Okay. I’m having a pretty specific problem, and I’m not sure how to fix it.
I have a music library up on Plex. All the music is tagged and has album art attached. The library used personal media artists for metadata, but because I didn’t want to go in and type up things like artist bios and related artist lists, I have started going through as I listen and matching artists to the last.fm metadata.
When I do, the artist metadata comes through fine, but the album metadata almost always changes the album art to a cover for an entirely different album from an entirely different artist. When I go in to fix it, there’s a huge list of possible album covers in the drag and drop list. The first one in the list is the incorrect one that keeps being changed out for the correct one. The actual correct one is sometimes at the end of the long list, but often just stuck in the middle somewhere, which means I’m spending a lot of time scrolling through looking for the correct album cover.
Is there any way to remove things from the drag and drop list? I don’t know why it’s populated with all these pictures, but it’s making this whole process take ages and it’s very frustrating. I tried emptying the trash and cleaning the bundles, but neither worked.
@Meithas said:
Okay. I’m having a pretty specific problem, and I’m not sure how to fix it.
I have a music library up on Plex. All the music is tagged and has album art attached. The library used personal media artists for metadata, but because I didn’t want to go in and type up things like artist bios and related artist lists, I have started going through as I listen and matching artists to the last.fm metadata.
When I do, the artist metadata comes through fine, but the album metadata almost always changes the album art to a cover for an entirely different album from an entirely different artist. When I go in to fix it, there’s a huge list of possible album covers in the drag and drop list. The first one in the list is the incorrect one that keeps being changed out for the correct one. The actual correct one is sometimes at the end of the long list, but often just stuck in the middle somewhere, which means I’m spending a lot of time scrolling through looking for the correct album cover.
Is there any way to remove things from the drag and drop list? I don’t know why it’s populated with all these pictures, but it’s making this whole process take ages and it’s very frustrating. I tried emptying the trash and cleaning the bundles, but neither worked.
Plex dance the offending file
@Gdr56 said:
Plex dance the offending file
I have no idea what this means.
ETA : Do you mean the thing where you move the file and update Plex and then move the file back? Because that would end up meaning I just delete my entire music library and start over. I’m having this album art replacement problem with almost every album.
ETA 2 : Also that would mean having to remake every playlist and manually add metadata to all the artists that aren’t in last.fm again. 
I don’t mean to sound like I’m angry about your answer, I’m just unhappy if the answer is “either go through hours of extra work redoing album art as you go or delete your entire music library and lose all the work you already did”.
@Meithas said:
@Gdr56 said:
Plex dance the offending fileI have no idea what this means.
ETA : Do you mean the thing where you move the file and update Plex and then move the file back? Because that would end up meaning I just delete my entire music library and start over. I’m having this album art replacement problem with almost every album.
ETA 2 : Also that would mean having to remake every playlist and manually add metadata to all the artists that aren’t in last.fm again.
So i gather you source you music from itunes.Yes that a problem. I have my music split up in Flac / separate folder and AAC from itunes. Flac files generally have no issues. Once sorted out there great, better sound from my receiver a real benefit anyway.
Have you tried moving Itunes media sub folder that is causing the issue/ Plex dance.
Example: Red Hot Chilli peppers Album. Not the whole collection
Music/itunes/itunes media/music/ “album with issues”
@Gdr56 said:
So i gather you source you music from itunes.Yes that a problem. I have my music split up in Flac / separate folder and AAC from itunes. Flac files generally have no issues. Once sorted out there great, better sound from my receiver a real benefit anyway.
I don’t, actually. I avoid itunes like the plague. I just have folders, on a hard drive, broken down by artist and then album. (Also, not sure that it matters, but some of my music is in flac. I can’t tell the difference between it and mp3s, so I don’t usually waste the hard drive space on the fancier format.)
Have you tried moving Itunes media sub folder that is causing the issue/ Plex dance.
Example: Red Hot Chilli peppers Album. Not the whole collection
Music/itunes/itunes media/music/ “album with issues”
I don’t really understand this direction. It’s not just one album with a problem, it’s most of the albums in the entire library. Genuinely, this is not a case where it’s just one album every so often. It’s almost everything. Unless you mean I should remove the albums whose album art is showing up in the drag and drop options?
@Meithas said:
@Gdr56 said:
So i gather you source you music from itunes.Yes that a problem. I have my music split up in Flac / separate folder and AAC from itunes. Flac files generally have no issues. Once sorted out there great, better sound from my receiver a real benefit anyway.I don’t, actually. I avoid itunes like the plague. I just have folders, on a hard drive, broken down by artist and then album. (Also, not sure that it matters, but some of my music is in flac. I can’t tell the difference between it and mp3s, so I don’t usually waste the hard drive space on the fancier format.)
Have you tried moving Itunes media sub folder that is causing the issue/ Plex dance.
Example: Red Hot Chilli peppers Album. Not the whole collection
Music/itunes/itunes media/music/ “album with issues”I don’t really understand this direction. It’s not just one album with a problem, it’s most of the albums in the entire library. Genuinely, this is not a case where it’s just one album every so often. It’s almost everything. Unless you mean I should remove the albums whose album art is showing up in the drag and drop options?
Without detail information, it is very hard to assist when you return with different detail. Have you Right Clicked on your itunes artwork/ Get info/edit items and make sure your data is correct before importing. Complication~year~disc~artwork~artist.
Are you selecting in Plex by album or Artist, the artwork will be different. Next to top of library selection window.
What detailed information, exactly, do you want? I do not know what details you think have changed somehow.
@Meithas said:
What detailed information, exactly, do you want? I do not know what details you think have changed somehow.
What OS?
What plex media server version?
Is this itunes related?
We don’t know what you had previously?
we don’t know what you have now?
Screen shots would helpful. Answering questions also helpful. Unfortunately we are not mind readers but willing to help.
I deleted the library and recreated it. When I went in to start fixing some incorrect artist metadata, the same problem showed up again, right down to the same incorrect album art populating to everything. I have no idea what the problem is, exactly, but I’m just resigned to it at this point.
@Meithas said:
You can stop trying to help. I deleted the library.
Ok, you solved your problem
Yeah, let’s call it that.
If you want to take another shot at this, it sounds to me like you don’t quite have Plex completely set up to prefer embedded metadata. Follow these steps and see if it makes a difference. It should allow your library to use your local artwork and embedded ID3 tags, but still draw artist bio info from the web. Essentially, when configured this way, Plex will use local images/tags where possible, and draw from the web only when local info is missing.
There is also a link in that thread to a post that explains the “Plex Dance.”
Hope that helps.
Oh, this may not remove the wrong images from the Poster/Background selection screen, but it shouldn’t change your selections.
Turns out it was due to rogue album art files hidden in directories (root and otherwise) overriding everything else.
