album artwork in Catalina Music

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251903743?answerId=253647952022#253647952022

@Tom R, if you try restarting the Music App, does it pick up again building artwork? Mine did, and by not touching the app for several hours, it finally completed with 100% of the art in place. If you just keep crashing, it’s time to call Apple Support. Good Luck.

===

FWIW to close-out my saga started above, I finally got Music and TV (along with Audiobooks and Podcasts) to complete their migration. After the initial Music migration failure, I ended-up letting TV complete by itself, then started Music migration from scratch as a new library based on my old iTunes library. That decision caused album art to be rebuilt, as well as the matching process to be done from scratch against what was previously loaded in my iCloud Music library. Once both of those tasks were done, I consolidated the libraries on each app one-by-one for good measure. Having started this journey on Monday, everything is finally done now with just a few hiccups:

• TV has a single movie which I previously purchased from iTunes that refuses to show album art — it’s a black blob, opposed to all other movies, TV shows and home movies. I may well try to download it again to see if that resolves the problem — IDK if it’s that important to me right now. ;)
• TV does not consolidate (aka move) old .ite files that iTunes could use — which are the legacy “Extras” some older downloaded movies had as a separate file from the movie itself and were only executable on macOS, not ATV or other more modern devices. I had maybe 20-30 of these and rather than get more frustrated trying to figure out what to do about it, just deleted them, and I’ll move on.
• As mentioned above, I ended-up with around 130 Music tracks that had problems after migration and consolidation — tracks that were not found (or as I found later, wouldn’t match for some weird reason), or showed as duplicate songs where both pointed to the same physical file. FWIW, I verified I had zero issues like these prior to Catalina using my old manual methods and some Doug Scripts I used to have.
  • I went through the failing songs one-by-one and found that if I tried to play most of the tracks not found (with the exclamation mark), they would be located in my previously uploaded music library — from there the download icon appeared, which I clicked, and I was golden having once again for that track. The possible gotcha here would be if you had higher bit rate or lossless original files on your disk, you’d only get max 256 from the cloud version — so, beware.
  • Some supposedly duplicate tracks took more work — I checked both as to where they were saying the physical file was located, and found most were pointing to the same file. I deleted one using right-click in Music, but when the prompt appeared, I selected “Keep File”. That got rid of the dupe track pointer and I was good to go again.
  • A handful of tracks were somehow lost along the way — pointers to non-existent files nowhere on my disk. I found the source file on the backup I had made before Catalina installation, copied each one to the “Add to Music” folder, deleted the failing track, and was good to go with the newly-added tracks once again. Odd. I can’t explain what happened with those...

Good luck to everyone. This is and has been a painful migration. I’m just praying that nothing happens now to my 9TB of migrated data while I back it up over the next couple of days — it takes a very long time even across two Thunderbolt 3 Drobo’s doing it from scratch when directory structures have changed. ;)

Catalina Music (Apple renamed the app to just Music so it would be impossible to separate the app from their paid streaming service) reads the embedded artwork only at one point, during the "add to library" process. "Music" then makes its own copy of the artwork in /Users/USERNAME/Library/Containers/com.apple.AMPArtworkAgent/Data/Documents/artwork and gives it a "randomized" name. All images used by "Music" are kept in this folder, including artist portraits. You can spot artist portraits, because they are 176x176 pixels in dimensions.

You cannot put your own images inside this folder due to the naming convention. You would need to know what name to use for "Music" to assign the image file to a specific artist or album.

The only way I have found to "fix" the artwork issue is to remove the album(s) from "Music" altogether and re-add them, which then makes "Music" copy the embedded artwork into its folder.

I have not been able to find a way to have "Music" refresh the reading of the files to get the artwork. Using the "Get Album Artwork" menu option uses Apple's database for the images and does not read the embedded artwork from the file.

I too had this problem A random, but significant number of album artwork pics were missing in the album view, even though when I looked at the artwork in get info they were all there. In the end I found a moderately quick workaround. In album view, right click on a missing album cover. Select the artwork tab and then click once on the picture to select. In my system this gave a blue outline. Then simply hit command c to copy and command v to paste. This somehow makes the app recognise the artwork it already had. When you close the window, the album cover will be showing.

