iTunes 11 - Default Genre Artwork

have you tried to manually do it? http://blogs.oreilly.com/digitalmedia/2008/09/custom-genre-artwork-for-itune.htm l

Thanks for linking to that article, but as mentioned previously, while the method described should work, there's a bug that prevents the correct artwork from being displayed on some Macs, despite all artwork files being present and properly named — and the methods described in the article unfortunately do not compensate for that bug.

I confirmed this previously by observing that my custom art for genres and the correct, stock images (as the case may be) are in fact being displayed on my secondary Macs, but not on my primary Mac (the one on which I actually assigned the artwork). In other words, I'm setting the genre art on Mac 1, and iTunes match is correctly sending those files to Macs 2 and 3, causing them to display the desired artwork. Yet, on Mac 1, that custom artwork still refuses to display. And in the case of stock images, all are present and are correctly named on all 3 machines. Yet, only Machine 1 refuses to display it. (At the time, the machines were running a combination of Yosemite and Mavericks. But now, they're all running Yosemite.)

So, on affected machines, something else is preventing the display of the artwork, despite all files being in the correct place.

We have yet to identify the source of this bug or its true fix, and it's now been extant for years. Until someone identifies the source of this bug, all we can do is continue to report this to Apple, in hopes that enough reports will cause them to take a look.

Even if you've done so in the past, I urge everyone to take a moment report it again:

iTunes feedback:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html

Thanks.

Ok, found a way, sort of. The problem with editing the .plist exactly according to the steps is that it hasn't worked. (Because it's a bug in iTunes that Apple hasn't bothered to fix for several years.. Thx..) Most of genres have remained grey and lacked any icon. My guess is that this is a problem that affect people that have had itunes and mac for a long time like myself and created their own genres long ago. However, a simple update to your existing genres will solve the problem.

Rename the genre lists to another name. Let's say you called the genre "rock - 1960s". Go to the genre press cmd-A and cmd-I. Change genre name to "rock - 1960" or "rock 1960s". (Anything really, as long as at least one character changes.) Voila, iTunes will assign the "new" genre an album icon. (Don't change the genre back to the original name ("rock - 1960s"), because you will lose the icon again.)

If needed, start editing the genres.plist and apply customized icons for the genres.

Thanks for this tip. I look forward to trying it, later today. In the meantime, would you please clarify the following?

HolyBaloney wrote:

If needed, start editing the genres.plist and apply customized icons for the genres.

Since it's been established that editing .plist files doesn't work (indeed you said so, yourself), why then do you then suggest, at the end of your post, that we do the very thing that we know doesn't work? 🙂

OK. I've verified that the first part of this tip works, albeit with one, minor correction:

Upon selecting a "problem" genre, there's no need to hit command-A (because doing so has no effect -- at least not in iTunes 12.1). Just select the genre, hit command-I, then click inside the Genre field, and change the name.

Upon doing so, iTunes does in fact assign an image to the genre! (It's not an image that I'd prefer -- seemingly selected at random from the included tracks -- but something's better than no image at all.)

This now "rings a bell"; I'm 99% sure I tried this in the past but ultimately abandoned it, because I didn't like having to use a contrived name for my genres. I was hoping I could simply add a space to the end of the genre's name, creating an "invisible" change. But iTunes removes the trailing space. Still, the tip does work. So, thanks.

I now suspect that when you suggested we subsequently edit the .plist files "if needed," perhaps you meant that after renaming the genre, editing the .plist file will subsequently work. (I'm not going to bother trying, but perhaps someone else can verify this.) 🙂

Ok, although I saw you've already answered it in the next post. Yes, the above procedure assigns "a" icon to the genre (picks an album from the genre).

While assigning icons for the genres by editing the plist-file haven't worked without an icon, it's possible it works after you've gotten an icon.

Actually, if you go in the folder and just delete every genre-*.jpg and close iTunes. When you restart it will be the first movie in each genre.

Cheers-

Best answer anybody will find here and a very clear, foolproof explanation. Editing the genres.plist file using TextWrangler and dropping your own art work file in Contents/Resources is the way to go.

Your input is appreciated. However, this has been suggested before, tried by many, and simply does not rectify the issue for everyone.

Thank you for your feed back Syncopator. You probably did not read the complete post and failed to notice I replied to a very early post in this thread. The answer has been provided by scottkbender .

I would be very surprised if, when following the clear instructions provided, you could not rectify the problem.

Of course I read the complete post, MacAdiane, and I'm fully aware that you were referring to scottkbender's instructions.

I'm not a novice. (My ex manages an Apple store and used to joke about hiring me as an Apple Genius.) I've tried every fix—including scottkbender's, as well as others posted on other sites—and none has worked. In fact, on Oct 5, 2014, you can see that I replied to scottkbender's post and stated that while it was a logical approach, it simply did not work for me.

I then reported having performed a test (since I have multiple Macs) that confirmed that there's a bug in iTunes that prevents it from displaying the proper artwork on certain Macs, while displaying the correct artwork on other Macs.

I'm thrilled that the posted fix(es) are working for some users, but I wanted to clarify, for the benefit of newcomers to the thread, that while this method is certainly worth attempting, it does not definitively correct the issue for all users.

As such, you now have good reason to be "very surprised." ;-)

I rest my case, being a modest programmer.