Vista WMP11 - Album art not updated in local library

Yannis Pantzis

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Mar 5, 2007, 11:17:05 AM3/5/07

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After upgrading to Windows Vista (Ultimate) the album art is not updated in
Media Player's library. Even though I can find the track information on the
Internet (metaservices) and the album image is available, the latter is not
downloaded locally to the PC.

Anyone else facing the same issue? Any workarounds available?

Thanks in advance,

YP

Dale

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Mar 5, 2007, 3:53:03 PM3/5/07

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Do you have Windows Media Player configured to update your files by adding
missing information?

Dale
--
Dale Preston
MCAD C#
MCSE, MCDBA

Yannis Pantzis

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Mar 5, 2007, 4:11:08 PM3/5/07

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I have the following options set:
1. Overwrite all media information
2. Rename music files using rip settings
3. Rearrange music in rip music folder
4. Maintain my star ratings as global

Dale

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Mar 5, 2007, 6:20:00 PM3/5/07

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That should work. How are you determining that the images are not being
downloaded?

Yannis Pantzis

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Mar 5, 2007, 8:58:55 PM3/5/07

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As soon as I select the appropriate album info from the search window, the
album art in the library is not updated; the typical icon with the 'paste art
here' message is still displayed.

Dale

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Mar 5, 2007, 9:28:43 PM3/5/07

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It can take a few minutes for the process to complete. I have moved back and
forth between views and when I come back to the library, it is fixed.
Whether it is time or the process of moving around that fixes, I don't know.
Also, try clicking Tools->Apply Media Changes to see if that helps.

babilu

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Mar 6, 2007, 8:25:00 AM3/6/07

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Yeah I have a same problem with WMP11 in XP. Usually i do WMP9. in WMP9 with
already bundled Advanced Tag Editor not like WMP11 more easily. It put the
album art in same folder as hidden, systems file.

It Should click Tools--> Applu Media Information Changes several times to
done it and/or pick "the OVERWRITE ALL DATA in tag", and the album art will
be saved in same folder.
I hope the next WMP12 will be more easily like WMP9.

The option Write MISSING DATA TAG will not save the album art in same
folder, but works as album art in NOW PLAYING???? Where the hell is album art
saved anyway? i search anywhere including internet cache..not found?????
That the first Question number 1

Using Tools --> Apply Media Information Changes worries me as it may erase
my manual album art ? Could'nt that? That Question number 2

I usually put manually the album art into ID3V2 tags via Advanced TAg Editor
Plugin [WMPlugins.com] or 3rdparty software MP3tags after the album art
downloaded in folder. Could the WMP11 saving it automatically to ID3V2 tags
instead of put it on same folder or superhidden misterious cache via registry
tweak or somethin? That Question number 3. If not, i hope it will included
win WMP12....

Dale

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Mar 6, 2007, 8:46:00 AM3/6/07

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"babilu" wrote:

> Yeah I have a same problem with WMP11 in XP. Usually i do WMP9. in WMP9 with
> already bundled Advanced Tag Editor not like WMP11 more easily. It put the
> album art in same folder as hidden, systems file.

WMP 11 puts the album art in the same way. It is a hidden system file in
the album folder. If you drag art onto the album it also embeds the art into
each track of the album.

>
> It Should click Tools--> Applu Media Information Changes several times to
> done it and/or pick "the OVERWRITE ALL DATA in tag", and the album art will
> be saved in same folder.
> I hope the next WMP12 will be more easily like WMP9.
>
> The option Write MISSING DATA TAG will not save the album art in same
> folder, but works as album art in NOW PLAYING???? Where the hell is album art
> saved anyway? i search anywhere including internet cache..not found?????
> That the first Question number 1

Same place as in WMP 9 and 10. Make sure you set Folder Options in Windows
Explorer to show hidden files and not to hide protected system files. How
silly is that to make the album art a protected system file? Get real.

>
> Using Tools --> Apply Media Information Changes worries me as it may erase
> my manual album art ? Could'nt that? That Question number 2

Apply Media Information Changes doesn't really do anything that WMP is not
going to do anyway. It just makes it happen now instead of when Windows
Media Player gets around to it. Windows Media Player will always erase your
manual album art unless your manual album art is, as is WMP's, low quality
200x200 pixel album art.

