Album art issue with some [only!] files

Posted by: DrPo on 18 October 2014

I have an irritating problem with some FLAC files album art: in all of them there is an embedded album art. I can see it in Foobar but it does not show up on my NDX. I stream from a Seagate NAS using a non configurable twonky UpnP implementation.

 

I emphasize this problem is very seldom. Normally Album art shoes up fine and even when there is none I can edit album art with Mp3tag or dBpoweramp ID3 tag utility. In these rare cases I have tried to remove the album art and reedit it...no luck...btw: my UpnP implementation ignores Folder images and only uses embedded art.

 

An example are a few Harmonia Mundi files I purchased via HD tracks. None of them allows to see the (existing!) album art on the NDX!

 

An interesting observation: if I downgrade the files to MP3 (using dbpoweramp utility) the album art is visible on the NDX!

 

anyone has some clever idea how to go around this problem? Even exotic solutions like copying the files to something without art and reimport it later (I tried it already with FLAC to FLAC conversion In dBpoweramp)would be welcome!

Posted on: 19 October 2014 by Mac User

Hi, it's probably the image file is too large for twonky, try resizing the image to be less than 200kb and try embedding again and then rescan the folder...

 

Posted on: 19 October 2014 by DrPo
Originally Posted by Mac User:

Hi, it's probably the image file is too large for twonky, try resizing the image to be less than 200kb and try embedding again and then rescan the folder...

 

Size is not the problem. I have some huge album art files that show up w/o problem.

 

If I transcode the "problematic" FLAC files to mp3 the album art shows up fine!

 

If I transcode to WAV and then back to FLAC and then embeddthe album art again I can see the album art but it is tedious process and not sure if I degrade anything in the process. Just beats me what feature if these specific files is creating the issue!

 

After some search today I managed to access the config file of the Seagate Central NAS Twonky server but don't have a root password to try to edit some settings to see if anything resolves it.

Posted on: 21 October 2014 by David O'Higgins

I have this problem with several albums, all Classical/Opera, from both Hdtracks and Qobuz. I have sent two examples to Phil Harris, but have not heard back yet. If he cracks it I'll let you know the secret.

Posted on: 21 October 2014 by DrPo
Originally Posted by David O'Higgins:

I have this problem with several albums, all Classical/Opera, from both Hdtracks and Qobuz. I have sent two examples to Phil Harris, but have not heard back yet. If he cracks it I'll let you know the secret.

Thanks David. In went around the problem with a very tedious and ugly approach: copy and transcode to WAV with album art omitted, than copy and transcode to FLAC, then add a lower resolution copy of the album art on the FLAC copies with mp3tag. What annoys me is that deleting the album art with mp3tg on the original file and then uploading a lower resolution one (without the pain of FLAC - WAV - flac) is NOT working! I have managed to get access to the config file of the twonky server on the NAS but did not find a setting that could solve this issue. On the twonky forum there are some suggestions of tampering witht the xml files corresponding to the streaming clients. I may explore that option too.

Posted on: 25 October 2014 by Mac User

Hello again DrPo

 

As it is not clear what versions of anything you are using, here is some general advice about Twonky as this is the second time you have posted about this issue and are still having grief...

 

Twonky has always used folder images and has always had an issue with embedded files of the wrong physical size (not resolution). From your comment on not having the root password I am assuming this is a linux based NAS? This is a case sensitive OS. Folder images are therefore required to be Folder.jpg. Any changes to the structure of files will require a Rebuild of the database to be recognised unless you have access to the OS and can delete the cache, in which case a Rescan would probably suffice.

 

IF you are using WAV files with Twonky do not use mp3tag unless it now supports LIST tags, not the ID3 tags. Twonky is configured by a web page usually at port 9000 with no need for root access.

 

IF you have corrupted FLAC files and wish to try some of the above, use dbpoweramp to 'Convert to' then select 'FLAC' in the pop-up utility (even though the source is FLAC) to overwrite the files with a freshly tagged one and see how you get on...

 

Good Luck

Posted on: 26 October 2014 by DrPo
Originally Posted by Mac User:

Hello again DrPo

 

As it is not clear what versions of anything you are using, here is some general advice about Twonky as this is the second time you have posted about this issue and are still having grief...

 

Twonky has always used folder images and has always had an issue with embedded files of the wrong physical size (not resolution). From your comment on not having the root password I am assuming this is a linux based NAS? This is a case sensitive OS. Folder images are therefore required to be Folder.jpg. Any changes to the structure of files will require a Rebuild of the database to be recognised unless you have access to the OS and can delete the cache, in which case a Rescan would probably suffice.

 

IF you are using WAV files with Twonky do not use mp3tag unless it now supports LIST tags, not the ID3 tags. Twonky is configured by a web page usually at port 9000 with no need for root access.

 

IF you have corrupted FLAC files and wish to try some of the above, use dbpoweramp to 'Convert to' then select 'FLAC' in the pop-up utility (even though the source is FLAC) to overwrite the files with a freshly tagged one and see how you get on...

 

Good Luck

 

Hi Mac User,

 

many thanks for your response. You I are right, i have also posted in the past on Twonky. Your remarks are to the point. In fact I have managed during the last few days to finally nail down the twonky set up and am rearly happy it finally works. I do indeed run a Linux based NAS. The crucial step was to be able to access the 9000 port - which I could not. The reason? My NAS had defaulted the "webaccess" in the twonky config file to "no" so I first hand to realize this (useful posts in several places) had to install a shell access program, log on to the NAS, change user to "root", add "write/execute" permissions to the twonky configuration file, change the webaccess parameter and restart so as to be able to access the twonky web interface on http:/NAS-ip:9000.Then what did the trick to fix my album art problems (including finally getting excellent resolution!) was to change the receiver type of both my iPad and NDX to "NAIM streamer" (also "SONGBOOK DS" does the trick). I should write a detailed "how to" about this one day, as all the info can be found in several places but not all of it in one place. From the same page I can now clear the cache, rescan and restart the server which as you say is often necessary.

Posted on: 26 October 2014 by Bart

You must be a glutton for punishment, fussing around with Twonky for so long. 

Posted on: 27 October 2014 by DrPo
Originally Posted by Bart:

You must be a glutton for punishment, fussing around with Twonky for so long. 


the really strange thing is that once it works you tend to forget the missery felt until you got there. Now signing up for the beta app, that will be another adventure :-)

Posted on: 27 October 2014 by Mac User

Really glad you've made progress, Twonky is actually quite good once you play by it's rules!