Add to playlist to be added to folder menu in browse view (was Album cover vs. embedded cover)

[Swimmer71]

What version of Music Assistant has the issue?

2.4.0rc8 (I think starting from rc2)

Have you tried everything in the Troubleshooting FAQ and reviewed the Open and Closed Issues and Discussions to resolve this yourself?

• Yes

The problem

From the discussion here:
https://github.com/orgs/music-assistant/discussions/3584#discussioncomment-12272421
I learned, that the album cover get priority over embedded cover, but the behavior is different:

Whenever the album ID3 tag is set, no embedded cover is shown at all, even if no album cover (cover.jpg) is available inside the folder. When I delete the album.jpg I expected to see the embedded covers.

In folder Music/Hits I have .mp3 with album tag "Hits" and cover.jpg
I play folder with music_assistant.play_media and media_id: filesystem_smb://folder/Music/Hits.
It shows me the cover.jpg for all songs.
When I delete cover.jpg --> no covers at all were shown
When I delete the album tag "Hits" --> embedded covers are shown (even tough I copy cover.jpg back)

So it seems, that the ID3 tag "album" determins if album or embedded cover is shown.

Wouldn't following behavior be better?:

If cover.jpg is available in folder --> show this for cover
If no cover.jpg available in folder --> show embedded covers (regardless wether ID3 tag album is empty or not)

OR (even better)
Introduce a "priority button" in settings for either embedded covers or for cover.jpg.

How to reproduce

I described above

Music Providers

local and SMB

Player Providers

I only have Chromecasts

Full log output

xxx

Additional information

I use minimediaplayer with MA-entity and UniversalMediaPlayer (UMP) entity with the MA-entity and AV-receiver combined, same behavior

What version of Home Assistant Core are your running

2025.2.5

What type of installation are you running?

Home Assistant OS

On what type of hardware are you running?

Alternative

[marcelveldt]

Where is it shown or not shown ? Can you please make screenshots ?
Also check the MA interface if its displayed there. We need to know exactly where its missing because currently I cant reproduce this issue. Album cover is only preferred if there is actually an album cover.

[Swimmer71]

OK, here more details.
Covers in MA and in Minimediaplayer are always displayed the same! So this works!
All my tracks have individual embedded covers!
I always want to play folders and not albums!

TEST1

So I have a folder Test1 which looks like:


"album" tag is empty
Just for testing I also put a cover.jpg into the folder.
Playing with "browse NAS folder...in MA" and with "music_assistant.play_media and media_id: filesystem_smb://folder/Test1" shows same result --> It shows the embedded covers inside MA and in Minimediaplayer
This is OK for me because I always want to see embedded covers (but I expected to see the cover.jpg as this is priority as I learned)

TEST2

My folder Test2 now has "album" tag filled with "Test2".


As long I have a cover.jpg inside the folder, it takes this one for all tracks --> this is the standard MA behavior as I learned.

But when I remove the cover.jpg (then I remove the album from library and start a rescan) I expected all embedded covers to be shown because of missing cover.jpg. Instead, it picked out one embedded cover (in this case it was from "Fly Away") and used this for all tracks.

[Swimmer71]

in other words:
als long as album tag is filled with something, it never shows embedded covers. It shows cover.jpg from album folder and if not available it picks up the cover from one song and uses this for all songs.
Better behavior: when cover.jpg is available --> use this and if not available --> use embedded

Playlist is simmilar:
All songs in PL with album tag shows the album cover, and all songs with empty album tag show embedded tags.
The PL itself has no cover (some releases ago I saw a PL cover with many tiny covers from the songs, but not any more)

[marcelveldt]

Either fill the album tag with the REAL album name or don't fill it al all. The fact that you set it to some random name like test on multiple files and also have a cover.jpg in the folder structure, messes everything up.

[Swimmer71]

I don't mess everything! Just for analysis and demonstration I made 2 small albums (Test1 and Test2).
Test1 has cover.jpg inside the folder, so this is what user maybe do normally.
Test2 has no cover.jpg but embedded covers: here one embedded cover is picked out for the whole album and embedded are NOT shown. This behavior is different since around end of beta or beginning of the RCs.

How can I see embedded covers when album tag ist set and no cover.jpg is in folder? This was possible in former releases!

