Artist Image and Album image issues in Kodi 17.6 and 18 alpha
#1
Wink 
So I found a new issue today (in Kodi 17.6), which also affects Kodi 18 alpha (tested on Android Kodi 17.6, and Windows 10 Kodi 18 alpha).

Normally I name my Music folders as such...
 NAS\Music\Madonna\
NAS\Music\Madonna\1984 - Like a Virgin
NAS\Music\Madonna\1986 - True Blue
etc...

Artist Image under NAS\Music\Madonna\folder.jpg works perfectly in both Kodi 17.6 and Kodi 18 alpha.

However I noticed that a few of my Music folders had this naming convention...

NAS\Music\Avril Lavigne\
NAS\Music\Avril Lavigne\2004 - Avril Lavigne - Under My Skin
NAS\Music\Avril Lavigne\2007 - Avril Lavigne - The Best Damn Thing
NAS\Music\Avril Lavigne\2011 - Avril Lavigne - Goodbye Lullaby

Artist Image under NAS\Music\Avril Lavigne\folder.jpg does not display, and instead it pulls the Music Album cover from NAS\Music\Avril Lavigne\2004 - Avril Lavigne - Under My Skin\folder.jpg.

Renaming the folders to...

NAS\Music\Avril Lavigne\
NAS\Music\Avril Lavigne\2004 - Under My Skin
NAS\Music\Avril Lavigne\2007 - The Best Damn Thing
NAS\Music\Avril Lavigne\2011 - Goodbye Lullaby

Correctly brings up the Artist Image under NAS\Music\Avril Lavigne\folder.jpg (after a Music Source cleanup).

The reason I use the years in front of the Album name? In Kodi, you can sort by Asending or Desending, so you can have the first entry the newest Album or oldest Album.
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#2
(2018-03-09, 20:14)Powerhouse Wrote: The reason I use the years in front of the Album name? In Kodi, you can sort by Asending or Desending, so you can have the first entry the newest Album or oldest Album.

Or you could Sort by Year in Kodi Smile

Image
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#3
Correct, didn't finish my sentence, not only in Kodi, but in other Music app's and players I use as well.
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#4
Just making sure you're aware, as some over look what's available in those Sort by options Smile
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#5
I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter how the folders are named.  What matters is the artist and album artist names, and the corresponding MBIDs (if present) in the tags, compared to what is found in the database.  MBID takes precedence (that is, if you have the same artist name, but different MBIDs, it will look like 2 different artists.  But in that case you should see 2 entries in the music artist node.

I did a test with an identical folder structure in both Kodi 17.1 and 18 A1 180220 nightly (settings are prefer online and  fetch additional info OFF.  For Kodi 18, Artist info folder is blank.  Both scrapers set to local info only to force local art).  I got the expected results.

scott s.
.
maintainer of skin  Aeon MQ5 mods for post-Gotham Kodi releases:
Matrix see: Aeon MQ5 Mod Matrix release thread
Nexus see: Aeon MQ5 Mod Nexus release thread
Aeon MQ 5 skin and addon repo 11.1.0
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#6
@Powerhouse I am confused by your experience, as Scott says music library processing does not use the folder names so changing them will make no difference. For music You can name the folders and files any way you like.

This means that you are seeing the effects of something else, I just don't know what. There are changes in v18 to where artist art is fetched from automatically, that could be part of what you experience. Previously Kodi would make assumptions about all the music for an artist being under a common folder, and then you could get odd art popping up when this was not true. v18 is more discerning: it still looks above the album folders for artist art but only when it has checked that folder is unique to a single artist.

Yet you say the issue applied to both v17.6 and v18? Even more confusing for me.

So forget messing with folder names that isn't the issue, but do have a look again and see if you can identify what you are seeing. Take a close look at all the music by Avril Lavigne and where it is located. There could be an issue, but I promise it isn't the folder naming that is it.
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#7
So what I've experienced on Kodi 17.6 is with the skin Aeon MQ7 installed (which has lots of add-on's, including theaudiodb for Music - instead of using the local info as Scott states above). All of my Music has been scrapped with MusicBrainz Picard v1.4.

Folders were listed as examples (not the actual folders that I was having problems with - as I fixed a lot of them and couldn't think of any exact one I was having issues with - I believe one Artist was "A Perfect Circle" and the poster shown was from the album "Three Sixty").

