change as it has been. It almost seems like it’s fixed on some of my playlists when I use them during the day, but then I go to the ones that I play at night and see that it’s already changed again. I truly hope the Apple people are paying attention to these threads and are working on the next update that will fix this and put it up as soon as possible.

Nov 26, 2019 4:35 AM in response to StuartDMT

Honestly this unacceptable that after all those "fixing" updates this matter is still a problem and remain unsolved.

My library is totally messed up in my iphone.

I spent years to arrange and keep it thight and well illustrated with all proper covers in my itunes to be able to share with all my apple devices.

Is this the intention of Apple to force us to use their "Music" feature to spend even more $$ ??


If this matter is not fixed any soon I might really reconsider staying with Apple, as my Ipad, Iphones and Ipod are messed up.


Hope that the Apple techs will take in consideration our complains and fix this matter very soon.


Nov 26, 2019 11:13 PM in response to StuartDMT

I've got the exact same problem. After I got my 11Pro I synced my Music library via iTunes for Windows and some tracks even had wrong cover art. After I deleted all the Music from my phone and resynced it got fixed but the bug with the wrong cover art for playlist still occurs. It even changes sometimes while scrolling.

It sometimes feels like they just want you to use Apple Music and they are screwing with your custom music library. Having issues for years now, playlists don't sync properly with tracks missing and duplicate lists etc. Now the album art is the next major problem. Haven't yet installed 13.2.3, did it fix the problem?

Dec 5, 2019 6:15 AM in response to StuartDMT

Same problem still on iOS 13.2.3 on an iPhone 11, and the problem also shows up on a couple of other Music apps I use - Ecoute and TunesFlow (which I use specifically for the album art display). Very frustrating. (I can't sync my entire music library to the phone because it's too large, so I have a single playlist that I sync instead.)


Almost every album has the wrong artwork in my case.

Dec 7, 2019 5:30 AM in response to StuartDMT

I have a question to you all with a Mac.


Does it occur only on Macs with Mojave and iTunes or also with the new Music app on Catalina?

In my case, the problem came when I synced my new iPhone 11 Pro on an iMac running Mojave. I hope it will be alright when the iMac is up to date and running Catalina...


What I find strange, is that I didn't had the problem on my iPhone X with iOS 13.x.x

Dec 10, 2019 8:30 PM in response to StuartDMT

Crazy how many bugs they have fixed with the updates to the iOS without paying a lick of attention to this. Sure glad screen shots are no longer blurry when texted... I guess the deadline pressures of releasing a new iOS every year is too much to put out a complete product. Or they just don't know how to fix this...


I've tried all the proposed fixes to this including deleting and reinstalling the music with no luck.

Dec 14, 2019 10:14 AM in response to WACF

I just got a smartphone this week so don't know but I do know that I can only edit my artwork, replace it with High Resolution artwork, from my iMac. I have an iPod Touch but can't edit from that either. I also have better luck synching my iPod (and probably an iPhone) without WiFi on and Airplane Mode on as I've found it keeps my own artwork without communicating with the iTunes Store.

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iOS 13 Music App album art is incorrect.

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