FLAC Embedded Album Covers

[rb0135]

Hi All,

First timer using Moode, coming from Rune which I've used for a year or more, but, with no updates from them for over a year, I am moving on to a more reliable distribution :-)

I have installed the lastest MoodeAudio on a Raspberry PI 3 (with HiFiBerry Digi+) and it is working great.

However, I am having issues with the embedded Album cover art for "some" not all of my Flac files (MP3 embedded covers all seem to work, all tagged with ID3V2.3).

I don't have directories for each Album with cover art. I just have one directory with an assortment of songs, all with embedded covers.

I thought I discovered that Flac files with ID3V2 specific tags was causing Moode to have issues pulling out the embedded Album cover, however, although that seems to be 100% right, there are some other Flac files that aren't V2 tagged that also Moode doesn't show the cover. The Cover that is shown is from the first Flac file.

Dare I say it, but Rune didn't have an issue with these files (but as mentioned, I want to move away from Rune due to lack of updates, as well as their narky support when asking a question).

I thought it might be the size of the cover art, but I have a few Flac files that have a 1500x1500 embedded image and it displays fine.

So, I'm just wondering is there anything I can look at to see why Moode cant pull out the embedded cover art (Logs, etc)?

Thanks for any suggestions.

Thanks,
Rob

[Tim Curtis]

Post the output from this command

grep define /var/www/coverart.php

-Tim

[rb0135]

Post the output from this command

grep define /var/www/coverart.php

-Tim

Hi Tim,

Thanks for your reply.

Ive issued the command and it came back with:

define('SEARCH_PRI', 0);

So, by looking at the code, it is set to get the embedded image.

Thanks,
Rob

[Tim Curtis]

Hi,

Yes, but if an embedded image can't be extracted from the given file, the code will fall back to looking for any other image, either embedded or file based, in the directory containing the song. For example if there are 3 files in the dir and only the first file has an embedded image that can successfully be extracted then when the 2nd and 3rd files are examined the fallback routines will start with the 1st file and since its image can be extracted its the image that gets displayed.

You can always zip up some files that exhibit the issue and send me a download link. I'll try and repro your issue.

-Tim

[rb0135]

Hi,

Yes, but if an embedded image can't be extracted from the given file, the code will fall back to looking for any other image, either embedded or file based, in the directory containing the song. For example if there are 3 files in the dir and only the first file has an embedded image that can successfully be extracted then when the 2nd and 3rd files are examined the fallback routines will start with the 1st file and since its image can be extracted its the image that gets displayed.

You can always zip up some files that exhibit the issue and send me a download link. I'll try and repro your issue.

-Tim

Ahh.. ok... that seems exactly what is happening, hence why the first file cover is shown.

So  am I right to presume the album cover loads when the song starts to play or when scanning the library, does the cover get cached? Just wondering would there be an error log somewhere when this extract occurs?

I will certainly zip up some files and provide you a link. 

Thanks again.
Rob

[Tim Curtis]

Hi Rob,

Correct, the cover is fetched when Play is initiated. There is no cover caching during database scan because the live fetch is fast and efficient, however my TODO list contains "Thumbnail cache" item which involves creating a Cover thumbnail cache as part of the database scan. The thumbnails would be used to display a Cover View panel.

-Tim

[rb0135]

Hi Rob,

Correct, the cover is fetched when Play is initiated. There is no cover caching during database scan because the live fetch is fast and efficient, however my TODO list contains "Thumbnail cache" item which involves creating a Cover thumbnail cache as part of the database scan. The thumbnails would be used to display a Cover View panel.

-Tim

Thanks Tim.

PM sent with a zip

Yes, I must admit it is very fast and efficient pulling out the Cover at the time of play (and I have a wireless connection pulling the files from the NAS).

Thanks,
Rob

[Tim Curtis]

Hi Rob,

I was able to repro the issue. Only the Doors embedded cover is displayed. I looked at the files with Mediainfo and did not see anything suspicious.

I don't have any other tools to analyze the files so maybe u can look at them with a tag editor and see if there is anything unusual with the embedded images.

-Tim

[kit1cat]

I have had a number of various problems with tagged images etc, the best solution I found was to delete all tag info and start again.

[TheOldPresbyope]

Hi Rob,

I was able to repro the issue. Only the Doors embedded cover is displayed. I looked at the files with Mediainfo and did not see anything suspicious.

I don't have any other tools to analyze the files so maybe u can look at them with a tag editor and see if there is anything unusual with the embedded images.

-Tim

Try VLC, my favorite Swiss-Army knife, available on most platforms. It should show the image in a media file if present.

FLAC is not MP3. See https://xiph.org/flac/index.html for a discussion of its format scheme.

Regards,
Kent