Artist Artwork is missing in iTunes 12.5

I gave up on this issue. Spent an hour and 40 minutes on the phone with Apple "expert" iTunes people who were totally clueless about the issue. Surprisingly, I got a call back from a tech support guy who said there was nothing they could do. Basically, you just have to live with it. I have switched to Spotify...way better than iTunes!

It’s all dependent on whether Apple Store has a photo in the artist profile. To check this, sort by artists in iTunes, then right click near an artist’s name. If iTunes shows a portrait for the artist, you’ll see that the artist profile in Store has a portrait. Conversely, if the artist has no portrait in iTunes, you’ll see that Store doesn’t have a portrait for that artists. I’m guessing that as Store adds an artist portrait, it will eventually show up in iTunes. Too bad we can’t select an artist photo like we could years ago.

I may have found a possible solution (well it worked for some of my missing artist photos in iTunes). I noticed that some of the artists with missing photos had an extra space after their name in iTunes.

So if you go into iTunes -

go to 'artists' under 'library' on the main page -

right click on an artist with a missing photo -

click 'artist info' -

look in the 'album artist' field -

see if there's an extra space at the end of their name -

if so, remove it and click 'ok'.

This has worked for me for most of the mainstream artists in my library, so has got rid of a fair number of those ugly microphone images.

Another point I've noticed is that changing the artist name slightly can determine whether iTunes will display a photo or not. For example 'The Bee Gees' in my library had a no photo even after removing the space. As this is a very mainstream artist, I thought to change the name album artist name to 'Bee Gees' and it worked bringing up an artist photo.

Good luck!

Unfortunately it looks as though the artist art is based on what has been assigned by iTunes Store. If iTunes Store has a photo of the artist on the artist’s profile, that photo appears in your library. If iTunes Store has not designated a photo on the artist’s profile, it will be blank in your library.

Seems the best bet is to revert to 12.4.3 I dragged the itunes out of applications and renamed itunes in the music folder. that let me set up a fresh database all my itunes stuff is on a nas so i just had to go into my itunes media folder to add them back in to the library. It seems happy to share with my ipad so i'm happy now. will take ages for itunes to add everything back but it should work.

This thread is like sending out that gold disc on Voyager into space and hoping someone will listen, one day....

I too have regressed back to 12.4.3 but feel "forced" to keep up to date with software when hardware changes. I fear we will be a left behind breed of users that really love our music, its ARTWORK and keeping a huge collection (of nearly 40 years) intact. I have a mix of HQ ripped CD/vinyl/downloaded music onto a NAS too, using iTunes with Apple remote app on iPad, via Apple TV through the optical into my amp and get superb sound with it all. It's a massive home "juke box" at my fingertips and the whole thing is made beautiful because I can SEE my artwork and browse lists, albums, artists without ever seeing a tacky pink microphone. I just hope the hardware/software will last a few more years as it is.

All I need to know is how to archive the iTunes music library in a generic way so I can build it into something not of the latest iTunes variety.

Also, album artwork is SQUARE! Plus the muddy band/artists pics at 12mm wide are pointless if there are 10+ band members like in Arcade Fire for example.

Dear Apple, this is why we love(d) your products. (Is anyone listening to this ageing post?).

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... and when iTunes eventually DOES include an artist picture it gets it wrong. Case in point: TANK. Instead of featuring a photo of the British heavy metal band I get some unknown (at least to me) rap or hip hop artist. Why?!?!?

Hello, apparently it has something to do with "purchased" songs. Apple have decided that if you have ripped an album, or downloaded it from another location, you get a pink microphone.

So if I understand your post correctly, iTunes is now doing the same thing as the Music App on iOS has been doing for several iOS versions.

There are a few solutions posted...one of which, was to rename all the artists in iTunes, by preceeding the name with a meaningless character, e.g: *artist name. Then when library is sync'd with the iDevice, artwork remains intact. It worked, but is time consuming and requires constant attention.

...This software improvement/development is really tiresome. I have no idea the "THOUSANDS" of artists in my music collection look like, nor do I care! However, I do recognise almost all of the artwork covers for the "TENS OF THOUSANDS"albums/tracks in my collection. And is one method of selection when playing music.

Artwork substitution is one of the main reasons, along with Apple Music, why I ditched iTunes and iOS Music app.

I guess that the s/w developers involved are from a different generation.

I´m afraid this isn´t correct. I have many, many albums purchased through the AppStore, however most of them do not show any artist picture at all, just the placebo microphone placeholder. A shame really, and a huge step back from what it was before this update.

Sorry, should have said proposed solutions were posted against earlier iTunes s/w versions.

Just add * and artwork will return ...might work, although doubtful.

I was going to play and test it, but can't find 12.4 version as a download on Apple server as it's mis-labelled and points to 12.5.

12.4 shows the track/album artwork against all content, including purchases. Don't see any artist artwork... artist artwork only shows on the iDevice.

I note iOS 10 requires iTunes 12.5 - guess that means the days of sync'ing are over!

Jdstil, I find the explanation checks out for me, there of course is music I've bought from iTunes where there is no artist pic, but I think it just hasn't managed to find it. However the only artists with a picture showing are ones where I have bought tracks from iTunes, not other stores (boomkat, insound, direct from the label/bandcamp, etc) or on cd.

For instance, here it hasn't given an image for the Earlimart or Death in Vegas tracks I've bought, but the only one it has is a David Ford track from the store. Google music shows album art for all art, but I can't say the slightly random portraits either service finds really add anything, I would prefer not to see it at all, but it's the reams of placeholder icons that are really annoying. It's a shame, because the artist view was a great addition for me when it was introduced.

If anybody has itunes match, does that bring pictures back to the column?

mariotheplumber wrote:

I note iOS 10 requires iTunes 12.5 - guess that means the days of sync'ing are over!

Why would that be?

I'm having this problem too, except ALL my artwork has suddenly disappeared from the artist list, including iTunes purchases. Is this Apple's way of forcing us to use Apple Music?