Does iTunes lose your artwork?
With the release of the latest iPod nano, classic and the all new touch – all of which have the Cover Flow feature from iTunes – it’s clear that Apple are keen to make artwork a popular means of browsing your music libraries. Just one friggin’ problem – iTunes randomly loses your artwork.
Take The Sex Pistols – Never Mind The Bollocks Here’s The Sex Pistols. I know for a fact that I downloaded the artwork for this album. Imagine my surprise frustration when I loaded it up to find it missing.
This isn’t actually the first time this has occured. It’s happening on a regular basis, with the iTunes updates having no effect whatsoever.
When I first got my iPod classic, I went through the tediously long procedure of finding the artwork for as many albums as a could (no iTunes account = no downloading artwork from Apple) and applying them. This should be a task that any iPod owner only has to endure once. Clearly iTunes has other ideas.
So, I’m interested to know if there are many other people out their with lost artwork. Are there any fixes for this bug? Is this a problem across both Windows and OS X? Comment me.
I have the same problem and I know exactly what you mean by “finding the artwork for as many albums as a could (no iTunes account = no downloading artwork from Apple) and applying them. This should be a task that any iPod owner only has to endure once.”
If you ever find any solution to this problem, please send it to me !
Jonathan Houle
March 11, 2008 at 1:45 am
I’m going through the same thing. I noticed a few albums here and there that didn’t have the artwork anymore. Today I started going through all of my albums – not an easy task – and I’m finding a LOT of albums that no longer have the artwork.
When I updated iTunes a few weeks ago, I noticed that it “updated” over 1,000 of my tracks. I wonder if that update involved removing artwork.
Andrew
March 29, 2008 at 2:48 pm
My album artwork randomly disappears too.
Asad
May 27, 2008 at 2:47 am
“I wonder if that update involved removing artwork”
It doesn’t appear to, I have lost artwork as well, however Windows media player will still show the artwork.
I am hoping that Apple fix the bug and all will be OK.
I spent ages scanning CD Covers and saving them into the file and don’t want to go through all that again
Michael
May 31, 2008 at 2:08 am
I’ve bought my first Ipod (32Gb touch). I’ve used a Creative Zen but this is my 1st ipod. It copied across my music without a problem but it didn’t automatically find lots of artwork. I asked in the shop and they said do it manually………….I did and they keep disappearing. I mean sometimes it’s there and then it’s gone. Even if it shows in the info on the PC, it’s not copying over to the ipod. Hours wasted. Any ideas would be appreciated?
Celia
August 26, 2008 at 9:22 pm
Well, add another one to your list. I add the artwork into my library (usually from Wikipedia, Amazon, or random Google, etc.), sync my iPod with my library, and after a few days it disappears. This also includes artwork from songs bought on iTunes that is disappearing.
It’s not life or death, but it sure is annoying.
Vicky
October 27, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Well I had all my CD collection in itunes with only 5 missing covers out of 567 now after the latest update I have 220 missing I am not happy
not only did itunes lose it but Media Monkey no longer has them did the update delete them !!!!!!
Paul Jakes
November 7, 2008 at 11:30 am
I just moved my itunes 8 to a new machine, and most of my artwork is gone.
I spent over 10 hours building artwork for my 7000+ song library, and I am very angry right now.
Louis C
January 19, 2009 at 7:21 pm
I just discovered that almost ALL of my pop album artwork is missing after spending days locating and matching them up with original single and album covers. Most I can find in folders somewhere but it will take me many days to rebuild. I am absolutely furious! How did this happen? WHY? There is very little information out there about this and no one has any real answers. Does Apple know about this problem? I have over fifteen thousand songs and most all of them have lost art including some custom stuff. Jesus, is this maddening.
Andre K
February 21, 2009 at 9:10 am
Similar frustrating problem, Album artwork disappearing from my new 16G iPod Nano, though I seem to see it iTunes. Went so far as to wipe out the iPod, un-installed and re-install iTunes, re-import all my music, re-locate any missing artwork, verify all the MP3 tags, and do a first-time sync again. I then had albums with artwork in normal play mode, but not present in album flow. And of course, a couple albums that show in iTunes, but are missing on the iPod. Very frustrating.
Mario
February 24, 2009 at 4:06 am
I, too, am an iTunes user with over 7000 songs in his library. I have had an 5G iPod for the past two or three years, and meticulously added album artwork to each song every time I added them to my library. Never had a problem.