[marcelveldt]

Please do not set "Test1" as album to multiple tracks. Just use the REAL album name or no album at all.
Because you set the fake "test 1" (or test 2 etc) as album on multiple tracks, the system links that as actual album to the tracks and attaches the first embedded cover as album cover.

So if you simply use the correct album name as tag, it will work

[marcelveldt]

Did you check if assigning an actual album per track solves the issue ?

[Swimmer71]

what do you exactly mean with this? ---------------------------------------- 26.02.2025 13:33:02 Marcel van der Veldt ***@***.***>:

…

*marcelveldt* left a comment (music-assistant/support#3606)[#3606 (comment)] Did you check if assigning an actual album per track solves the issue ? — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub[#3606 (comment)], or unsubscribe[https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/BD5NB36W3MAKPK5QH6UXW332RWX7ZAVCNFSM6AAAAABXVFW7YOVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDMOBUHAZDSNZQHA]. You are receiving this because you authored the thread.

[OzGav]

Marcel means properly tag these tracks with their actual album name. You are working against the usual practice of tagging tracks and having them in a folder by album but it should still work.

[Swimmer71]

Ok, here more details why I use the album tag. I have folders with some 100s of songs, which are organized with the genre tag. As MA doesn't use genre tag, I used the album tag to select those songs. But as the songs all have different artists they all have different embedded covers. And the situation here is, that once the album tag is filled, you will never see the embedded covers anymore. Ok, now you can say, the playlist exists for that reason. Yes, but when I change or add songs to the folder, I also manually have to add them also to the playlist. And there is no option to add a complete folder to playlist inside the ... menu, this is just possible for songs. So I don't say this is working wrong, but it worked with the album and individual covers some version before. But ok, it is what it is. Maybe Genre Tag will come one day, or adding a folder to a playlist will also make life easier 😜. But anyway thanks for the great work with MA👍😂

…

---------------------------------------- 26.02.2025 14:06:10 OzGav ***@***.***>:

*OzGav* left a comment (music-assistant/support#3606)[#3606 (comment)] Marcel means properly tag these tracks with their actual album name. You are working against the usual practice of tagging tracks and having them in a folder by album but it should still work. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub[#3606 (comment)], or unsubscribe[https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/BD5NB33CDCTNZDS5I4NEAUT2RW34BAVCNFSM6AAAAABXVFW7YOVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDMOBUHEYDKMJUGY]. You are receiving this because you authored the thread.

[marcelveldt]

So I don't say this is working wrong, but it worked with the album and individual covers some version before. But ok, it is what it is.

Well it worked before but that caused other bugs. So please use the album field for what it is intended. If you abuse it for something else, don't act surprised that the software will not accept that ;-)

Maybe Genre Tag will come one day

We already read genre tags and one of the next releases will bring sophisticated genre filterings, just a little bit more patient...

or adding a folder to a playlist will also make life easier

Actually, the backend already supports that. Later this week I'll check if I can add that quickly to the frontend. Shouldnt be too much work. For now, you can play folders, did you already discover that ?

[Swimmer71]

Thanks a lot So I will test genre as soon as available. And yes, playing folder works great, thats the biggest change for my use. I use it also with music_assistant.play_music and media_id: filesystem_smb://folder/..... ---------------------------------------- 26.02.2025 21:32:04 Marcel van der Veldt ***@***.***>:

…

*marcelveldt* left a comment (music-assistant/support#3606)[#3606 (comment)] So I don't say this is working wrong, but it worked with the album and individual covers some version before. But ok, it is what it is. Well it worked before but that caused other bugs. So please use the album field for what it is intended. If you abuse it for something else, don't act surprised that the software will not accept that ;-) Maybe Genre Tag will come one day We already read genre tags and one of the next releases will bring sophisticated genre filterings, just a little bit more patient... or adding a folder to a playlist will also make life easier Actually, the backend already supports that. Later this week I'll check if I can add that quickly to the frontend. Shouldnt be too much work. For now, you can play folders, did you already discover that ? — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub[#3606 (comment)], or unsubscribe[https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/BD5NB37FLJ3OTSP6SO3EUW32RYQEHAVCNFSM6AAAAABXVFW7YOVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDMOBWGEZDKOJWGQ]. You are receiving this because you authored the thread.