I carefully edit the metadata of a song. There is no album art. This is intentional.
I add it to Plex. Plex fetches its own album art. There is no option to unmatch. I cannot even remove the art manually because I have to change it to something else.
Somehow it leaves traces in the source file. I can see the incorrect (and very unflattering) artwork in the thumbnail and when I play my files with Windows Media Player.
I have no idea how to fix this because both MP3tag and iTunes tell me there is no album artwork associated with the file.
All I want to do is upload my files to Plex and not have the server mess with it.
I understand how Plex works. I have a separate library where this feature is helpful. However, when dealing with obscure songs and rarities, this feature doesnât work effectively.
Thatâs understandable. Iâm not asking for perfection. Just let me fix it manually. Thatâs all I ask.
And please donât mess with the source files. Some of these are the only copy in existence or otherwise difficult to obtain again.
Plex should realize that a lot of the people using Plex are coming to it for its ability to integrate user files. They should realize that oftentimes you cannot find an exact match for these files because they may not exist on the server.
Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. Iâm a paying user and I genuinely belive I shouldnât have to waste hours of my day trying to work around the appâs issues.
Plex does not edit source files for any type of media. It has no facility to do so it only adds or edits itâs own database.
Like TV where it matches at the show level not a particular episode, for music Plex matches against the Album not individual tracks.
To make sure it it matching against whatever is embedded first use make sure that is enabled in the libraries advanced settings. There is other good advice mentioned in this topic
they donât have the option to unmatch or is not working? for the thing playing if you click on the song title in the player at the bottom it should take you to whatever album it belongs to where you should be able to unmatch
I forgot to mention when you create a music library under advanced you can select to use Personal Media Artistwhich should only get embedded metadata if it is there. If you disable local media assets for Personal media artist and albums in the server agent settings it wonât get embedded metadata like artwork either.
I donât understand. The incorrect album cover appears when I open the file with WMP. I also see it in the icon thumbnail in Windows Explorer. This happened after uploading my files to Plex.
However, MP3tag and iTunes tell me there that there isnât any album cover associated with the file. So technically Plex hasnât done anything to alter the file. Fair enough. But itâs still annoying. So how do I fix this? How do I remove album art that isnât there?
And as for you suggestion Iâm not sure what you mean when you say WMP could be the culprit. I donât see any hidden files (Iâm assuming you want me to look in the same folder as the mp3 files).
Plex is not adding nor modifying album art in your files, nor in the album folder.
No, they only tell you that cover art is not embedded within the file.
They apparently donât tell you about folder.jpg or smallthumb.jpg etc files in the album folder.
These files are usually âhiddenâ and in some cases even marked as âsystemâ. And they are generated by WMP.
Please follow the link I have set for you to check for such hidden âsidecarâ cover art files.
There is no option to unmatch anywhere. However the artist artwork and album artwork (depending on the song or album) is incorrect and not originally associated with the file. This is the case for a few items, not all. For the most part, unmatching is an option and restores the file to normal.
I donât see anything about Personal Media Artist here. And let me get this straight - I should leave âuse embedded tagsâ checked, right? I believe thatâs how I got the unmatch option to start working.
Also, the server agents setting is confusing me. I donât fully understand what they are, but I believe theyâre the source for the metadata? What is âPersonal Media Artistsâ and what is âLocal Media Assetsâ? Maybe fully understanding would help me out and I can troubleshoot properly.
This is what my settings look like for artists and albums. How exactly should I order them (and why)? Iâve just been following screenshots in other threads while not actually understanding what Iâm doing. Either way, no combination of the order or checked boxes actually seems to change anything. So it would help if I knew what any of this was specifically.
Edit:
To clarify - these settings should by definition, ensure that Plex doesnât add mess with any of my files? Because that doesnât seem to work either, since I have to go and manually unmatch everything. If I have to go unmatch everything anyway, then what are these settings actually doing?
Secondly, whatever changes I make in the server agent settings - I assume they wonât take effect at all since my library is already scanned? Will it suffice to just rescan my library after changing my settings?
So in summary: If the purpose of the server agent settings is to ensure that Plex doesnât add any of its own stuff, then why is it not working? Am I misunderstanding their purpose, have the settings in the wrong order, or do I have to rescan my library properly? (Iâve tried pressing âscan library filesâ, ârefresh metadataâ and have tried moving my files to a different folder and then moving them back and then hitting âscan library filesâ. The only thing this does is make me have to unmatch everything again).
WMP generates them, but they can only be generated with the help of Plex, correct? My files were fine before Plex matched them incorrectly and somehow WMP or something else generated the sidecar cover art files.
And itâs not just sidecar cover art - they must have sidecar metadata of some sort too because when they are added to Plex, Iâm not even given an option to unmatch something like the artist artwork. Where would that information even be stored? Iâm thinking thatâs on Plexâs end. The file can only contain so much information, right? How can a song store the artwork for the ARTIST? Plex is generating sidecar metadata of some sort is my theory.
Thanks for the clarification. I sort of assumed that there were files associated WITH the mp3 file, not any actual changed WITHIN the file. When it says âroot of the TV show folderâ the equivalent in my case is my music folder? Like, just where that mp3 file is sitting? There are no hidden files there I can assure you.
It can, in theory. However, Plex is not reading this particular metatag.
From what you are describing, I assume that your default metadata agent for this library is still either âlast.fmâ or âPlex Musicâ. Edit your music library, go to the Advanced tab and set Agent to âPersonal Mediaâ.
If you donât have an Agent selector there, your library is a Premium music library, which you cannot completely switch to local assets only (which is what you are after, I presume). In this case you have to create a new library of the type âlast.fmâ where you switch the agent to âPersonal Mediaâ right from the start.
