Embedded artwork not showing up in Plex

[Isaiah_Weaver]

Server Version#: 1.31.2

My music doesn’t not show covers of the album in Plex, I have embedded images in the music files and want it to show that. How can I do this? The Use local assets option doesn’t seem to help.
Same thing for movies and shows, I want Plex to first pull from the file embedded artwork if it is there.

[beckfield]

This article talks about using local metadata in general, but it has a section related to artwork.

[HowTo] Configure Plex to use embedded metadata (music)

I answered a similar question the other day. I included a list of things that I thought might prevent Plex from picking up the correct image:
"Refresh Metadata" Does not pull album art from local media files - #2 by beckfield

[Isaiah_Weaver]

Thank you for your response. I have read both links you provided. I have tried both methods of adding the images and neither are working for me. Do you have any idea as to why the discrete method would not work?

[beckfield]

Seeing that you’re on a linux system, make sure the file permissions on the image files are the same as for the audio files. Other than that, if they’re named correctly, and in the right location, I don’t know what else might cause them to be missed.

[beckfield]

Any ad blockers running?

[Isaiah_Weaver]

The permissions are good and no ad blockers, thanks for the replies

[Isaiah_Weaver]

I’ve tried just about everything so I wonder if the issue runs deeper

[Isaiah_Weaver]

I’m following the conventions on this page: https://support.plex.tv/articles/200220717-local-media-assets-tv-shows/ and I’m not able to get any pictures to show up.

[OttoKerner]

The linked article is about TV shows, not about music.
I recommend to use cover.jpg as the file name for album art.
If you have “prefer local metadata” enabled, this file will be the first that appears in the album properties (it will also be the one that is automatically selected among several, if the album has been added new).
But you want to follow the folder structure laid out in https://support.plex.tv/articles/200265296-adding-music-media-from-folders/ if you want local media assets to work correctly.

[Isaiah_Weaver]

I have tried absolutely everything. Something must be wrong with my Plex

[ChuckPa]

I have one method of accomplishing custom photos.

Not the best picture to use but it’s clearly custom poster

1. Place “Poster.jpg” as “music-top-directoryArtist/Album/Poster.jpeg”

[chuck@lizum ~.2015]$ cp Pictures/XC60-1.jpeg /glock/media/music/Steely\ Dan/Aja/Poster.jpeg
[chuck@lizum ~.2016]$ ll /glock/media/music/Steely\ Dan/Aja/
total 70312
drwxr-xr-x  3 chuck chuck      279 Aug 20 01:32 ./
drwxr-xr-x 15 chuck chuck     4096 May  7  2017 ../
-rw-r--r--  1 chuck chuck  8742982 Jun 20  2016 01 - Black Cow.mp3
-rw-r--r--  1 chuck chuck 13881795 Jun 20  2016 02 - Aja.mp3
-rw-r--r--  1 chuck chuck 13556733 Jun 20  2016 03 - Deacon Blues.mp3
-rw-r--r--  1 chuck chuck  6968878 Jun 20  2016 04 - Peg.mp3
-rw-r--r--  1 chuck chuck 10001455 Jun 20  2016 05 - Home at Last.mp3
-rw-r--r--  1 chuck chuck  9013291 Jun 20  2016 06 - I Got the News.mp3
-rw-r--r--  1 chuck chuck  7815923 Jun 20  2016 07 - Josie.mp3
drwxr-xr-x  2 chuck chuck      231 May  7  2017 Artwork/
-rw-r--r--  1 chuck chuck   747221 Jan 11  2015 Folder.jpg
-rw-r--r--  1 chuck chuck  1247616 Aug 20 01:32 Poster.jpeg
[chuck@lizum ~.2017]$ 

2. Settings - Server - Agents - Artists - “local media assets” is top agent

3. Settings - Server - Agents - Albums - “local media assets” is top agent
   

   

4. Refresh metadata - Observe results

Original photo:

[Isaiah_Weaver]

Thank you very much for the response. I have tried what you’ve suggested with no success. I wonder if something is wrong with the metadata on the server. Anyone know of a way to clear all of that cached data to regenerate it?

[ChuckPa]

If the technique I gave you did not work:

1. Permission problems with the artwork file.
2. Database problems.

I would like to ask you recreate / attempt again to add the poster then Refresh Metadata.

If it still doesn’t get it,

Settings - Server - Troubleshooting - Download Logs

Attach the ZIP file it gives you and I will look for problems.

[Isaiah_Weaver]

Plex Media Server Logs_2023-08-21_20-32-12.zip (3.5 MB)

[ChuckPa]

Thank you.

I’m finding a lot of ‘Permission denied’ errors in your logs (metadata section)

If you run Plex in the default configuration:

• User: plex:plex
• Directory: /var/lib/plexmediaserver

then please do the following:

sudo chown -R plex:plex  /var/lib/plexmediaserver

(If not, then please change the values to match your configuration)

It will take some time to complete. It will forcibly set the files to all be owned by the Plex runtime user.

After it completes. “Refresh all metadata” for each library section.

Here is an example of the permission errors I’m finding.
Something has been poking around in your metadata and making errors.

Aug 21, 2023 17:27:00.639 [140052317657912] DEBUG - Activity: updated activity f585c736-5934-4f0f-b04a-ead81b9d7c76 - completed 93.4% - Detecting intros
Aug 21, 2023 17:27:00.640 [140052317657912] DEBUG - Activity: updated activity f585c736-5934-4f0f-b04a-ead81b9d7c76 - completed 93.4% - Detecting intros
Aug 21, 2023 17:27:00.641 [140052311329592] ERROR - Error creating directory "/var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Metadata/TV Shows/1/2a979e21a50dad83f0d86a66dbe19acc6d82d4a.bundle/Contents/_combined/posters": Permission denied
Aug 21, 2023 17:27:00.642 [140052317657912] DEBUG - Activity: updated activity f585c736-5934-4f0f-b04a-ead81b9d7c76 - completed 93.4% - Detecting intros
Aug 21, 2023 17:27:00.643 [140052317657912] DEBUG - Activity: updated activity f585c736-5934-4f0f-b04a-ead81b9d7c76 - completed 93.4% - Detecting intros

[Isaiah_Weaver]

Wow! I cannot thank you enough! I appreciate your time very much, this has solved all the problems I was having!

[ChuckPa]

All good and working again?

[Isaiah_Weaver]

Yes! It is working great! Thanks!