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One of my albums has a completely unrelated album art associated with it. I cannot find the album details and hope to get the album art that way because it's an independent album. The album art I'm trying to use is actually a scan of the album itself. I have tried:

  • Renaming the album and album folder, deleting the previous folder from my phone, and ending my music player's process.
  • Deleting the album's folder from the phone, and moving the folder somewhere else.
  • Changed the album art to different images that are slightly different images with Windows Media Player, then uploading AlbumArt.jpg, Folder.jpg, etc. into the album's directory.

I've probably tried a few more, but I can't remember at the moment. It's very annoying having to look at this low-quality, unrelated album art whenever I start playing my music.

NobleUplift
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    Have you tried changing the ID3 tags? You can use on PC: http://www.mp3tag.de/en/index.html – geffchang Feb 17 '14 at 08:38
  • Windows Media Player sets the album art ID3 tag when the user pastes the album art. I even confirmed this by archiving the MP3 and opening on another computer. It still had its album art. I will still try this though. – NobleUplift Feb 17 '14 at 16:53

9 Answers9

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What worked for me, as adx suggested, was to go into the /Android/data/com.android.providers.media/albumthumbs folder on the phone and delete all of the files it contains. They are extension-less files, so it is impossible to tell which one is the offending one, so I just deleted them all. The next time I opened the default Samsung music player, all of the album thumbnail images at first appeared empty, then after two or three seconds, the music player re-generated all of them, and my new album art appeared on the offending album.

(This was after I "showed hidden files and folders" via the control panel in Windows and deleted the AlbumArt.jpg and Folder.jpg files that were there)

Community
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jvilla93
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Force stop your Music playing app. Connect your device to a PC. Use the search function to search your phone (phone storage or SD card where you store your music) for albumart.jpg. I use Linux so the results appear as icons, in Windows right click - search . You can delete the offending icons, then use whatever app you use to try find new album art. You can be more specific by searching: \albumthumbs , \android\data\com.android.providers.media\albumthumbs and of course each individual album folder.

adx
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This is the solution I came up with.

First, it seems that album art is cached, so after deleting the offending album, closing the music player, and restarting the phone, it might still persist. In this case, leave it for a day and try again.

Second, go to Folder Options / View / Advanced Settings / Show hidden files and folders. and uncheck Hide protected operating system files (recommended). Delete Folder.jpg, AlbumArt.jpg, and AlbumArtSmall.jpg in the offending album's folder (and any other jpgs that represent the old album art. Usually they have UUIDs for names).

Third, make sure there is an AlbumArt.jpg representing the correct album art in the album's folder. Ideally, AlbumArt.jpg should be a perfect square.

Fourth, try copying the album's folder back to the phone. If everything in the first step was tried and the album art has not changed, I would suggest changing the album's name. Technically, you're adding a new album at this point, but at least it will have the right album art.

NobleUplift
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I have faced this problem for a very long time, and have finally decided to try to fix it, finally came up with the solution how to.

Before I continue, I use iTunes on my computer to manage all my songs, copy them out in .mp3 format and then drag them into my Samsung phone. (Note 3) The album artwork I have attached to the albums in iTunes is not showing up, and instead shows another unrelated album which applies to the whole album.

The fix: Download an application called MP3dit which is freely available in the Play Store. This is because Samsung automatically attaches the album artwork to the first song of the album that has an album artwork and sets it as default to ALL the songs in that album.

What I have done is:

  1. To remove all the songs in the specific album
  2. Insert one of the songs in that album
  3. Ensure the song is in the Music Player by playing it
  4. Go over to the MP3dit app and open the song
  5. Scroll down to 'Advanced' and open the sub menu
  6. Select the option 'Delete all MP3 Tags'

Your album now should turn out with the artwork that you have inserted with iTunes (or other music players) now. You can go ahead and add in the rest of the songs in that album.

Bykk
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Very easy to solve this. Go to the Samsung explorer "My Files" find the MP3 with the wrong artwork. Long press, select rename, rename the file (I just added "1" at the end). Your MP3 file will now play without the unwanted picture. You can then remove the "1" after the file name.

S3 mini user
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Though my other answer might still work, it spams the Music directory with album art which is then picked up by the Gallery and obfuscates actual user content.

Instead of my previous answer, I would suggest just using Mp3tag and embedding album art in each MP3 manually. Using either the AlbumArt.jpg or the Folder.jpg created by Windows is not as good because they are both usually 200x200, which will be pixelated when viewed in the Music Player on the phone.

NobleUplift
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In correct album art

If you are seeing the cover of another album with a similar or the same name check that you have the album artist tag filled appropriately for each album, some players can't handle such files correctly without this tag.

As already mentioned check for embedded album art and be consistent use either embedded album art or AlbumArt.jpg.

Album art does not show up

My experience is that 1000x1000 pixel with up to 500 KB for AlbumArt.jpg work fine with Google Play Music and most players. Higher resolutions and bigger file sizes may only work as embedded album art, which can be a huge waste of space. Further I had a few files with chroma subsampling 4:2:0 which couldn't be read, so I suggest to use subsampling 4:4:4 if possible, this also provides the best quality.

Troubleshooting

Previously I would only close the player and delete the files of com.android.providers.media or clear its cache. These options seem to be gone in Android 6.0 or have no effect. In case of Google Play Music swiping the card of the app from the Android app history was enough to get the cover displayed correctly. (I forgot about this and was confused about the behavior while changing the image file and the folder name and trying to make sense of what I saw.)

LiveWireBT
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This might not work but worth a try.

Connect your S3 to a PC (or use a file explorer). In those Albums, unhide System Files ... and delete the album art.jpg ... or all the hidden image files. SHOULD work.

abobobilly
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  • Unhide system files in Windows or on my Android? I tried unhiding system files in Windows, but it did not show anything extra. I have my Android file browser set to display hidden files and folders, but the Albums folder is empty. – NobleUplift Feb 17 '14 at 16:57
  • Well if you connect your phone on a Windows PC, then you'll have to UNHIDE system files, to be able to see those hidden album arts on your Android's SDCard. This used to happen a lot back in Gingerbread days with my i9000. – abobobilly Feb 17 '14 at 19:50
  • I did have system files unhidden. I just said that. I could try unhiding system files and then connecting my phone. – NobleUplift Feb 19 '14 at 15:09
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Try this free app called "pimp my music". It does everything you want to do with album art.

ale
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Joel Bandi
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