Impressed with the Coverflow function of the new gens when they first launched, seeing as my hard work in procuring artwork would finally show up in a pretty display (haha), I got an iPhone 3G back in December 2008. I really enjoyed having all my album artwork on the big display, until iTunes decided to start deleting my artwork for me about a week ago. The annoying thing is, the deletes seem random, so I’m still stumbling across the dreaded “Drag Album Artwork Here” blank square here and there. Tried the iTunes function, “Get Album Artwork”, but it still misses quite a few files (or does iTunes continue to delete artwork after I’ve gotten them?) and now I also have some mismatched artwork.
I know it’s really nitpicky, but I think people above will agree that when you’ve spent so much time in organizing your music library, it is very frustrating to have it all put into disarray seemingly at random and without a proper reprieve. I’m surprised from my Google searches for a solution that this problem has been around for a while (I guess since the new machines came out) but it hasn’t been resolved.
Calvin
March 7, 2009 at 6:46 pm
UGH. There seems to be no solution to this. I have a 4Gen Nano and my the iTunes God on my computer has decided to just pluck off my artworks randomly. And it keeps happening! It’s annoying, flipping though songs on my iPod, that I know once had artwork and seeing that annoying little music note. My friend think that Apple is trying to take over the world and I’m starting to believe him. Since I’m not buying my music from Apple, they’re going to randomly screw with my music and artwork. I’m quite ticked off, really.
Demi
March 15, 2009 at 9:59 am
Yup, me too… And I also notice it is putting in about a line-and-a-half of text in the Comment field found at Get Info+Info+Comments. Here’s a small sample: “00000000 00000210 00000A2C”
The most recent one is from a Blue Note CD I bought at Starbucks and scanned the coffee manually.
Jonnie
March 16, 2009 at 12:46 am
itunes has a feedback option under the itunes tab, everyone should file a report to get them to address the problem
josh
March 17, 2009 at 7:58 am
I’ve had the same problem with artwork dissapearing. For me it happens on a couple of songs from an album, and they all seem to be artists near the beginning of the alphabet. I also had the comments appear with random numbers as mentioned before, and the track numbers are altered. Instead of being ‘1 of 9′ it just says ‘1′. Being a meticulous iTunes user it is incredibly frustrating.
geoff
April 16, 2009 at 2:08 am
i’m glad to see i’m not the only one, this has resulted in pulled out hair for many years. Try tune up ap is a bit messy but actually embeds the artwork in the mp3 file good luck
Hildabum
April 17, 2009 at 9:42 am
this is happening to me…I have 7000 songs and I am getting screwed up art on tons of my stuff…missing or black…sob!
MaidenCanada
April 19, 2009 at 7:02 am
i was starting to wonder if i was the only one. this happens only on my PC with itunes, not my macbook (yet).
its absolutely frustrating that on my already slow computer it takes me about a minute or 2 for every single album to go to amazon and get the clearest album cover. i’ve been using itunes for about 3 years with no problems, but suddenly this month i start noticing that my album artwork is deleting itself. i can actually see it say if im looking at an album, and i can see the next album cover. as soon as i scroll to it, or select it, it f*cking deletes.
this only frustrates me cause ive spent sooo much friggin time getting the right album covers, now they are all systematically deleting themselves.
B.S.!
sean
April 23, 2009 at 4:27 am
also:
i was under the impression that itunes embeds the artwork into the MP3, cause when i take MP3’s directly out of whatever folder they’re in (after i’ve manually applied artwork), stick them onto my flash drive and transfer them onto another computer, the artwork i chose is still there. so if it’s embedded in the MP3 i don’t see how this is happening.
sean
April 23, 2009 at 4:31 am
Sean,
I have the exact same problem. The artwork is there, I click on the song and Poof, album artwork dissapears, along with the track “out of” and a random string of characters in the comments section.
Does anyone think this may be a computer Virus?
john
June 9, 2009 at 10:30 pm
Is this a new problem? it only started with me a couple weeks ago. First an album cover here or there and now suddenly there’s so many disappeared that I daren’t even count!
Sam
June 10, 2009 at 8:17 pm
This is a fucking joke and Apple need to get to the bottom of this issue.
Timmy
June 11, 2009 at 9:03 pm
This is nothing new, all the above comments are very true. This has been a problem for the last couple of years, No one has any real answer, it seems to be just a random bug. I notice it more with albums that I’ve added in the past 3~ months or so, but its still random on albums that have been in my library for years as well.