The only way around it is to embed album art using virtually any tool other
than Windows Media Player. At least then, the album art will be displayed
when playing, even if not when showing the album in Windows Media Player's
library views.

>
> I usually put manually the album art into ID3V2 tags via Advanced TAg Editor
> Plugin [WMPlugins.com] or 3rdparty software MP3tags after the album art
> downloaded in folder. Could the WMP11 saving it automatically to ID3V2 tags
> instead of put it on same folder or superhidden misterious cache via registry
> tweak or somethin? That Question number 3. If not, i hope it will included
> win WMP12....

You don't want WMP to automatically add the album art. It will destroy it
in the process unless you're happy already with WMP's miniscule 200x200 pixel
album art.

If you want to quickly add album art to your library and you're happy with
WMP's miniscule art, or you have copied your own high-quality artwork to each
album folder, you can use my ID3 Embed Pictures tool to add art to the ID3
tags of all your albums quickly:

http://www.dalepreston.com/Blog/2007/03/id3-embed-pictures.html

Hope this helps,

Dale

babilu

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Mar 6, 2007, 9:24:23 AM3/6/07

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Wow fast reply, thanks...

"Dale" wrote:

> WMP 11 puts the album art in the same way. It is a hidden system file in
> the album folder. If you drag art onto the album it also embeds the art into
> each track of the album.

Yup, after overwrite all media information checked..other option missing
media information will not..eventhough the album art is empty...

> Same place as in WMP 9 and 10. Make sure you set Folder Options in Windows
> Explorer to show hidden files and not to hide protected system files. How
> silly is that to make the album art a protected system file? Get real.

Yes it hidden, i forgot it has system atributtes or not..
But strange, if i used the write missing media information option, then i
use find album info, the mp3 will has album art !! only on list pane and now
playing pane, but not in library pane [not saved in same folder]. Strange
where the wmp11 put the album? i just could not found. Strange heh..

> Apply Media Information Changes doesn't really do anything that WMP is not
> going to do anyway. It just makes it happen now instead of when Windows
> Media Player gets around to it. Windows Media Player will always erase your
> manual album art unless your manual album art is, as is WMP's, low quality
> 200x200 pixel album art.
>
> The only way around it is to embed album art using virtually any tool other
> than Windows Media Player. At least then, the album art will be displayed
> when playing, even if not when showing the album in Windows Media Player's
> library views.
> >

> If you want to quickly add album art to your library and you're happy with
> WMP's miniscule art, or you have copied your own high-quality artwork to each
> album folder, you can use my ID3 Embed Pictures tool to add art to the ID3
> tags of all your albums quickly:
>
> http://www.dalepreston.com/Blog/2007/03/id3-embed-pictures.html
>

I think it just quite enough for ipod nano and nokia smartphone n7x series
just using 200x200 pixels..
And i think WMP9 can handled DVD case [longer pixels] like Toni braxton
200x284 pixels got from WMP9 find album tools.

I will try your tools. Twice work, using WMP for find album and your tools
for saving it to id3v2 tags.

I wish you can produced it as WMP plugin so it will save the album
automatically to empty ID3V2 with WMP. Just one click , then
done...compatible with ipod tags, nokia tags, how nice the world will be... :D

Regards

> Hope this helps,
>
>
> Dale
>

Dale

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Mar 6, 2007, 7:26:03 PM3/6/07

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"babilu" wrote:

> 200x200 pixels is enough because the WMP is the only beautiful mp3 tagger i
> ever use, and it's using 200x200 as default.

Keep it up and you'll be an MVP before you know it. :)

Just kidding, Neil...

Dale

Yannis...@discussions.microsoft.com

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Mar 7, 2007, 6:33:06 AM3/7/07

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Whenever I tried to use "Apply Media Information Changes" I waited for some
minutes and I always received a "Server Busy" error message.

Note that my database is huge - 150MB.

Also the media in my library is stored in two different locations:
1. the standard library location ("Music" folder)
2. a folder structure in an external USB disk

YP

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Dale

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Mar 7, 2007, 12:31:39 PM3/7/07

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That's weird. I wonder why applying media changes that you already have made
to the system needs to access any server.

