album artwork in Catalina Music

Dear TwistyDigits and Everyone Else who are trying to help.

This is really good news. Thanks for letting us know. Good Man.

My iTunes library is 350GB. I moved to Catalina the day it was released and was horrified by serious Artwork problem.

After 3 days on the phone with Apple French support etc only a 3rd of my Artwork arrived. I decided to downgrade back to Mojave. I have been patiently waiting for the iTunes - Music issue to be solved but it looks like it works for you for your great solution.

Have anyone else tried TwistyDigits solution successfully? It's not that I don't trust his solution - I would be just happier to know it is not a lucky one off solution for him and that I have proof that it has been sucessful for others.

I don't want to go through the mess of upgrading and then downgrading for nothing.

Thanks to all.

David in Paris.

TwistyDigits' Option 1/1 worked well for a big library, all artwork now showing.

In Music Preferences under File "folder location" now reads "/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media".

Original post Catalina upgrade Music file now shows no album art whatsoever.

not a good solution for me especially when my library is over 781,000 plus tracks (55,000 albums), I am going to try a previous post solution by using Retroactive. I upgraded to Catalina the rolled back to Mojave with trouble. Just hesitant to go back to Catalina.

With 780k tracks I understand. But with 1k or 10k, even 20k, like most of people, it's a solution to me. The best I found.

Never heard of 780.000 songs library tho lol.

can't even fit that on a 512GB iPhone if it's MP3 320 lol

Actually it work with more than 400 on my Mac sometimes. Maybe even more, I don't know. Sometimes less.

Anyway, I see no other reliable solution to keep my artwork intact and having Catalina Music app recognizing them properly. It take hours for my library, but it works nice and after few hours it's back to normal, better than waiting maybe be ending like others people, waiting for months.

So Apple will just ignore this huge problem on Catalina. The problem still exists in 10.15.6. It seems, they don't even care. Hope enough people will start looking for alternative and probably more open hardware in the future.

WDW1Fanatic — You seemed to be well-versed in all things iTunes / Apple Music woes (since the Catalina iOS "upgrade".) Was wondering if you could please check out my issues on this thread, as I just started experiences issues with song / album art not showing up in playlists (regarding the last few albums I've ripped from CD to my iTunes.)

Literally didn't have this problem at all last week—but over the past 72 hours, any new music added is not showing the artwork in playlists (or when syncing that new music to my iPhone.)

Maddening. Thank you.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251721351?login=true

Appreciated.

I have another thread (aside from the one I mentioned) that goes into the woes I've had since "upgrading" to Catalina on my old MacBook last November (which gave me that awful split of iTunes with the new "Music Library" file back, so that everything new I've added since then is problematic.)

What I cannot fathom—why manually adding the cover art to a newly ripped CD is not taking hold.

I have tried adding cover art song by song, or highlighting the album as a hold.

Nothing works.

When I create a new playlist from said album (or add a song from that album into a different playlist) it doesn't show any album art (same for when trying to create custom playlist art.)

All of this literally started over the weekend with no rhyme or reason (though I had similar issues when trying to migrate music over to a new MacBook.)

Never before have I had issues with trying to add custom cover art to a song or playlist—but now it's virtually impossible with the two new albums I've ripped the past few days.

So over this garbage.

Thank you Roger.

Where this is baffling; the fact this this just happened to change over the weekend out of nowhere.

I literally added new music the same way late last week (after "upgrading" to Catalina last November) and had ZERO issues at this level.

(The other issues I complained about on here were in regards to a new MacBook and trying to bring over all my music to a new machine with this iTunes / Apple Music disaster of a hybrid I was dealing with.)

I am still on the old machine here, everything has been working to order until the weekend and then this crapped out.

I cannot fathom how ripping a new CD, adding new cover art (which shows up when playing an individual track)—only to see it all vanish the minute that music is dragged into a playlist.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist—but hard not to think this is sabotage by Apple in effort to drive folks to a subscription-based model.

