iTunes 11 - Default Genre Artwork

Please excuse this post, somehow my post was shown twice and did not want to hog the space here.

thanks for this scott

i followed your instructions and was able to see the default itunes genre images, and the .plist file shows all the correct genres listed, yet in my TV library, itunes is still pulling in the cover for an episode in the first alphabetically listed show in there (eg, Family Guy for the simpsons)

do you, or indeed anyone know how to get it back? i have deleted/reimported the xml library file, still the same. i have tried putting the shows in a "dummy" genre, such that the default genre is now "empty" and then moving back - still nothing...

any ideas more than welcome!

i also tried the software that was recommended on this thread, and got nowhere sadly!

fat_geo

Sorry I can't be of anymore help. If you followed my instructions exactly, e.g., closed and reopened iTunes after you made the changes I can't understand why it didn't work. The only other reason I can think of is that the naming you used in iTunes, the new default genre artwork you added to the Resources folder or the change you made to the .plist file are not consistent in some way. I'm sure you already did this, but if not you might want to recehck everything you did. I too hope someone posts an easier solution to this issue as it seemed it was much easier to change this in the prior iTunes version.

thanks Scott, yeah i did try doing exactly as you suggested, what's more weird is that the original itunes art seemingly "disappeared" this week, and it's only affecting TV shows, movies are absolutely fine. also, the TV artwork for individual shows, which formerly showed the artwork for the first series, now shows the last series. just seems a bit screwed up. i have tried rebuilding the library, i think i may import TV shows again from fresh, see what that does!

thanks for all your help, it really is appreciated!

This worked exactly on how you said it would Thank you so much. I actually had fun finding new artwork and adding Genre's that I wanted. Thank you for you post!

Hey, so I had to do some trouble shoting to get this done. So, if you follow Scottkbender's instructions, you'll be doing good. However, if you find that you get a pop--up saying that you cannot edit this file because it's locked, follow these basic instructions:

1) Try messing with it in order to instigate a pop-up asking you if you would like to duplicate the file. Click duplicate.

2) In the new file, go to the Text Edit preferences, then "open and save."

3) Check the box under, "when saving a file" conserning adding the .txt at the end, in not already selected. Then, close out.

4) Make the changes specified by Scottkbender.

5) When you save it, you have to get rid of the original genres.plist file (hopefully, you copied it somewhere else or didn't empty your trash).

6) Your new file should be labeled as "genres.plist.txt" once you've made your changes. Now, click command + i to get "get info". Then, rename the file to erase the ".txt" at the end. Once you close out of the "get info" window, it will ask you if you want to use ".txt" or ".plist". Choose the latter option.

7) Open itunes and voila!

*NOTE: Scottkbinder's 18th step is not necessary.

When using the genre-rename trick, note that iTunes picks up the first album within the genre sorted by artist (regardless of how iTunes sorts the albums for display). If the first album has no artwork, the genre will likewise have no artwork.

In theory this should work. But — at least for some of us — it doesn't. The method is logical, but this is a persistent bug that it seems only Apple can fix. Of course I'm posting this, nearly 2 years after the original post, yet the bug remains, even in the soon-to-be-released iTunes 12 (beta).

So frustrating.

I just devised the simplest test:

I enabled iTunes Match on another of my Macs, then looked at the Genre view. And sure enough, on the "newly matched" computer, the genre art is correct — including the custom images that my primary machine refuses to display.

This confirms (a) that the artwork is correct on the server and (b) that there's almost definitely a localized bug in iTunes that's preventing the artwork from being displayed. (By the way, this bug exists in both iTunes 11 and iTunes 12 beta (in Yosemite). But the test machine is running iTunes 11 in Mavericks.)

iTunes 12 now.

This is by far the most frustrating aspect of iTunes, I use genre view 99% of the time for my music and I have been stuck with random or no artwork for 2 years now!!

I don't want Apple's disgusting and impersonal "Hip Hop" or "Soundtrack" artwork, or a randomly greyed out icon! I want to pick a representative album and use that artwork as my genre art AS BEFORE!!

PLEASE Apple, FIX THIS NOW!!!

That's it! Thanks

http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/25442/how-do-you-change-the-default-gen re-artwork-in-itunes

Thanks Bod Grl, this would be great if it worked but unfortunately it doesn't! (on Mac)

The current version will not work if you use Java for Mac OS X Update 4 or later.

actually... it does work on iMac, because I found that article and made mine work this morning. You may want to revisit and try again. Maybe you are not catching on that you need to either

• 'delete' the default image or just rename it and the the first (in my case movie library) movie in the category is the default image
• overwrite the stock image with what you want it to be

I am on Yosemite and the latest version of iTunes.

Thanks for the reply, well I am on Mavericks and the latest version of iTunes. It won't install at all on my Mac running osx 10.9.5 Intel Core i7 with 16GB RAM:

I tried it a few times and the installer just won't run. There is a warning saying it won't work with Java for Mac OS X Update 4 or later., so I assume this is the problem!

Edit - yes my Java is version 6

java version "1.6.0_65"

Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_65-b14-462-11M4609)

Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 20.65-b04-462, mixed mode)

martinrlinsmini:~ martinrawlins$

version number found by following these instructions https://www.java.com/en/download/help/version_manual.xml#jcpl