VLC displaying wrong album art

[Dan33185]

Yeah, I already had it set like that, there's nothing there that should be causing this problem though.

[Niubbo]

Same problem, but deleting the /art/ folder doesn't help in my case.
The are some ways to display a different cover, from track with the same album?

Example, A and B have different covers, but they're in the same album. VLC recognize and save in /art/ only the first (A), displaying the same cover in the other track.(B)

[Nmredlink]

I also have this problem, with only 2 artists though. It displays the same album art for all of my Beatles tracks, but I have like 7 different albums. I don't think that the post Beatles album art should display over my Magical Mystery Tour tracks. The other problem is that the album art for another artist has noise over it; like television static over the thumbnail.

[Lyniaer]

VLC is picking up the album art from a file called "FOLDER.JPG". That file will be located wherever it's associated audio file is. Delete Folder.JPG to get the cone back or rename it or rename something else to Folder.JPG and that image will take over. This happens with certain *cough*acquired*cough* music files that have had their metadata removed.

[brbixxx]

Since it appears that multiple issues can cause this problem, I will attempt to recap/compile what others have stated up to now.

If the metadata of a given audio track contains no image, VLC searches for a substitute image. This file could come from a previously played track, or, as others in this thread have noted, from Google Images or elsewhere. In any case, the result is that the track you are playing displays the wrong cover art. You can address this problem by performing two related tasks.

1
Close VLC if it is currently open.
Run a search for "%appdata%\VLC\art", or go to file location
C:\ Users \ YOURUSERNAME \ AppData \ Roaming \VLC \art \ artistalbum/
This will bring up all the artists folders that VLC has cached.
If you would prefer for the track to display the VLC saftey cone icon, then delete everything in the artist album folder to clear out the cache.
If you would like to change the cover art VLC displays for this track, click on the folder of the artist, then the album.
Replace the image with one of your own.
Remember to rename the file “art.jpg”.

2
Open VLC.
Go to Tools / Preferences.
On the Interface tab, under Album art download policy, select Manual download only.
This should tell VLC to only get the album art from the track metadata.

[edw1n]

I found an easy solution to this problem.

1. Set folder options to show hidden files.

2. Open VLC and play a song that has the wrong cover art displayed.

3. From the Tools menu select Media Information.

4. Right click the picture in the bottom left corner of the dialog box.

5. Left click "Add cover art from file." You will be shown the name and location of the wrong image being used.

5. Delete the files shown. In my case it was AlbumSmallArt and FolderArt in the Music Folder.

[22-7ths]

Everyone seems to think it's pulling from %appdata%/VLC/art/* - end of story. Uh.. NO.

Yes it will do that, but if the art isn't available there are certain other defaults (apparently) it looks for:

I was also getting sick of seeing the same annoying album art for many things including streams and conversions.
To figure out where it was pulling this from, I used a program called Microsoft/Sysinternals "Process Monitor".

I ran a test conversion of a file at the same time I started monitoring the vlc.exe process.
Sure enough - the mysterious album art popped up.
Long story short there were 2 hidden jpg files called 'Folder.jpg' and 'AlbumArtSmall.jpg' in the root folder of the file I was working with. This is alluded to in previous posts.
(In this case my video file is located on my root T:\ folder). I am guessing that these files are probably remnants of Windows Media Player.. since they are hidden and were never cleaned up by WMP. (Go figure.)

Investigation & Resolution (Windows 7 x64) -
Prepping VLC conversion - looks fine so far:
http://i.imgur.com/LpnSbUT.png
Conversion starts - 'bad' album art shows up from somewhere..
http://i.imgur.com/yIApRZU.png
Investigating VLC file operations shows a 'Folder.jpg' being loaded from root directory of current drive with video file:


To show hidden system files, you have to show all system/hidden files in explorer settings:
http://i.imgur.com/RHAbdRu.png
(remember to re-enable this (check it again) once you have found/deleted the hidden JPG file. (Do not delete any other hidden system files!)

Once I had deleted the 'Folder.jpg' file, I then discovered it was also trying to load 'AlbumArtSmall.jpg' from same area (T:\ root folder in my case):


Once these 2 hidden JPG's were deleted, I no longer show this annoying album art in VLC.
VLC may in fact look for other files - but these were the two that forced displaying of the wrong media/album art in my case.

Hope this helps some in this thread.

[bensmith]

Since it appears that multiple issues can cause this problem, I will attempt to recap/compile what others have stated up to now.
2
Open VLC.
Go to Tools / Preferences.
On the Interface tab, under Album art download policy, select Manual download only.
This should tell VLC to only get the album art from the track metadata.

Apparently at some point the Album art download policy was removed from VLC. VLC Version 2.2.1 no longer has this option on the Interface section.

