v19 Set to Maximum, KODI Matrix won't pick all artwork in the AIF (including fanartxx)
#1
EDIT: Apparently this was a bug and it has been fixed.

I have set up the AIF in KODI and populated it with the artist artwork. Each artist has their own folder inside the main AIF. I have set the artwork to Maximum. I scan my music and expect KODI to load all artworks from the AIF, but it picks some art types and ignores some. 

Some of the artwork loaded include, thumb, fanart, clearlogo, clearart, banner. Sometimes I have thumb.gif instead of thumb.png and KODI picks it just fine. If KODI finds both thumb.gif and thumb.png in the artist folder, it prefers the .png over .gif. What I don't understand is what could be wrong with my fanartxx, they are not in the extrafanart folder but just located with the rest of the artwork.

To further my dilemma, KODI picks all the artwork in the Album folder regardless of the art type. Including back, spine, discart, cover (which seems to be loaded to the library as thumbnail), 3dflat, back1, back2 (last 3 added for testing purposes only as they serve no use with no skin to display them). But KODI is choosy when it comes to AIF and does not pick everything within the artist folder. Not only does it ignore fanartxx but it also ignores clearlogo1,clealogo2...clearlogoxx (extra logos added for testing).

In summery, picking artwork for Artists and Albums/tracks does not seem to work in the same way. When scanning movie and album, everything works as described in the MAXIMUM artwork settings. I understand this can be by design but it is a bit confusing when one setting works the same for movies, albums and tracks but different for artists. I also understand that artists and albums may be scrapped differently and what works for albums may not work for artists. Still, I expected Maximum means KODI will pick up everything it finds in the AIF, including singing.png if I decide to add an art type in which the artist has his\her mouth open. Then its for me to worry about what skin can even display singing.png but KODI will scan it because it found it in the AIF. If I don't want something in AIF scanned then I either relocate in to some other folder or use the Custom settings and specify what is to be scanned and ignore everything not in the list. Please tell me if am wrong about this.

Funny enough, I just created singing.png (it is an image of the album) and placed it in an album folder and KODI scanned it Laugh . Sad this little trick doesn't seem to apply to artists' folder.

What else I have tried: I have set the artwork to Custom and added fanart1,fanart2,...fanart20 as artwork types to the whitelist but KODI still ignores the artwork. I have even gone further and added these artworks to the advancedsettings.xml (which I believe is deprecated in Matrix) but still nothing. Each time I change the settings, I remove the music source, clean the library, restart KODI and add the library again for fresh scanning.

After adding the art type in custom settings something changes. If go to individual artist in the library, choose art KODI lists art types I added but they are empty. KODI clearly matches fanart1 art type to the local fanart1.png. Its seems to know that fanart1.png should fill fanart1 art type but does not fill it automatically. So I have to fill them manually for each artist, starting with fanart1, then fanart2 all the way to fanart20, you can imagine doing that for hundreds of artists. Without adding the art types in the custom settings, fanart1, fanart2,...fanart20 don't even appear in the list of possible art type but in the album section all possible art types appear in the list whether you added them in custom settings or not as long as the type was found once in one of the albums. Although I did not add them to the custom settings, you can see back1,back2 listed in the image below although this particular album don't have them, but another one did and that is how they got added.

I may sound like ungrateful user but I am most grateful to @DaveBlake for all the hard work he has done for the music artwork and to @rmrector for the movie artwork in Matrix. I followed part of the discussion on github concerning implementation of this new artwork scraping and from what I read, this was not easy and it has undergone a lot of changes to get where it is now. So please don't see this as a complaint, I was just wondering if am missing something or if there is a way to make extended artwork scrapping for artist as smooth and effortless as albums and movies. 

Finally, to quote the KODI webiste; "Got a smart TV? You ain't seen nothin’ yet! Kodi puts your smart TV to shame." And it does. It surely does. So thumbs up TeamKodi I respect all your hard work. 

Am not sure if log is required for this case but I can rescan my music library and provide the log if requested. This is KODI Matrix RC1 on Windows 10 64 bit.
Image
Life is short, I don't have time for squabbles. Lets be friends, lets enjoy Kodi :)
Reply
#2
It's not clear, but if you do a refresh on a specific artist does it then pick up more art?