It was still a pain to work through my albums doing this, but better than my original method of downloading covers from wikipedia to my desktop and then adding in the artwork!

Still very poor of Apple to let this go unfixed for so long in what is one of their premium apps.

If anyone can work out how to do something similar with the artist pics which are also missing, I would be very grateful.

*** NOTE: If you don't want to read this whole post, then just skip down to the [* FIX *] section. ***

I have the same problem - and I may have discovered what is going on and how to fix it. Before Catalina, all of my songs had embedded (thumbnail) Artwork AND downloaded (full size) Artwork. After upgrading to Catalina, the situation is as follows:

1. All of the songs still contain embedded Artwork (i.e. in Artist view or Album view, you will see the thumbnail images).
2. Initially, about 90% of the songs had not downloaded associated full size Artwork (i.e. Opening the Music app, right-clicking on a song, choosing "get info", and then clicking on the "Artwork" tab shows a blank page.) For about 10% of my songs, the "Artwork" tab correctly shows artwork for the song in question.
3. For any newly purchased song, both the song and its associated artwork are immediately downloaded.
4. For any song that is newly added to my library (via Apple Music subscription), both the song and its associated artwork are immediately downloaded.
5. Each day that I open the Apple Music app, the Apple Music app will show "processing album artwork" in the lower left-hand corner of the app. This "processing" will usually run for a few minutes. If I quit the Apple Music app and then immediately reopen it (or if I reopen it after waiting only a few minutes), then it will not show "processing album artwork". However, if I quit the Apple Music app, wait for several hours (or wait until the next day), and then reopen it, then it will again show "processing album artwork".

If I go to the folder where the new Apple Music app stores downloaded Album Artwork, namely:

/Users/Username/Library/Containers/com.apple.AMPArtworkAgent/Data/Documents/artwork/

and I sort the folder by date modified, then I can see that for each day that I opened the Apple Music app there are anywhere between 20 and 100 files downloaded. The most common number of files downloaded on a given day are 20, 60, and 100. I can tell that these files were automatically bulk-downloaded by the Apple Music App because all of the downloaded files (on a given day) have nearly identical timestamps. Whereas, files that were downloaded because I newly added them to my library have widely-spaced timestamps (because I'm a slow human rather than a robot - I think!).

[* FIX *] So, the "fix" appears to be to open the Apple Music app once per day and let the "processing album artwork" function run. After the "processing" finishes (or when you are done listening to music) be sure to fully quit the Apple Music app and then don't open it again for at least several hours or until the next day. Apparently, each day it will download an additional 20 - 100 files and eventually your Artwork will be complete. Note: Once the "processing album artwork" finishes, going to File > Library > "Get Album Artwork" will not actually do anything - apparently, the Apple Music app will only process so many files per day.

I know this isn't the answer that everyone (including me) wants - because it would be much nicer for the Artwork to just continuously download until its done - but, I think this may be the reality of the way it works...presumably to keep from overwhelming Apple's servers. BTW: some people's artwork seems to migrate over all at once during the iTunes to Apple Music app migration process, and I think that's the way it's supposed to work if nothing goes wrong during the migration (in this case it probably just copies the files from the old folder to the new folder rather than re-downloading all the files), but if something caused your migration to go wrong (like mine), then the above process seems to be the way that it sort of eventually repairs itself.

This was driving me crazy. The album artwork showed up in mini player, visualizer, in the finder, get info, etc but the album artwork did NOT show up in the album, artists, or recently added cover views. I knew this would be a problem when I sync a new iPhone so I had to solve it. I won't bore you with details of my personal specs and large music collection (lots of Phish shows) or my MANY attempts to solve it (re-importing, deleting databases, clicking and un-clicking preferences, FOR DAYS). Here are my conclusions and solutions (TLDR scroll to Solution 4):

Conclusions:

1) iTunes and Music handle album artwork completely differently and for various reasons seem incompatible for direct import

2) The artwork is still imbedded in the files as JPG or PNG, but because of the way it was added to the new database it doesn't show up everywhere

3) They want you to stream and cloud everything now, but I'm not giving up my 20-year digital music collection just because they want to re-brand the software and streamline the database. Files are one thing, a working LIBRARY is another.