Running into the same problem of the album art not displaying correctly. If I have individual files (podcasts in my case) each with different "album artwork" but with the same "album name" (in my case podcast collection name) then the wrong album art is displayed after playing the first file. In other words, the album art from the first file played is the album art used for the rest of the files that have the same album name even though they have different album artwork embedded for each individual file. The workaround is to give each file a unique "album name", then each file's album artwork displays properly. Obviously this shouldn't be happening, VLC should (I would think) have the option to force pulling the album art from each file that has album art embedded rather than basing the album art on the first file played when the same album name is used for subsequent files.

[KHS]

I have just discovered this issue for the first time using v2.2.1 on Win7 64-bit.

Does it remain unsolved or is the solution on another post somewhere. It is hugely annoying not to have the option simply to display only embedded album art, not various guesses that apparently take precedence over the embedded art.

[mickrussom]

Everyone seems to think it's pulling from %appdata%/VLC/art/* - end of story. Uh.. NO.
...
Hope this helps some in this thread.

Thank you 100%. Thank you. This has helped me remove this vile cruft from my VLC and get my audio yellow cone back. Lord this was hard to find.

[sparrow_blaise]

Hi there folks

I have good news/FIX

AS YOU KNOW
THIS NO LONGER WORKS/IS PRESENT
"On the Interface tab, under Album art download policy, select Manual download only."

BUT

THIS IS THE NEW SOLUTION

1. Step: delete everything from this folder "%appdata%/VLC/art/"
2. Step: Go to Tools > Preferences > Interface > (Tab) Privacy/Network Interaction > (untick the box) Allow metadata network access.
3. Step: Save

PS: It would be so much nicer if these folks from the VideoLan fixed this issue permanently/once for all
BUT
for now this worked for me

Enjoy

[Brackenbrack]

Just wanted to say that I didn't have an art folder in my vlc roaming settings, but I did have the offending hidden files and deleted them both. Just to be doubly clear, in the folder where my media are, I had to UNCHECK the box next to "Hide protected operating system files" to see and delete them. All is well now and thanks. So if you have this problem, don't give up hope, that was an easy fix for me, I already had retrieving file information turned off.

Folder.jpg
AlbumArtSmall.jpg

They were both the same jpg, only one was, errr, smaller.

[aitte]

Hi guys, found a solution accidentally:

Instead of selecting albums/tracks from the file explorer from inside the VLC playlist, simply use windows explorer and select all the tracks you want to play and drag them into the playlist, this way individual track cover art is displayed correctly even if the tracks are from same album.

[didactic314]

Here's probably a welcome, 100% works every time solution:
turn-off your wi-fi!
Seems odd, right? However, after delving into the code in VLC's folder in Program Files regarding album artwork and metadata, I discovered that VLC obtains its random album artwork and names by referencing images from certain websites! I caught VideoLan red-handed in the code obtaining random images and metadata from online sources... So after entering airplane mode, I was able to play my CD without any of VLC's scripted interference....

now the question is.... why? Why did VideoLan write this into the code?

sparrow_blaise figured out a way in the Preferences to disable the "metadata network access;" this is another probably better long-term solution, however...

Yet, my work justifies why both solutions affect the problem.

[MelvinDoucet]

Hi,

I've signed up on this forum just so I can share my solution to this annoying problem for Windows 10.

1. open Folder Options;

2. In 'View' tab uncheck 'Hide protected operating system files' (for your own safety, check that again after this whole process is done);

3. Go to your Music folder, search 'folder' and 'albumartsmall', delete folder.jpg and albumartsmall.jpg.

4. Enjoy.

[lukpac]

Same problem, but deleting the /art/ folder doesn't help in my case.
The are some ways to display a different cover, from track with the same album?

Example, A and B have different covers, but they're in the same album. VLC recognize and save in /art/ only the first (A), displaying the same cover in the other track.(B)

This still seems to be an issue. I have an album that has different cover art for each side. The first time I play a file from the album, the art for that file is displayed. However, subsequently playing a file from a different side results in the art for the first file being displayed. The art from the first file is stored in:

%appdata%\vlc\art\artistalbum\[artist]\[album]\art.jpg

I can delete that file, and VLC will load whatever the correct image is the next time I play a file from the album, but the problem remains.

Why isn't there a way to tell VLC to use the actual art from the file instead of the cache it creates for the entire album?

[dshfoto]

I just wanted to suppress the album art altogether so I went to .cache/vlc/art in the home directory, and deleted the files. Then cd back to the the vlc directory and "sudo chmod 555 art" This seems to work on Fedora 25 and Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. Now just the cone appears.

[DarkPhoenixII]

Hi there, I have found the solution to what I think the problem was.

When you try to tie a specific album art to a specific song it does not work, and all your other tracks have the same album art BECAUSE it is tied to a specific album, not song.

