Postby awesk8 » 13 Sep 2024 19:11
Unfortunately this is still an issue 9+ years later, even in the VLC 4.0 nightly builds.
As many people here have pointed out, VLC does NOT correctly handle cover art, specifically when:
1. The audio file has an embedded cover, or an image in the same folder,
2. The audio file is part of an album, that is the "Album" metadata matches with other audio files in a playlist,
VLC incorrectly prioritizes the "album art" which is the very first file loaded as part of an album. This is because when VLC sees a new album, it will do the following:
1. Cache the "art.png" file in AppData\Roaming\vlc\art\artistalbum\<band>\<year>\<album>
2. Update cache in AppData\Local\vlc\cache
This has the unintended consequence of treating the first audio file loaded as the de-facto album cover art. This album art is prioritized even if the individual audio files have their own covers (either embedded or in same folder).
The fix is quite simple, prioritize embedded cover art over the album art.
To fix the caching issue is a bit more complex, VLC needs to appropriately handle caching of album cover art, in particular, no longer cache the first cover from a given album, especially when that is an embedded cover. This will likely have to involve looking at the cover type to ensure it doesn't break functionality in other common use cases.
For end users: The easiest fix is to delete the "Album" metadata field (or change so they are all different), because that is what VLC uses to cache the album art. If no album art is found, it uses the first cover it finds that is part of the album which is often the first track in the playlist. The reason is because VLC does not support albums with tracks which have their own individual covers.
I tried disabling the "Write" permission to the art folder, but even with "Read" access still enabled VLC was unable to load any cover art. This is another issue because if no album cover art is found, it should at least attempt to look for embedded covers.
It is quite unfortunate this issue has persisted for so long for what seems to be a fairly common use case. To add salt in the wound, other media players do not have this problem. I like VLC for its simplistic nature, but having outstanding issues like this drive the community away. Especially for something that should be a quick fix. Developers being dismissive, arrogant, and condescending also does not help.