Solutions:

1) Create a new Library. Re-import the songs directly without trying to transfer from an old iTunes (worst option, loses playlists and play counts, might still have artwork problem)

or....

2) Delete the default Music Library database (/Music/Music Library/Music Library) and hold option while opening music to open your old iTunes database. When prompted name it and save the same as where the old one was so it becomes the default. Once you point to the new music files location, it will play the songs and remember your old playlists and play counts but will probably lose the artwork in some form

3) Drag and Drop -- I learned from MacRumors user Pablo88 that you can Drag and Drop from the Get Info in the old iTunes Artwork section to retrieve a full size JPG that is even named after the file. This way you can pick and choose, grab from the old, save somewhere, drag to the new thing in Music, Get Info, Artwork. But this sucks and takes forever, so somebody wrote a script, right?

4) Install This AppleScript from Doug's AppleScripts and donate Doug some money that he deserves more than Apple because he figured this out and solved it before they did. I take credit for digging this up and testing it. I gave him $10 for saving me a lot of effort but the donation is optional, although there is a an old fashioned pop-up "nag" if you don't donate but still use the script.

On a personal note, I don't know why they had to re-invent the wheel, the old thing worked fine. But I'm old and I guess software developers never sleep. Steve Jobs is dead. Long live Steve Jobs.

In case anyone hasn't figured this out yet, I think I can provide a solution for at least some people out there...

First, let me say that if you're going to use any of Apple's media apps, make sure you have original copies of all media. This should go without saying but in light of what we are seeing with apps like Music, its worth a reminder.

First, the problem:

The Music app saves a copy of any artwork you attach to an album to a directory at:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.AMPArtworkAgent/Data/Documents/artwork

I checked as I corrected my library artwork and with each cover added, a copy showed up in the above directory.

The Music app is obviously looking here instead of the media itself to get the artwork. That's fine but it should also check the media itself if it doesn't have any artwork for a given item. Are you listening Apple? Yeah, yeah, I know...

Anyhow, I first figured out if my media has embedded artwork, I could get Music to update itself by simply opening 'get info' going to the artwork tab and cutting and pasting the existing artwork. Doing this basically triggers Music to save that artwork to its directory so that it will then show up. Since this worked, I guessed that I could just script this to automate the process... voila... a script to solve my problem:

tell application "Music"

if selection is not {} then

set currSelection to selection

repeat with aTrack in currSelection

if artworks of aTrack is not {} then

set albumArt to first artwork of aTrack

set coverArt to data of albumArt

set data of albumArt to coverArt

end if

end repeat

end if

display dialog "Done"

end tell

IMPORTANT-PLEASE READ:

1. DO NOT RUN ON YOUR ENTIRE LIBRARY AT ONCE!!! This can take a LONG TIME if you have a large library. Try it with twenty or thirty albums to see how fast or slow it is on your system and to make sure it works as expected.
2. I found that after running, I would have to switch views from the album view I was on to something else and back again for all artwork to show up. Not sure what that's all about but everything showed up when I did this.
3. Finally, I think Doug over at Doug's Applescripts has something to fix this also. If this doesn't work for you or if you prefer code from someone you know, check him out.

Hope this helps...

I had this problem too where all my album covers / album artwork went missing.

I realized that the audio files had the artwork, so I figured there must be some way to link them back to Apple Music.

Check out this script: Re-Embed Artwork v3.1

https://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=mxreembedartwork

It really got the job done with no problem.

There are a lot of other scripts to help get the best out of your Apple Music library.

https://dougscripts.com/itunes/index.php

Try making a copy of one of your songs and dragging it into the music app.