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
Reply
#3
(2021-01-26, 03:56)scott967 Wrote: It's not clear, but if you do a refresh on a specific artist does it then pick up more art?

No, it does not.
Life is short, I don't have time for squabbles. Lets be friends, lets enjoy Kodi :)
Reply
#4
@TimeZone I'm looking into it but I think you have tripped over a bug, thanks for that.
Quote:Still, I expected Maximum means KODI will pick up everything it finds in the AIF, including singing.png if I decide to add an art type in which the artist has his\her mouth open.
That is correct, at least that was what was intended.

You don't say what platform you are on, but if I can produce a test build would you be able to test?
Reply
#5
OK, @TimeZone I can reproduce the problem when in Maximum mode with picking up artwork in files ending with digits e.g. fanart2.jpg etc., a gremlin crept in somehow. Will get a fix up soonest.

However I can't see anything wrong with picking up "singing.png". It is possible that  system caching prevented Kodi from seeing the file if it was newly added to the artist folder just before repeating scanning.  For efficiency Kodi caches the file list the first time it look in a folder for subsequnet use, this can miss recent file additions. So try singing.png again, I can see no other reason for it to fail.
Reply
#6
(2021-01-26, 17:07)DaveBlake Wrote: Will get a fix up soonest.
I will be patient. Thank you. And yes, I can do a test if you produce a test build.
Quote:However I can't see anything wrong with picking up "singing.png".
You are right. "singing.png" is being picked up just fine.

This "singing.png" thing stated as a joke but its already giving some small ideas. A "singing.gif " will do wonderfully for artist thumbnail in certain views like Wall and Magazine. A skin can choose to display thumb.png or singing.gif depending on the view just the same way the skin decides to use poster.png or animatedposter.gif. I will put a request to @manfeed see if he will be willing to implement it in Aeon Tajo it has the best display for GIF thumbnails in the 2 views.
Life is short, I don't have time for squabbles. Lets be friends, lets enjoy Kodi :)
Reply
#7
(2021-01-27, 08:47)TimeZone Wrote: I will put a request to @manfeed see if he will be willing to implement it in Aeon Tajo it has the best display for GIF thumbnails in the 2 views.
Manfeed already implemented for Aeon Tajo.

https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=351261
Life is short, I don't have time for squabbles. Lets be friends, lets enjoy Kodi :)
Reply
#8
(2021-01-27, 11:47)TimeZone Wrote: Manfeed already implemented [singing.gif] for Aeon Tajo.
Great. Smile
This is the kind of thing the "artwork liberation", that came with v18 in a raw way and has been polished for v19, is all about - users and skinners dreaming up whatever rich artwork UI they like and being able to add them without any core changes. Always good to see work being used creatively.

There is still more to do - add a bulk art refresh facility, a way to download remote art and make it local and a new control for slideshows that can be driven from a family of art types rather than a folder.
Reply
#9
(2021-01-27, 15:16)DaveBlake Wrote:  a new control for slideshows that can be driven from a family of art types rather than a folder.

^^^^
this

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
Reply
#10
(2021-01-27, 08:47)TimeZone Wrote: I will be patient. Thank you. And yes, I can do a test if you produce a test build.
OK @TimeZone I have PR19130 up to fix this art issue, and a Win64 test build is here

If you would like to test that and feed back it would be helpful.
Reply
#11
(2021-01-28, 19:00)DaveBlake Wrote: If you would like to test that and feed back it would be helpful.

It now works like magic. Thank you.
Life is short, I don't have time for squabbles. Lets be friends, lets enjoy Kodi :)
Reply
#12
Thanks for testing @TimeZone , and for finding the issue in the first place. Not sure how that bug got in, the artwork improvement had been fully tested, but great to be able to fix it before v19.0 release.
Reply

Logout Mark Read Team Forum Stats Members Help
Set to Maximum, KODI Matrix won't pick all artwork in the AIF (including fanartxx)0