Huge MP3 list and album cover problem artwork

[sanjonny]

Okay I have spent a couple of hours trying to get this to work and browsing the forums so I guess I get to be a newbie here and figure out if my assumptions are correct and if I am just doing something wrong.

First of all, my setup, using an XP computer running the latest service updates and all that.

I use media monkey to manage my songs and have several embedded lyrics and album covers and stuff, there is also some non embedded artwork in the music file along the likes of AlbumArt_{0C74518B-6B4D-4AE0-A361-7B4F2AD8350D}_Large.jpg as the filename which if anyone cares is an erasure cover, who rocks btw

Anyway, album images are just only working for folders and not really for anything else.

For example, most of my music (like 1500 songs) are in one directory called mp3s renamed and sorted and that gives one cover. It seems that even though I have album artwork for the individual mp3 tags in the songs that media monkey can read, subsonic chokes on these and cannot come up with the proper artwork.

I have a few folders with smaller amounts of mp3s like 10 and it assigns a artwork to that folder, but it will not assign it to each mp3.

So is there any way to get the art for the mp3s without creating a gazillion directories and not using linux, which I do not have available? I am pretty technical and just found this software which is really cool, but I hate not being able to view all the artwork I spent so many hours and days uploading.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Other than this issue, everything else seems to work fine. Port forwarding (manual not unp_p_) and all the other setup went as in the instructions

Also for anyone searching on artwork hope this saves some time, if you have set you mp3 folder as the root folder and like me have all your files with not more folders in that folder and no subfolders, you will only get one album image. It seems that is by design, so for me i went one folder up from mp3s renamed and sorted to the higher directory and at least saw that folder with the files showing up in the window. I found that out in my first hour of searching.

I am hoping there is an easy fix to this, it sounds like several other people beside me are have their mp3s in huge directories instead of subfolders for each album and I am just missing something.

Thanks in advance for your help guys. Like I said, I really tried before posting this issue.

Oh and yes, I rebuilt the index about a thousand times, I cannot figure out why the program can read the album covers but only for the folders and not the individual mp3s and assume I am missing something.

[sanjonny]

Any help would be greatly appreciated, like I said, I searched and searched and found....

[ccandreva]

The basic answer to your question is no.

Subsonic is directory based, and expects all albums to be in their own directory. You can do this on Windows, albeit a manual operation. There are probably programs to do this for you under Windows, possibly the Musicbrainz picard package.

I made my directories Arist/Album

[MacTech]

Being "Directory based" is the problem !!!
Subsonic should look at each file individually - AND each folder separately with an OPTION of HOW to handle Albums and Art (embedded or not or hybrid).
Agree, this is driving me insane !!!
I notice no other replies OR Updates from the Developer regarding this VERY frustrating issue, ever, in any post on this Subsonic forum.
This can NOT be by design.
To try to accomplish what I think is the proper way to view Albums and songs, I have done the following:
I have created a 7-second silent .mp3 and named it "0A Placeholder-*name of folder*.mp3" and IDv3tagged it with the Name of whatever folder it is in, and placed a copy like this in each of folders. (I use folders as "Groups" which act like Albums to Subsonic)
I have 18 Groups/folders. (Alternative, Secular, Christian, Trance, etc.) Each of these folders has a "folder.jpg" with a specific and very different picture that matches the content of that containing folder.
This same folder.jpg is embedded in the "0A Placeholder.mp3" file in that folder.
ALL album art for a song gets embedded in it's .mp3 by my Player (Music Bee). NOT hanging out hidden in any other or the same folder. Clean. This does make individual song files larger - so what - each song has ALL it's metadata wherever it goes.
Now, all my folders show up in Windows and Music Bee with the correct picture I expect, and every individual song shows it's own art on the song and when playing.
The web browser version of Subsonic, when I click on "Home", it shows all 18 Groups/Folders with the correct/expected picture, but, when I play any song there on the web version, it shows the picture of it's FOLDER and NOT the songs OWN EMBEDED PICTURE ... same with the Android version of Subsonic... this is still aggravating, but to a lessor degree.
Hope this helps somebody.
I wish and pray that the Developer would just fix this issue - or SELL the App to someone who would.
But I do LOVE this App !!!

[J_T_W]

As noted in prior responses, Subsonic is file-system driven with metadata as a secondary source of information. If you're looking for a more metadata environment, you will need to move off the platform.

Subsonic is basically abandonware; it isn't open-source and there is no development or active support by the owner. Both below suggestions run on multiple platforms, I'm a Windows guy so some of my supplemental info isn't as useful to non-Windows users.

If you're looking for a very lateral move, consider Airsonic Advanced https://github.com/airsonic-advanced/airsonic-advanced - It is in active development with frequent snapshot updates https://github.com/airsonic-advanced/airsonic-advanced/releases . Same feature set as Subsonic (API, Sonos, etc.) with updated code. As it is open source, you also get all the features Subsonic Premium gives you, but for free (see my last line). Minimal effort for installation (latest Java installed, then a command line shortcut to the war file - upgrades even easier with just a fast war file change).

If you're really more API focused, and looking just for a music streaming service (app over browser), you might consider moving off the Subsonic family of servers altogether. Check out Navidrome https://www.navidrome.org/ . That product is primarily to supply the API with a completely new back-end, and refocuses to just support audio (no video, podcast, internet radio, etc.). There is not yet built in support for Sonos, but you can find easy linking with something like Bonob https://github.com/simojenki/bonob. As with Airsonic Advanced, no subscription or fee to access the API. Navidrome does have a simplified web UI if desired.

Both products will need you to come up with your own DDNS solution for external access. Both support running as a service with something like NSSM https://nssm.cc/, and IIS works great as a reverse proxy if you wish to run them as SSL.

[MacTech]

Ok, so even if we don't get the PROPER Artwork to show, what exactly is the problem with showing ALL the files in any directory {which I only have 18 in my Home view} in ALPHABETICAL order ???
Instead of groups of files in restarting alphabetical order ...
ANY folder with more than 2 titles by any one artist, the showing list repeats alphabetical order showing more of the titles, and so on, and so on ... THAT IS FREAKING RIDICULOUS !!!!
And F#@4in annoying.
Actually the SIMPLEST thing in the world of computing to do is "show a list of data in alpha-numerical order" and someone here has managed to screw that up.

[MacTech]

Subsonic is neat and tidy, and easy to customize so far...
Just wish it would LIST all files in any Directory ALPHABETICALLY BY ARTIST all at once instead of jumping loops of A-Z splitting up 28 songs by one Artist into 5 separate groups of A-Z...
The way it does it now - is INSANE.
Even BETTER would be the ability to just click on the "Column" title and sort the entire Directory by THAT. {Artist being one of the available titles}.
THIS would benefit ALL users.