Dale
--
Dale Preston
MCAD C#
MCSE, MCDBA

zachd [MSFT]

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Mar 9, 2007, 5:06:01 AM3/9/07

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What's the exact version of WMP you're using? This generally was
fixed/minimized for the final version, but if a trillion people are hitting
the servers, you *will* run into this type of thing. You can turn off the
Retrieve Additional Information option in WMP's Tools:Options:Library to
minimize that further.

--
Speaking for myself only.
See http://zachd.com/pss/pss.html for some helpful WMP info.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
--

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Dale

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Mar 9, 2007, 8:56:22 AM3/9/07

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An uninformative message such as "Server Busy" from what you are now
describing as an expected error condition is very bad design, Zach. The
only time a user should get such a generic is when the error could not be
predicted. In this case, where the error message is most likely returned by
IIS and not by WMP, it represents a lack of proper resources being dedicated
to the application that you created. If the proper resources could not be
assured to support the design, the design should have been changed to not
require accessing Microsoft servers to "apply media information changes"
that have already been made at the local client.

You never did answer why, when applying changes that the user has already
made at their local PC, there is any need at all to access any Microsoft web
server at all. What is being reported back to Microsoft when we change data
in our media libraries?

The documentation states that Apply Media Changes
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Yannis

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Mar 9, 2007, 3:57:27 PM3/9/07

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Zach,

I am using the version of WMP11 that comes w/ Windows Vista
(11.0.6000.6324).

Also notice that I face several random crashes of WMP11 in Vista.

YP

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zachd [MSFT]

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Mar 10, 2007, 5:13:45 AM3/10/07

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When you send the crash reports, what bucket number do you get?
http://zachd.com/pss/pss.html#bucket
should help you look that.

--
Speaking for myself only.
See http://zachd.com/pss/pss.html for some helpful WMP info.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
--

"Yannis" <Yannis...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
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zachd [MSFT]

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Mar 12, 2007, 7:03:14 PM3/12/07

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"Dale" <nos...@nospam.ever> wrote in message
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> An uninformative message such as "Server Busy" from what you are now
> describing as an expected error condition is very bad design, Zach.

Agreed - to my knowledge, I filed the bug and provided the information that
led to this general class of issue being fixed for RTM. If somebody is
still repro'ing this with the RTM build, that's interesting, which is why I
had asked for the exact version number in question. =)

> You never did answer why, when applying changes that the user has already
> made at their local PC, there is any need at all to access any Microsoft
> web server at all. What is being reported back to Microsoft when we
> change data in our media libraries?

AMI here contextually is running all queued look-up / edit / media info
transactions, including the Retrieve Missing Information queries and such.
So if you have that (Retrieve) turned off, it shouldn't look up anything.
AMI isn't really useful outside of limited contexts: the queue is already
running at a lower priority in the background. AMI just puts it forefront /
normal priority.

As re: packet sniffing, I haven't done that so I couldn't speak to that.

Yannis Pantzis

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Mar 15, 2007, 7:16:28 PM3/15/07

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Here is the latest crash (related - again - to album art download from
metaservices):

Product
Windows Media Player

Problem
Stopped working

Date
16/3/2007 1:05

Status
Report Sent

Problem signature
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: wmplayer.exe
Application Version: 11.0.6000.6324
Application Timestamp: 4549b52a
Fault Module Name: wmp.dll
Fault Module Version: 11.0.6000.6324
Fault Module Timestamp: 4549be71
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 00258da8
OS Version: 6.0.6000.2.0.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1032
Additional Information 1: 5e8d
Additional Information 2: 725509c0607ac3d51a05080ce3897737
Additional Information 3: 72eb
Additional Information 4: 5dbbeb2da80f87d7c0d6833dc72c6f62

Extra information about the problem
Bucket ID: 348195254

aruddy

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Mar 30, 2007, 4:02:49 PM3/30/07

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great tip, thanks very much

EggHeadCafe.com - .NET Developer Portal of Choice
http://www.eggheadcafe.com

Yannis

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Apr 18, 2007, 6:54:49 AM4/18/07

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Still having the same problem again and again. 5 crashes in half an hour!!!