Never going to be the case for me as I have thousands of CDs, will continue buying / ripping CDs (at 320kbps) and making my own playlists this way.

Incredible that Jobs built this music model and they've completely *********** it after his passing.

Believe me I share your frustration. Since I have isolated the Music App I have not had any issues with losing or changing album art and I keep hoping for an update to the App that will correct the problems. From what I have read so far Big Sur is not going to change anything. I would appreciate knowing any new information you come up with in the future. Sorry I could not offer you any real solution.

Keep In Touch

Roger

Graham — You just nailed it (re: Apple Customer Service and the script they follow.) For a company that began it's music journey selling physical digital music and devices for us to store it on—they followed the trends and shifted towards streaming models and selling us devices to stream on.

What they miss in this process; selling out their oldest and most-loyal brand loyalists. They did the same thing to video editors when they stopped making the vintage Mac towers and ruined Final Cut Pro (and other video editing hardware and software.)

SONOS is following this same model—my 16 speakers virtually useless these days, unless I want to stream Spotify (which I don't want to do, as I've ripped thousands of compact discs to my computer and have created hundreds of playlists on my iTunes and phone.)

SONOS has since done away with an option where you can stream physical music from your phone to your speakers (the only option is to have SONOS on a laptop or to create a personal server with PLEX)—but even in those cases, their app and software can't handle playing music over one's network (any ping to the phone; a text / email coming through, etc.) will screw up the playability.

Thousands of dollars spent with SONOS to now be forced to stream playlists that I create in Spotify, with no real ability to listen to my own physical music on their platform.

Apple is doing the same thing and it really is another strike against a once-great company that many long-time loyalists are jumping ship on. Now that iTunes is going down the drains, my Apple days are definitely numbered.

Hi Chris, thank you for this very full response: I'm reading here in the Community of many aficionados such as yourself who've devoted vast amounts of time to something very close to their heart, and little can be as inspiring as that simple fact. After all, the word "amateur" derives from the Latin "amare" meaning "to love". We spend time on our iTunes collections because we love them. Hence, it seems incomprehensible at best, and callous at worst, that the firm that provided these hobbyists - and professionals, I see - with the inspiration to pursue the iTunes route as the favoured model for music storage, referencing, archiving and (what it's there for, after all) enjoyment should now seemingly - seemingly that is - be turning tail on its own flock of devotees to constrain them and the rest of its - forget not - freely contracting, loyal customers to switch their listening model to one that, pardon my conservative outlook, while opening up a panoply of tastes, styles, discoveries and even epiphanies is not in the end what I personally want, which is to listen to tunes collected and loved by me since youth (my first record was gifted me as a birthday present age 5, and I still own it) and which therefore mean so much to me. I never really "got" Spotify, though its appeal to a younger generation is perhaps understandable. They play it at the gym and I've asked a couple of times what the track was we'd just listened to, and so I know there are discoveries to be made. But how much banal and uninteresting music would I need to plough through to find the few gems that appeal to me? I dunno, but I'm happy the way I am. It literally breaks my heart to read the desperation in some of the reports on this Community, yours included, and the stolid resolve to find a means to keep what we've enjoyed until now just a little longer, or gallant resignation to just be grateful for what we had before and can't expect to continue. The work-arounds are useful, I'm sure, but, might ask, are these ultimately issues for which we should even be needing a work-around? As with everything, that which ends up being dumped as outdated, out of fashion or just too way out - whether it's an Edsel or overtaken technology like video tape - did at one time have its fanfare and flourish at launch, which many will have bought into on the strength of the reputation held by the manufacturer making the launch. While Apple cannot be held liable to continue in perpetuity every last feature of every program it's ever written, no one can, what emerges in this correspondence is that many have invested time, trouble and energy, and no little money, in building collections and adding peripherals, like Sonos (thank you for educating me!) and that must surely, in the consciousnesses of a firm with such a client-centric renown as Apple has, evoke a sense of regret in the board room, at moves that were perhaps rashly decided on based on financial projections instead of the firm remaining cognisant of the existing customer base's "reasonable and justified expectations" (a legal term with currency in Belgium, where I live) that that which was proffered initially would remain in place barring any cogent reason for its discontinuation. For they might then have erred more to making the venture into streaming whilst nonetheless retaining the options available for the home hobbyist/iTunes lover. Who knows? A rethink? Matthew, More's manservant in Robert Bolt's "A Man For All Seasons", perhaps encapsulates it well: "I wish we could all have good luck, all the time. I wish we had wings. I wish rainwater was beer. But it isn't."

