No Album Art in Xbox Music Windows Phone 8.1

[slyronit]

I have a lot of albums downloaded from iTunes (Yeah laugh, there's no Xbox music store in India).

ITunes downloads these as m4a files. I check using mp3tag and it confirms that there's a 600x600, album art embedded in each file. Windows media player, iTunes and Xbox music for Windows 8.1 can ask see the album art.

I sync these files to my Windows phone 8.1 using Windows media player, which converts the file to .wma. The Xbox music app on the phone doesn't see album art for most of them. Thinking that Windows media player removed the album art during conversion and sync, I copied the converted files from the phone back to the computer and mp3tag says that it still has the 600x600 album art.

I tried copying the .m4a files as it is from the PC to the phone, same results. The grey squares look so ugly and I don't feel like listening to music at all.

Any help?

P.S. I am not talking about the artist background image (which is fine)

 

[Ankit Nawlakha]

Thats a bug! Its been there since I first used Xbox Music On windows phone 8.1.
We can't do much about it! Except of one thing! Praying that Microsoft fix this bug in the next update!

 

[slyronit]

Thats a bug! Its been there since I first used Xbox Music On windows phone 8.1.
We can't do much about it! Except of one thing! Praying that Microsoft fix this bug in the next update!

Yes, the problem is not with the files. I can confirm that MixRadio sees the album art properly. Any way to reset the database of Xbox Music on the phone?

 

[alinauman97]

This can be fixed, assuming that the tags of your music files are same as the ones in the Xbox Music catalogue (and Xbox Music has the album(s) in the first place). On the screen of which's screenshot you have posted, scroll down to "xbox music store" and hit the button underneath it. Then select the album(s) from the list underneath, which you have on the phone (but doesn't show the album art). Then tap the 3 dots button on the bottom of the album's page and tap add to, then Collection. Wait for a few moments, then the album on your phone will show the album art. Might take more than one try. Worked for me every time. I hope it does for you too!

 

[slyronit]

This can be fixed, assuming that the tags of your music files are same as the ones in the Xbox Music catalogue (and Xbox Music has the album(s) in the first place). On the screen of which's screenshot you have posted, scroll down to "xbox music store" and hit the button underneath it. Then select the album(s) from the list underneath, which you have on the phone (but doesn't show the album art). Then tap the 3 dots button on the bottom of the album's page and tap add to, then Collection. Wait for a few moments, then the album on your phone will show the album art. Might take more than one try. Worked for me every time. I hope it does for you too!

Doesn't work for me (Read your post before starting this one). I don't have the patience to match the Tags for each album one by one.

Will use Mix Radio till MS fixes this.

 

[slyronit]

Well, it seems like the tags of some of my albums match, some don't. Wonder why the app can't use the album art already embedded in the files.

 

[slyronit]

It seems I have found an explanation (but not a solution) to this problem

1. My Lumia 720 has India as it's Xbox region. It displays the album art perfectly (They are embedded in the files, 600x600)

2. My Lumia 920 has USA as it's Xbox region. It does not display the album art correctly (grey square).



It seems like when the Xbox Music app sees that the region is a non Xbox Music store supported region (India), it uses the embedded Album art.



When the Xbox Music app sees that the region is a Xbox Music store supported region (USA), it tries to match the album to its online collection and when it fails, prefers to show no album art, rather than showing the embedded album art.




The workarounds seem to be

1. Change my Xbox region to India and lose music searches in Cortana, artist information and artist backgrounds
2. Manually edit the IDV3 tags of individual albums to match the album names to the ones on Xbox music

This sucks. I am willing to do neither of the above. Hope Microsoft fixes this going forward.

 

[aleks88h]

I don't really understand why Microsoft thinks it is better to display their artwork (from music store) when the user has already embedded their own. Surely this should only happen to music with no embedded album art.

 

[David P2]

Stupid thing is, I sync from Windows Media Player (and the WP app in Win8 when I can be bothered), yet Xbox Music still munches the album art. I've turned off all the streaming stuff as I don't use it too.

 

[slyronit]

More strange stuff. I finally lost my patience and factory erased the phone. Now it shows all album art properly. Meh.

At least Microsoft is updating the app at a regular pace.

 

[switch side method]

Guys guys guys... Please... Go to app store and download MPAtool (spell it like that too with caps on) it will download 90% of the artwork for you. For the rest you will have to add the artwork (google the image and save it) then add the rest on. I think i should get a few "likes" for that

 

[David P2]

The issue is it's deciding not to show it when it's present. MixRadio shows it happily. But XBM decides it doesn't want to. It's not that it's not there to be shown, it just isn't being shown when it is there.

 

[switch side method]

My mistake. I misread it. Personally i haven't experience that so i do apologise for no solution

 

[David P2]

No worries :smile:

 

[asharma13]

​Tired of re-syncing albums and deleting them again and again? :unhappysweat: MP3Tagging software, switching off streaming, hard-soft resetting, changing region solutions are not helpful anymore? :eck:

Checkout here is what I have find out to fix album art:
limitless • Fixing XBOX Music Album Art Problem

 

[Taanya]

:crying: :crying: :crying: :crying: I got windows 8.1 for my lumia 520. The newer update of music really looks dumb. The older one worked with MPA Tool and created a smart looking player and now it is a mess. Will it support the mpa tool later or the developers will work on it to make it a better one? :crying:

 

[Taanya]

I have the same problem. I am sick of thinking about it and finally thought of making up my mind that 'nothing is permanent'. But still this plagues me. :crying: I remember how nice was the music app which came with win.8. Even the MPA Tool is not compatible with the newer version. Staring at grey tiles makes my eyes hurt. :devil: Will it be okay?

 

[DaNnY BoOy]

I have a lot of albums downloaded from iTunes (Yeah laugh, there's no Xbox music store in India).

ITunes downloads these as m4a files. I check using mp3tag and it confirms that there's a 600x600, album art embedded in each file. Windows media player, iTunes and Xbox music for Windows 8.1 can ask see the album art.

I sync these files to my Windows phone 8.1 using Windows media player, which converts the file to .wma. The Xbox music app on the phone doesn't see album art for most of them. Thinking that Windows media player removed the album art during conversion and sync, I copied the converted files from the phone back to the computer and mp3tag says that it still has the 600x600 album art.

I tried copying the .m4a files as it is from the PC to the phone, same results. The grey squares look so ugly and I don't feel like listening to music at all.

Any help?

P.S. I am not talking about the artist background image (which is fine)
View attachment 70131

 

[b8ll]

I had the same issue. Files that displayed album art in WP8, W8 File Explorer, and W8 Media Player, showed as grey headphones. I went through several iterations of deleting all files/playlists ( used Files app on WP8.1, Windows Phone for Desktop, and Windows Phone [Modern App] to delete ), power cycling, and re-copying before all album art would display. I still don't have any album art showing on the Live Tile, but that is a different topic....

 

[RTGent]

I'm in the US, and I have about 13GB of only owned/local music drag & dropped on a Lumia 1020 running auto-updated 8.1. I get artist backgrounds on almost all artists. Background art must be stored at some level on the phone because I get it even when playing music in airplane mode.

My album art is mostly accurate, but missing on about a third of my albums; and, my tile shows/does nothing. Fortunately, I could not care less because I only listen to music through a phone.