Problem signature
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: wmplayer.exe
Application Version: 11.0.6000.6324
Application Timestamp: 4549b52a
Fault Module Name: wmp.dll
Fault Module Version: 11.0.6000.6324
Fault Module Timestamp: 4549be71
Exception Code: c0000005

Exception Offset: 004e6dca

OS Version: 6.0.6000.2.0.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1032

Additional Information 1: cf93
Additional Information 2: 26f2cc8b14ada48965b84efd33968d1d
Additional Information 3: cd55
Additional Information 4: c2f8b51653d9a8793859e985979c075b

Extra information about the problem

Bucket ID: 354620924
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Problem signature
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: wmplayer.exe
Application Version: 11.0.6000.6324
Application Timestamp: 4549b52a
Fault Module Name: wmp.dll
Fault Module Version: 11.0.6000.6324
Fault Module Timestamp: 4549be71
Exception Code: c0000005

Exception Offset: 004e6dca

OS Version: 6.0.6000.2.0.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1032

Additional Information 1: cf93
Additional Information 2: 26f2cc8b14ada48965b84efd33968d1d
Additional Information 3: cd55
Additional Information 4: c2f8b51653d9a8793859e985979c075b

Extra information about the problem

Bucket ID: 354620924
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Problem signature
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: wmplayer.exe
Application Version: 11.0.6000.6324
Application Timestamp: 4549b52a
Fault Module Name: wmp.dll
Fault Module Version: 11.0.6000.6324
Fault Module Timestamp: 4549be71
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 00258da8
OS Version: 6.0.6000.2.0.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1032
Additional Information 1: 5e8d
Additional Information 2: 725509c0607ac3d51a05080ce3897737
Additional Information 3: 72eb
Additional Information 4: 5dbbeb2da80f87d7c0d6833dc72c6f62

Extra information about the problem
Bucket ID: 348195254

------------------------------------------------------------------

Problem signature
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: wmplayer.exe
Application Version: 11.0.6000.6324
Application Timestamp: 4549b52a
Fault Module Name: wmp.dll
Fault Module Version: 11.0.6000.6324
Fault Module Timestamp: 4549be71
Exception Code: c0000005

Exception Offset: 004e6dca

OS Version: 6.0.6000.2.0.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1032

Additional Information 1: cf93
Additional Information 2: 26f2cc8b14ada48965b84efd33968d1d
Additional Information 3: cd55
Additional Information 4: c2f8b51653d9a8793859e985979c075b

Extra information about the problem

Bucket ID: 354620924
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Problem signature
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: wmplayer.exe
Application Version: 11.0.6000.6324
Application Timestamp: 4549b52a
Fault Module Name: wmp.dll
Fault Module Version: 11.0.6000.6324
Fault Module Timestamp: 4549be71
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Offset: 00258da8
OS Version: 6.0.6000.2.0.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1032

Additional Information 1: 7fa6
Additional Information 2: 3421c188a4564b47e5f5a6836d464b2e
Additional Information 3: ae1e
Additional Information 4: f38e7a47c24758756d5020d1dcb42cd0

Extra information about the problem
Bucket ID: 348195254

-----------------------------------------------------------------

"Yannis Pantzis" <Yannis...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:B3A73191-975C-4971...@microsoft.com...

richardleitner

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Dec 14, 2007, 10:05:40 AM12/14/07

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I am having a similar issue. A few days a go i restored one of my computers and then updated to Windows Media Player 11... I am using windows XP... I have all my music on an external 500GB Western Digital which is about 300GB full. Then I added a my music on the hard drive to my library. 100% of my music had album art. I added about 60 albums to my hard drive, manually added art by playing 1 song from each album then clicking find album art. Usually on older versions of media player the art would be on the folder immediatly. Occasionaly i would have hit the update media info button. Now after i find the art it does not go to the folder. When i try and update media info i get up to between 5-10% then i get server busy, try to reconnect. But it never reconnects. I've read all the posts from others with the same problem but cannot find a fix. Can anyone help? Thanks Rich

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Dale

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Dec 14, 2007, 11:19:02 AM12/14/07

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I am curious of this would make a difference: copy some of the troublesome
albums to your internal hard drive, add that folder to your monitored folders
in Windows Media Player, and try to update the media information against the
internal hard drive.

Weird things have been known to happen with WMP 11 and external hard drives.