Kodi 18 alpha, was a fresh install (on Windows 10), no add-on's added. Installed my Music library, and started looking through the Artists pictures (I have like 2k+ Artists) and noticed the issue. Then checked in my Kodi 17.6 install, and found the same issue. This is why I posted this issue, and the corresponding forum post regarding issues with SMB searching missing from Music Artwork (because I was trying to fix this issue and couldn't select any artwork on my NAS).

All my Music is stored the same way (except the Album folder difference listed above).
NAS\Music\Artist\year - Album


All Music Artwork is is named the same under every Artist.
NAS\Music\Artist (folder.jpg, fanart.jpg, logo.jpg, artist.nfo)
NAS\Music\Artist\extrafanart (mostly used with the add-on Artist Slideshow under Kodi 17.6)
NAS\Music\Artist\Year - Album (folder.jpg, cover.jpg, cdart.png, disc.png, album.nfo). Notice I have both folder.jpg and cover.jpg - I believe this was due to using CDArt Manager for years (or possibly using Artwork Downloader), also the same with cdart.png and disc.png. I have now switched to using Artwork Beef for my Music Artwork, to add, and possibly fix any Music Artwork issues I may have.

My thought was, that Kodi was skipping the initial folder.jpg under the Artist, and grabbing the folder.jpg under the album because the Artists name was listed. In the case above it looked like this...

NAS\Music\A Perfect Circle(with folder.jpg in this folder)\A Perfect Circle - Three Sixty\(with folder.jpg in this folder)

And I checked, the folder.jpg under the Artist was the correct one from the Artist (as found on Fanart.tv), and the folder.jpg under the "Three Sixty" album was the correct album cover (from Fanart.tv as well).
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#8
Mercy!!!
If you have issues with v17 and art, or with art providing addons (and the older ones of those do use folder names unlike Kodi itself) on any version I'm going to say I don't care. Tongue 
What I mean is I am working hard to move forwards from there, and unpicking the past will just be lost time.

 
Quote:Kodi 18 alpha, was a fresh install (on Windows 10), no add-on's added. Installed my Music library, and started looking through the Artists pictures (I have like 2k+ Artists) and noticed the issue.
OK, that I want to dig into more. Sorry, but what issue exactly?
Is it that you have the following kind folder layout (actual names of the folders not mattering at all):
Music\Artist ( with folder.jpg, fanart.jpg, logo.jpg, artist.nfo)
Music\Artist\Album (with folder.jpg, cover.jpg, cdart.png, disc.png, album.nfo)
but that for some artists v18 is not automatically picking up the artist thumb from there?

If I have understood that correctly then it will be most likely happening because v18 is not seeing the artist folder as a unique folder common to all the music of that artist and only that artist.

If you let me have a link to your mymusic70.db via PM (put it on the cloud somewhere) and the artists concerned then I should be able to tell you why it doesn't see that artist folder. You are going to say all the music is there and only there, but I have doubts. It could be a flaw in the algorithms, so I am interested to check.
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#9
(2018-03-12, 18:34)DaveBlake Wrote:  OK, that I want to dig into more. Sorry, but what issue exactly?
Is it that you have the following kind folder layout (actual names of the folders not mattering at all):
Music\Artist ( with folder.jpg, fanart.jpg, logo.jpg, artist.nfo)
Music\Artist\Album (with folder.jpg, cover.jpg, cdart.png, disc.png, album.nfo)
but that for some artists v18 is not automatically picking up the artist thumb from there?

If I have understood that correctly then it will be most likely happening because v18 is not seeing the artist folder as a unique folder common to all the music of that artist and only that artist.

If you let me have a link to your mymusic70.db via PM (put it on the cloud somewhere) and the artists concerned then I should be able to tell you why it doesn't see that artist folder. You are going to say all the music is there and only there, but I have doubts. It could be a flaw in the algorithms, so I am interested to check. 
As I said in the original post, on Kodi 18 alpha, I added my Music, and while scrolling through Artists (you know, where you see their Poster(Artist Thumb) displayed - with a picture from Fanart.tv), I noticed there were a few that instead of a Poster (Artist Thumb), they had an Album art (from a Album folder under the same Artist) displayed instead. Please note that I call them Posters, as this is what they are called under Movies and TV (under Fanart.tv), but under Music they are called Artist Thumbs.

