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Posted By: artie505 Mysterious images in Music - 02/20/20 08:09 AM
These two images have invaded my Music "library." (This goes back any number of macOS and possibly even OS X versions, but it's only now bothering me.)

I've searched, but I"ve still got no idea from where they came, how I got them, where they're stored, or how to get rid of them.

Has anybody got a clue?

Thanks.
Posted By: joemikeb Re: Mysterious images in Music - 02/20/20 04:40 PM
Depends on what you want to accomplish:
  • To get rid of the artist altogether Right click on the artist name then select "Delete from Library" from the drop down list. (this will also delete any tunes associated with the artist
  • To change the artist's image Get Info on the image in Artists then select the "Artwork" tab and insert whatever image you want for the Artist. NOTE: You can change the artwork associated with album in the same manner by selecting the album instead of the artist.
The artist and album art is stored in user's Music Library.
Posted By: artie505 Re: Mysterious images in Music - 02/20/20 05:14 PM
Originally Posted By: joemikeb
To change the artist's image Get Info on the image in Artists then select the "Artwork" tab and insert whatever image you want for the Artist. NOTE: You can change the artwork associated with album in the same manner by selecting the album instead of the artist.

Thanks.

I wasn't explicit there: The artists are part of my library; it's those obnoxious images that I want to get rid of.

Nope, that doesn't work; the Get Info you've suggested doesn't affect the artist's image...neither shows the current one nor offers a "Reset Default" option, and specifically refers to album artwork.

I wonder if those images are stored in one of the databases in Music Library.musiclibrary?
Posted By: joemikeb Re: Mysterious images in Music - 02/20/20 06:10 PM
Originally Posted By: artie505
I wonder if those images are stored in one of the databases in Music Library.musiclibrary?

Almost certainly they are in one of the databases incorporated into the Music Library.musiclibrary package. I found the Belini image in Apple's Music library. I know that at one time Apple used a third party source for the album artwork and when there were multiple options simply selected the first one on the list. I haven't looked at every image in my artists list but as far as I can tell the artist image is either the entire album cover or a clip from the cover which is why I suggested changing the album cover.
Posted By: artie505 Re: Mysterious images in Music - 02/21/20 07:35 AM
The screenshot I posted is of the ONLY artwork ANYWHERE in my ENTIRE Music installation...two libraries...no album covers, no nothing else.

These are the images I should have (more or less), so I suppose it's possible that iTunes (The issue precedes Music.) grabbed the first images it found, but I'm still at a loss as to when, where, how, why only those two, and, most importantly, where they live.

I booted into another volume and trashed the obvious victims in ~/Music/Music/Music Library.musiclibrary/Contents
  • Extras.itdb
  • Genius.itdb
  • and Preferences.plist
leaving
  • Application.musicdb
  • Library Preferences.musicdb
  • and Library.musicdb
intact, because they're more recent and sound more important,and I didn't want to mess with them over an inconsequental issue, but with no joy.

Update: Oh, well, I finally just trashed everything, one at a time, and found that those images somehow lived in Library.musicdb. They're now gone, and I've got to reconfigure my Music window...GIANT PIA!

Thanks for your help.
Posted By: ryck Re: Mysterious images in Music - 02/21/20 03:31 PM
Originally Posted By: artie505
The screenshot I posted is of the ONLY artwork ANYWHERE in my ENTIRE Music installation...two libraries...no album covers, no nothing else.

Just curious....why do you choose not to use album covers? Is there a functional reason?
Posted By: joemikeb Re: Mysterious images in Music - 02/21/20 04:08 PM
Originally Posted By: artie505
Update: Oh, well, I finally just trashed everything, one at a time, and found that those images somehow lived in Library.musicdb. They're now gone, and I've got to reconfigure my Music window...GIANT PIA!

Huh, so you couldn't take my guess about it 🙎🏻‍♂️(that emoji is a "man pouting") 😊

FWIW I just checked and verified the Music folder is included in Time Machine backups so it is recoverable and you wouldn't necessarily need to reconfigure your Music window.
Posted By: artie505 Re: Mysterious images in Music - 02/21/20 05:06 PM
Originally Posted By: joemikeb
Originally Posted By: artie505
Update: Oh, well, I finally just trashed everything, one at a time, and found that those images somehow lived in Library.musicdb. They're now gone, and I've got to reconfigure my Music window...GIANT PIA!

Huh, so you couldn't take my guess about it 🙎🏻‍♂️(that emoji is a "man pouting") 😊

You didn't guess about anything; you confirmed in Ira's thread that the problem lived somewhere in Music Library.musiclibrary, but not precisely where, so I took a quick first look, threw in the towel, and then decided to go for broke.

Originally Posted By: joemikeb
FWIW I just checked and verified the Music folder is included in Time Machine backups so it is recoverable and you wouldn't necessarily need to reconfigure your Music window.

To which Music folder are you referring?

I backed up the contents of Music Library.musiclibrary before trashing them, but the only way I could get rid of the images was by trashing whatever contained the window settings. (Restoring them wasn't as big a PIA as I imagined it would be, but going back to reset things that were set, literally, YEARS ago is always a daunting task.)
Posted By: artie505 Re: Mysterious images in Music - 02/21/20 05:13 PM
Originally Posted By: ryck
Originally Posted By: artie505
The screenshot I posted is of the ONLY artwork ANYWHERE in my ENTIRE Music installation...two libraries...no album covers, no nothing else.

Just curious....why do you choose not to use album covers? Is there a functional reason?

Virtually all of my music comes from vinyl rips, WQXR radio, and the Internet and is in formats that probably can't be traced back to the originals, and I don't really care about album art, so I never even tried to find it.

More: But since you asked, I tried "Get Album Artwork," and, indeed, it didn't find a single item, not even one which I imported from a CD myself...probably because I changed its formatting.
Posted By: artie505 Re: Mysterious images in Music - 03/21/20 10:52 PM
And after all I went through to get rid of them, those same images were back last night when I happened to take a look. frown

I'd love to now how and why they get there.
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