If artwork appears for that copy, then exporting/re-importing your library should fix it. I was able to do so without losing my playlists like this:

1. File->Library->Export Library... and name your exported library file.
2. Visit Music->Preferences...->Files and screenshot your options. You'll need to restore them later.
3. Quit the app and relaunch while holding down the Option key.
4. Choose "Create Library..." and pick a new location.
5. Visit Music->Preferences...->Files and restore your desired options.
6. File->Library->Import Playlist... and choose your library file from step 1. (Yes, it's called "Import Playlist..." but you actually use this to import your library.)

NOTE: if the artwork appears on your macOS Apple Music app but not on your iOS device, you'll have to unsync all your music and re-sync it again. Try it with a single file first.

I dont know if this will help anyone else out, but I was getting really frustraed with this. My issue was with adding new music. Any new music I was adding (with embedded artwork) did not display the artwork in Apple Music. All of my old artwork was there and working just fine. The artwork was embedded in the mp3 files. The finder shows the artwork in both quick look and when getting info in the Finder. Neither of the Dougs Scripts (Apply Embedded Artwork or Re-Embed Artwork) worked for me. Sadlyy, they did nothing.

So here's what did work for me.

1) Grab "Music Tag Edit" in the Mac Store - it's free

2) Load your music into it. You can drag and drop. I used Spotlight to find all .mp3 files in a folder and dragged them all into window for Music Tag Edit

3) Click the "Export to Itunes" button at the bottom and wait for It processes the files. (as far as I can tell: It does NOT add the files to Apple Music, it just processes them for iTunes)

4) Drag the files into Apple Music App and the artwork is now displayed

I tested this on 2 systems with a bunch of mp3 files and it worked great. Hope this helps others..

It took nearly 12 hours for my quadcore iMac to complete Catalina iTunes/Music migration (28K music tracks on an external Thunderbolt Drobo) -- lots going on including rebuilding or indexing of album art as it kept appearing over that time. I was able to listen to music and use the app after Catalina was installed and a couple minutes passed -- just didn't have all the album art for quite awhile.

I suggest you both keep the Music app open and ensure your Mac does not go to sleep for an extended period of time so it can complete it's background work.

Good luck

Same issue.6000 CDs so very painful. I did find a workaround that is time consuming but less time than reloading artwork for each entry.

In Artist Mode in Music, right click the Artist > Delete from Library

Select Delete Songs

Select Keep Files

Then go to File > Import

Find the Artist you just deleted

Select all the Albums in the Artist subfolders

When the files reload the artwork appears 90% of the time

It may work by selecting larger subsets (all B artists for instance) but I haven't ventured beyond the artist level

Happy to have figured this out before reloading art for 150 Stones CDs

Unsure if it will help others still having troubles, but the Catalina 10.15.2 update that came out yesterday includes mention of 3 items for Music, including “Resolves an issue that may prevent album artwork from appearing“. May be worth a try. https://support.apple.com/kb/DL2025?locale=en_US

Good luck to all still having problems with this!

BitPerfectRichard wrote:

Just to repeat what I wrote when this solution was proffered earlier. I tried it, and it didn't work at all for me :(

I believe the link posted above by DantasticManimal was actually the wrong one for those experiencing the issue of embedded artwork not showing in music. The correct one of Doug's script that you want is Apply Embedded Artwork. This script will extract the existing embedded artwork and reapply it to the track in Music, which is what should have been done in the first place during the import process.

I have, however, encountered what may be a small bug in this script where it doesn't seem to work when selecting a single track or for the first of a group of selected tracks. I've reached out to Doug to see what's going on, and will share the results. If this is in fact a bug, hopefully he'll have an updated version out soon.

But in general, I believe the concept behind this script addresses exactly what is the root cause of this issue. Give it a try (noting the above limitation, for now...) and send a small donation Doug's way for doing the work that Apple refuses to do!

Navigating to Album > Artwork and slightly moving the image, so that a green checkmark shows on the image at the top left brings back the image to album view.

Not sure how much fun this process will be, when done for thousands of albums.

Isn't it just amazing that a company of Apple's scale is unable to address such a basic problem for over half a year?