Example:

NAS\Music\A Perfect Circle

This folder contains the following...

folder.jpg
cover.jpg
cdart.png
disc.png
artist.nfo

and the following folders

NAS\Music\A Perfect Circle\A Perfect Circle - Three Sixty
- This folder has the Album Music (MP3 or Flac files), and folder.jpg and cover.jpg (these are the Albums Artwork), cdart.png and disc.png (these are the images of the actual CD for the album), and album.nfo (all the info about the album, including MusicBrainz data).
NAS\Music\A Perfect Circle\A Perfect Circle - Three Sixty\lyrics
- This folder was created by the CULyrics Add-on, (normally used with CULyric Add-on to provide lyrics files for each song in an Album - if they exist). Not installed with the Kodi 18 alpha testing.

NAS\Music\A Perfect Circle\extrafanart
- This folder has extra fanart, (normally used with the Add-on Artist Slideshow), but this Add-on was not installed on Kodi 18 (nor any other Add-on installed on the Kodi 18 alpha I was testing).

Does this make it clearer what the issue is?

I could send you my mymusic70.db when I get home tonight.
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#10
OK, you are getting album art rather than artist. Possibly a fallback strategy when it isn't finding the artist art, so still a unique artist folder issue. Pop your db file somewhere I can fetch it and I will furtle about and see what I can find Smile
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#11
@DaveBlake,

Some notes...

- Kodi 18 alpha (the one found under Retroplayer - as I'm testing that as well).
- Portable install, and only Music was added to the system (mymusic70.db is like 30 megs)
- Default install, no changed made to anything, except adding my Music folder from my NAS.
- Brief look, and the following folders (just under the letter A still have issues)...

A Flock of Seagulls - Artist Thumb (Poster) is showing the Album cover "Wishing The Very Best".
A Perfect Circle - Artist Thumb (Poster) is showing the Album cover "Three Sixty".
Ace of Base - Artist Thumb (Poster) is showing the Album cover "Ace of Base Greatest Hits".
Andrew "Dice" Clay - Artist Thumb (Poster) is showing the Album cover "The Day the Laughter Died".

first one under the letter B...
Barry Manilow - Artist Thumb (Poster) is showing the Album cover "The Essential Barry Manilow".

I could go on, but think that is enough for now...lol

What I've noticed is that after I thought I had fixed these by the rename (to Year - Album Name), it turns out, it didn't make a difference. The only thing these all have in common, is they only contain a single Album each.
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#12
Next Step, removed the Music Library, Cleaned the system. And changed the Default Music Scraper (Universal Album Scraper) to (Local Information Only), then re-added my Music and checked once everything was added back to the Music section. And the same issue as above (No Change).
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#13
Database very helpful @Powerhouse, you can remove it from the cloud if you like now.
 
(2018-03-14, 03:49)Powerhouse Wrote: What I've noticed is that after I thought I had fixed these by the rename (to Year - Album Name), it turns out, it didn't make a difference.
It wouldn't, just as I assured you before, the music library does not parse folder names they can be named how you like.
 
Quote:The only thing these all have in common, is they only contain a single Album each.
Yes, what the 37 artists that this has happened for have in common is that they only have one album AND that album has more than one sub folder (per CD). That is a folder layout:

artist
artist/album
artist/album/CD1
artist/album/CD2  

I understand the cause Smile

The original algorithm (v17 and below) says "look for the folder immediately above the foldlers that contain all the music by that artist". In the above case that takes it to the artist/album folder not the artist folder. When more than one album, the number of CD folders does not have this effect.

Leia introduces the concept of a global "artist information folder" - one place that info and art for all artists can go - that avoids all the old issue with music for an artist split across multiple sources, or collaborations (multiple album artists) or artists without albums. It liberates the user and Kodi from having to have a set (and sometimes impossible) folder structure in order to get artist art or local info.

But for backwards compatibility, if such a location has not been set then it falls back to using the old algorithm to try and find the artist art. I have twiddled with it a bit to try and avoid what I call the "Adam Ant issue" - Kodi finding an odd image in a root folder and applying it unexpectedly - but it still has this flaw.  People have had the issue of incorrect art being picked up before, but I never got to the bottom of it, so good find.

Useful feedback @Powerhouse, I will fix in due course and ask you to do some testing once I have a build.
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#14
Sweet, glad I could help.

For a moment, I was thinking I would have to go through my whole Music library and make some change (or worse, have to go through Picard again on every single Album).
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#15
Finally working on a fix for this, so bumping to top of forum so I can find it
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Artist Image and Album image issues in Kodi 17.6 and 18 alpha0