Thanks for the clarification Otto!
I’m sure you’ve done this, but just in case. On top of preferring local metadate, make sure you have the local cover art selected on this drop down:
Otto will correct me if that doesn’t make a difference, but I’ve been using it. 
As I said above, I have my art both sidecar and in the metadata and haven’t been having issues.
Russ, I’m pretty sure I did change that Album Art setting to local only. I’m away from home until Saturday and will verify when I get back. Otto, Windows Media Player was never used, and I checked the folder for embedded album art metadata, if that’s what you mean by hidden graphics, none. But I didn’t do that using “edit” in Plex, I’ll try that.
I’m also getting weirdness with one or more boxed sets. Should I ask about that here or start a new thread? I’m not trying to hijack this one.
No, I mean actual “Hidden” files. On Windows you can put a “hidden” flag onto files and folders, so that they don’t appear in a file explorer and “Open file…” dialogs.
To see them, you will have to explicitly enable the display of hidden files via a checkbox in the properties of the windows file explorer.
Otto and Russ-
I’ll keep this as brief as possible.
I did change my Windows settings to view hidden files, there were none.
In advanced editing options, I did have “local files only” selected for album art.
Using this one album only for the purpose of the experiment, I did the “Plex Dance.” That did not fix the erroneous album cover. (With use local only selected, why?)
Using Otto’s suggestion to use Plex to edit the album, my art was under poster. Selecting it there fixed the problem.
Having said that, I don’t think this is a solution–I have too many problems to fix this way. The easiest way would be to delete my entire library and do the Plex Dance–but that didn’t work. Thus, I’d really like to know why that didn’t work.
Another, related, problem, which is on the topic of this thread–compilations. I have a lot of them, and the way I’ve handled them for years using LMS and OrangeSqueeze is this. If, for example, it’s a tribute album like “Nod to Bob,” I have changed the Album Artist tag from “various artists” to “Bob Dylan,” and unchecked the compilation flag. When I want to play it (LMS), instead of scrolling through dozens of albums under Various Artists, I can simply go to Bob Dylan and see it there.
Using Plex, however, it does not appear under Dylan, it is listed under Various Artists. What is it about Plex that is not recognizing this as a Dylan album and instead considering it as a Various Artists? It seems to me this might be related to my cover art issue, i.e., Plex is not recognizing my choice to use local metadata.
Plex doesn’t read the compilation flag at all.
You must take the whole folder with this album and move it out of the “Various Artists” folder, and into the “Bob Dylan” folder.
Make double sure that the “Album Artist” meta tag of all tracks has been set to Bob Dylan.
Otto, thanks again for trying to help me get this figured out. I knew from reading this thread that Plex doesn’t make any use of the compilation flag but mentioned it in the interest of completeness.
The album is in the Bob Dylan folder, before I rip I change the “Album Artist” tag which causes it to go there.
Here is a screen print showing the tags for one track on the CD. Every track has its own artist, but the meta tag “Album Artist” for each track is Bob Dylan, again because of editing that tag before starting the rip.
I forgot to ask:
In the properties of the library, do you have
“Prefer local meta tags” enabled or disabled?
If you want to use metadata which deviate from what’s on Musicbrainz.org, you definitely need this to be active.
I have prefer local selected, and after doing that, I refreshed all metadata.
Otto, any other thoughts?
None, except:
Perform the Plex dance with this particular album.
Are you using the “Plex music” metadata agent as default in this library?
I just changed the agent from “Plex music” to personal/local (whatever that option is called) and did a refresh all metadata, that didn’t fix anything. I have several new CDs I’m going to rip to my library this weekend. After that, I think I’ll try doing the Plex dance on my entire library. If that doesn’t fix the issues I’m having I guess it will be back to Logitech Media Server until it gives its last gasp.
Any updates from Plex on following publisher intent and recognizing the Compilation flag again?
All of my problems would be solved by being able to lock the ALBUM ARTIST tag. Just went through unmatching a bunch of various artists albums for I think the 4th time to get them to display like I like instead of being lumped together.
Yes, this has been a real PITA for me as well.
So after fixing everything, at some point this week it clumped a bunch together again despite me saving the albums with customer ALBUM ARTIST tags and leaving the artists saved as unmatched. This time everything grouped under my previously unmatched and saved group NUGGETS, so I’m at a loss. Since I’ve been redoing my library after a previous update I’ll wait until I’ve done loading everything before trying to fix this again for the fifth or sixth time.
I give up with this nonsense. Let us override the crappy VARIOUS ARTISTS forced grouping!
Version 1.27.0.5897 completely erases all of the Track Artists with the Album Artist when you follow @OttoKerner 's suggestion to set the Album Artist to “Various Artists”. 
Compilation Import is still broke in 1.27.2.
bump
Still an issue.
bump