Thus when writing the metadata for the song include the name of the song rather then album if you want that specific album art to be tied to that song.

to see which album art is tied to which album open the Run field in the Windows start menu: %appdata%\VLC\art

you will see which art is tied to which album and can correct your self.

or simply just don't add the album name in the song metadata and that should also work
I hope this helps good luck.

[SDM71]

Hi there, I have found the solution to what I think the problem was.

When you try to tie a specific album art to a specific song it does not work, and all your other tracks have the same album art BECAUSE it is tied to a specific album, not song.

Thus when writing the metadata for the song include the name of the song rather then album if you want that specific album art to be tied to that song.

to see which album art is tied to which album open the Run field in the Windows start menu: %appdata%\VLC\art

you will see which art is tied to which album and can correct your self.

or simply just don't add the album name in the song metadata and that should also work
I hope this helps good luck.

Using the song title instead of the album title, as well as using it as the song title, is a workaround that doesn't work for me. We need a way to prevent vlc writing to %appdata%\VLC\art at all.

[SDM71]

Additionally VLC only seems to be able to "remember" one album cover per album title. If songs with the same album have different cover arts, VLC displays only one single art for all of them (usually the first it finds in alphabetical order).

I am no coder but wouldnt it be possible to have VLC read the album art directly and individually from and for every file, instead of it creating a folder for every album?

6 years later, this is STILL the nub of the problem.

[SDM71]

So after a brief test of blocking all access to VLC/art in Windows, I discovered something else:

VLC won't use the embedded art at all. If it can't extract it and write it to VLC/art/artistalbum, then it'll just be the cone.

It looks like after 6 years, all that's left is a series of workarounds, from which we all need to choose our own, personal, "least-worst" option.

[perzaklie]

Here it is, May 6, 2018 and the problem still persists. I have Windows 7 Pro 64 bit. I have tried every single workaround listed in this forum and NONE work. Some strange album art still shows at the beginning of EVERY video I play with VLC. This album is not on my PC, never has been, and I've never even heard of the artist before in my life. All the references to album art folders and files do not exist on my PC. VLC Metadata access is unchecked. My question is this, Since this problem has persisted for over 7 years, why can't it be fixed? I support financially every open source program on my PC. We will not have an effective open source community without support but I am having a problem justifying the support to VLC if some simple problem like this cannot be corrected. I am not a programmer by any stretch of the imagination but I cannot believe the solution can be that difficult. What do we as a user community, have to do to get this corrected? Can/will a person with authority within VLC please respond to the public? Do we not deserve an answer?

[n3pla2000]

My problem is two fold. I even tried adding "fingerprints" to the mp3 to correct this... But my problem is worse, Why I have two instances where bands used the name previously used by another band. "Copperhead" was a band that released music and albums in the early 70's, and had a self-titled album called "Copperhead". The years later in 1992, another band also used the name "Copperhead", and they too released a self-titled album called "Copperhead"!!! You see this was NOT the only time this happened two other bands had a similar issue. There were two bands called "The Arrows" one was from Canada, and the other was from the United Kingdom! VLC should ALWAYS pull the album art from the mp3, flac, or what ever... I can edit those files to include album art, ID3 tags can retain that data without ever needing to connect to the internet. I can see VLC asking internet site for album art IF there is none in the music file, but to do so otherwise??? Also if two files are in the same directory and same album name and artist name, then they could possibly use the same album art, while not the correct thing it is better than assuming all songs with the same album name use the same album art. How many "Greatest Hits" albums have been released (often by the same band), if not one for ANY band with a little longevity!!! Let's get real what if the internet is down? No cover art? No using metadata in the IDtags is the smartest thing to do. why have a database for cover art when the file already contains it? PLEASE VideoLan fix this problem.

[BaumschulenElrik]

I really don't know if this is still of interrest, but if you have trouble with faulty coverart I recommend doing the following. It does not fix vlc's issue but enables you to use your own coverart.

1. go to preferences -> Interface -> untick "allow network access for metadata"

2. go to your %appdata%/vlc folder and delete all preexisting/faulty coverart

3. place a .jpg image in your albums directory called "cover.jpg"
This image is going to be displayed everytime you use vlc to play one of the audiofiles inside the directory. If you don't place an own image, the vlc cone is going to be displayed.

[perzaklie]

Ok, thank you. I really am not interested in album art. As a matter of fact, I prefer not to have it at all. I followed your suggestion to locate coverart and there is none there. I created a blank black jpg image and placed it there. I will watch and see what happens in the future. Actually I just tried it and nothing happens now but the VLC cone.

My problem is/was this one strange album art pops up from time to time on totally unrelated media playback. I cannot locate the stranger, if I could I would delete it. The album referenced on the art is not on my PC nor is any media by the artist. I have no idea where it came from.