My remark regarding Apple's senior advisers was of course meant as a compliment to them. For, just how many hairs do you wrench out of your scalp before you reach for the helpline? I for one am usually at the end of my tether. Yet they will not rest till a problem's solved and they defuse irritation as if by magic. I don't think they harness these advisers inordinately to a script - the potential issues are too varied to cover the whole gamut; no, I think it's people selection that's at work there: simply, Apply is shrewd enough to take on as advisers people who not only have the requisite knowledge but also care about people and take pride in lending the helping hand to getting them back on the road again. With such an attitude, the scripts come by themselves. Maybe a board member will read this and make the obvious link I hereby intend, without my needing to spell it out in ungracious terms. I recall Pamela Stephenson in a sketch from "Not The Nine O'clock News", a comedy chestnut from the BBC when I was a kid. We see her on the American Express phone helpline with a customer. Go search it out online. The punchline is simple and took the UK by storm back in the day.

Warm regards, buona fortuna and bonne chance to all and sundry out there in this Community still wrestling with their problems. Nice to talk to you, Chris.

Another horror story. Not a shock.

Apple killed iTunes out of greed and a desire to convert everyone over to Apple Music and a subscription model.

Zero reason to do this. Most folks are migrating over; all this did was ruin the iTunes experience for long-time loyalists.

I exported all my playlists and am essentially rebuilding iTunes from scratch as a new Apple Music platform.

Next step; seek better alternative options and start my migration away from all things Apple, after being a strong brand loyalist and evangelist for 20+ years.

The brand that was once about innovation is now more concerned becoming another streaming music and original media mogul—as if the world needed another one.

Sadly, all that was doable as there could’ve been a small division dedicated to the niche, hardcore user.

Apple has become “New Coke” when a huge part of their user base preferred “Classic”.

Way to go.

This is the exact reason I downgraded to Mojave. I figured by the time Catalina had matured this much, the issue would be fixed. But nope. Just tried again, same issue. Absolutely unacceptable, Apple.

I tried Doug's script, didn't work for me.

Even using "Get Album Artwork" is borderline useless for me to automatically replace the lost art. It found a bunch, but refuses to find a bunch more. And I'm not talking about obscure stuff here. Beggars Banquet by the Rolling Stones, Beatles albums, Red Hot Chili Peppers… for some reason it can't even find these.

Not to mention the app just kinda… sucks, in comparison to iTunes. Why did they have to mutilate album view so badly? What a disgrace of an app transition. From what I understand, it doesn't get much better in Big Sur.

I am with you on this one I did it twice thanks to the Time machine puts everything back in place trolling back. 2 issues here, yes I rolled back twice from Catalina vback to Mojave due to album artwork missing and was not allowing me the ways I wanted to get around there new platform. Took me years to find and out in covers. Believe it or not my library is over 800,000 plus songs and over 400 old movies which done are rare, and other items. Been many battles with Apple over missing albums/ tracks, drm, now music covers I. It is not worth moving everything over to the new when the ild was working fine. Thumbs down on Catalina and the new Music App.

the second issue I don’t think many people took into consideration how much it was going to cost to update 32 bit apps Mojave OS and backward to 64 bit Catalina OS and forward. So in others most third apps bought by the Apple App Store will not run on Catalina OS

if you bought Finalcut which is expensive 2 years ago which is 32 bit, you will now have to purchase a new license for 64 bit. thats messed up. Again roll back to Mojave to save costs especially these days. Uncertain times.