Stephen
June 19, 2009 at 6:48 am
I just plugged my ipod in, it told me it was trying to ‘authenticate’ my ipod. When it had finished, I unconnected it, and POOF, all the album artwork had gone. That’s over 18,000 songs worth of organised chaos. I am on a new computer, but I have been using it for over 3 months now, and this is the first time something has happened. What the?????
Amanda
July 14, 2009 at 7:28 am
Ijust had the same problem, just start itunes and many of my cover are gone, i notice that if y play the first song of the album ( it ave to be the first song) the cover comes back…. dont know if its a bug o what… but playing the first song brings back the cover
Johny Soldier
July 15, 2009 at 5:27 am
i must have my cover art and every couple of months, i update cover art for music that i might have missed. I know for a FACT that i had applied artwork to my U2, and other CD covers. and i come back and find them GONE! wth???
and this certainly was not the first time
tobi
July 22, 2009 at 12:04 am
OK, I might have found a solution!
- Open iTunes and select all songs
- Locate your iTunes Music folder
- there should be a folder in there named ‘Album Artwork’
- drag the entire folder into iTunes.
Presto!
Jerome
August 7, 2009 at 10:02 am
Okay Jerome, I tried that and it didn’t work. It added ITC files and it didn’t work.
This problem is TOO frustrating. I’ve spent days, months of my life over the past 4 years, building album artwork, finding the right ones, using my iTunes account for those that I could get, and working hard for the others. Hell, I even edit the track numbers, CD numbers, album artist, artist, album, etc.
And when I thought I was done, no. Again, it’s erased my recent work, and even some of the songs I’ve had artwork on for years have now disappeared. I have nowhere else to turn, and it now I know I’m not alone. Apple MUST address this problem, seriously this is complete BS. How could the world’s most popular digital music player be this horrible with something like artwork?
After reading your guys responses, I might try the whole convert ID3 tags thing. But you guys said it doesn’t work, right?
I really don’t know what to do anymore! On my iPod and iPhone the artwork, track numbers and all that is fine. When I add it, it’s fine. Next time I boot up iTunes, or the next couple of times, it’s not fine, and I don’t want to automatically sync both my iPod or iPhone because then they’ll lose my information. Please, any help, any new developments, put them on this article so we could all see if it will work for us. This is IMMENSELY FRUSTRATING.
Eddie
August 9, 2009 at 11:59 pm
Same story, 6500 songs/500 albums, all perfectly labeled with the best quality covers. I have been on the phone with the Apple support people and they act like they haven’t heard about this problem. I’ve re-loaded iTunes, created a new library,etc,etc,etc. Tried everything everyone else has- with no luck. Make no mistake- they are well aware of this issue and refuse to fix it. It’s disappointing to see a popular company like Apple take everyone for granted.
Jim
August 27, 2009 at 3:44 pm
ive the same problem too! not only my artwork disappeared, the track no. too! for eg. its supposed to be track 1 of 12, then the ‘12′ gone!
this is so annoying that i begin to save all the artwork/pictures into a folder and copy paste them back when they are gone. this is a temporary solution for me but this cannot go on.
i really think we should feedback this to apple and get them do something about it. ive decided to give them until the end of 2009 to solve this, if they are unable or didnt bother to solve this annoying crap, im not gonna use itunes anymore. im switching to windows media player since NO problem occured yet.
read this and do something steve jobs!
jos
September 10, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Same problem ! Artwork randomly gone…. Could not find a workaround…
Phil
September 10, 2009 at 10:33 pm
I wonder if setting the files to “read only” after adding the artwork would work to solve the problem? Obviouly not an option if your hard drive isn’t formatted as NTFS for Windows, or you’re using a Mac.
By the way, I had this problem over 4 years ago. I didn’t seem to be an issue when I was using a Mac to manage my music.
Jonathan
September 13, 2009 at 8:31 pm
This problem is also happening to me. I hate every time my album arts disappeared while I was editing tags of my MP3s in iPod.
Ivan
October 11, 2009 at 7:10 am
Just spent 6 hours reloading about 756 songs that lost their artwork after an upgrade. Most of which are album covers that weren’t part of the ITunes library. Pain in the ass. Sure wish Apple would get their act together. Makes the hobby frustrating.
Tim
November 7, 2009 at 4:35 am