Solutions for Album Art Problems

[sannesley]

Is that the link to update the firmware on the player or to fix the problem that WMP11 has with Media Explorer?

The reason I ask is that I updated the player firmware yesterday and don't want to do it again by mistake in case it messes up the player.

[CrowdAds]

[OldZVMDude]

Originally Posted by sannesley

Is that the link to update the firmware on the player or to fix the problem that WMP11 has with Media Explorer?

The reason I ask is that I updated the player firmware yesterday and don't want to do it again by mistake in case it messes up the player.

Are you wanting someone to come do it for you. Did you look on Creative's web-site for the updates?

It's all in one place: Go to Ceative.com click on Support then Downloads then Mp3 Players then Zen then Zen VisionM: 30GB(if that's what you have) then Next.

There is all the latest in everything from firmware to applications. "the latest" is what ZenChick said and I'm sure she doesn't memorize every new update and URL.

They make it pretty easy to find and with all the information here, it's almost automatic.

[sannesley]

Originally Posted by OldZVMDude

Are you wanting someone to come do it for you

Why? Are you offering??
I'm just asking a few questions. That's all. I only got the player Friday night so it's all a bit new to me. Frankly I'm a bit dissapointed by the lack of documentation that creative provide with the player to be honest.

[ZenChick]

Originally Posted by sannesley

So if I'm to have trouble free files on my player with album art showing for all files what version of firmaware should I have on my player and what is the exact title of the patch I need to download?, Links would be appreciated (come to think of it this problem with the album art only started when I upgraded to WMP 11 yesterday)

Do you have a 30GB ZVM, or a 60GB ZVM?

[OldZVMDude]

Originally Posted by sannesley

Why? Are you offering??
I'm just asking a few questions. That's all. I only got the player Friday night so it's all a bit new to me. Frankly I'm a bit dissapointed by the lack of documentation that creative provide with the player to be honest.

Don't be offended, it was meant to be productive humor.

The documentation isn't much, but you don't need much and this issue isn't related to what would be in the documentation. However, you found this site which is awesome for help from other CL and ZVM owners. But you'll need to take the advice and act on it. In the time you replied to this thread asking for exact URL and exact file names, you could have had everything downloaded had you gone to Creative's site. I'm not trying to scold you, just help you get things resolved faster.

If you folow the click by click, it'll take you directly to the page that has all related updates on one place.

FYI, I just got mine too. I think sometime people make them more complicated than they should be, it's what we do. LOL I've spent more quality time with mine that I probably should have, but I'm enjoying the heck out of it now.

Good luck.

[ZenChick]

Originally Posted by OldZVMDude

LOL I've spent more quality time with mine that I probably should have, but I'm enjoying the heck out of it now.

Ewww! Get a room!

[sannesley]

I have the 60Gb version. I've just downloaded and installed the update for Media Explorer to help with its WMP issues and also downloaded the updated version of Media Source Organizer 5. I've updated the player firmware to version 1.20.02e. I'm going to restart the computer for the changes to take effect and hopefully the problem will be solved.

[sannesley]

The downloads and updates seem to have done the trick. Any new tracks that I've added plus the stuff I've resynced seem to be displaying the album art on the player.

I just think it's a bit strange that this small bug exisits at all, or maybe I'm too naive. It's just a little off putting when you have to get these downloads and go through the process of updating firmware immediately as soon as you get the player out of the box.

OldZVMDude don't worry about offending me. I've been around too many forums in my time to know that a bit of light humour is normal on these types of forums.

[ZenChick]

Firmware updates are a normal fact of life for devices with user-updatable software. It's pretty much a guaranteed fact that such a device will not have the latest firmware installed when you buy it - especially given how frequently some companies like Creative pump out updates (which is actually a good thing).

The other fixes came about as a result of Microsoft's release of WMP11, which was originally designed for Windows Vista, but they also released for XP. When Creative first came out with the ZVM and its associated software, it would have been impossible to anticipate the release of a new Windows Media Player, particularly for a six-year-old OS, so there was just no way for them to include the WMP11-specific fixes to the original software.

However, as I've stated before - Once you get your hands on Windows Vista, all the Creative software becomes irrelevant. WMP11 for Vista works flawlessly with the ZVM right out of the box (though I think having the latest firmware still applies).

[Alexander_BR]

i downloaded the update for the wmp 11 and started putting the albums back and i noticed that it was working well, but after, i saw that after a certain band (Falkenbach), the albums had no album art, only the ones before, does someone know why?

[ZenChick]

*blink*

I've never heard of that happening before!

As a suggestion, if you already have all your media backed up onto your PC somewhere, try performing a disk cleanup and a reformat on your ZVM - both must be run from the Recovery Mode menu - and then resyncing. Back when I was still beating WMP11 Beta 2 into submission, this was the only way to fix bizarre album art issues like that.

[sannesley]

From help on this forum I've found a solution to the problem with album art displaying which seems to work for me. I'll tell you and maybe it might work for you as well. This fix will work for the 60Gb version of the Vision M. I'm sure that the equivalent downloads are available for the 30Gb version as well. It's also only for Windows XP.

1. Download and install the latest firmware update for the player
Link for firmware update for most current version of player firmware

2. Download and install an update which corrects compatability issues between Window Media Player 11 and ZEN Vision M Series Media Explorer which affects album art.
Link for update for compatbility issues

Now restart Windows and your player and hopefully that should fix your album art problem. You will have to resync the music files from your hard drive to your player for the album art to show once the updates have been installed.

[hurdygurdyguy]

Up till now I've had no problem adding art to my tracks, whether it's auto-tagging from Amazon or making my own and adding with MediaMonkey then syncing. Til now. I made my own jpg art for a few tracks (as I have done before), added it to the tracks in MM, but now no matter how many times I try and sync the art doesn't get added to the tracks in ZVM

Here's a thought: after I synced up quite a few tracks to the ZVM I deleted the tracks from my PC (though MM still lists them). In order to add art to a track and sync it to the ZVM does the track have to be actually on the PC (rather than just being an item in the library) in order for it to transfer to the ZVM (am I being understandable)?

Thanks, hg guy

[sannesley]

Originally Posted by hurdygurdyguy

In order to add art to a track and sync it to the ZVM does the track have to be actually on the PC (rather than just being an item in the library) in order for it to transfer to the ZVM (am I being understandable)?

I would have thought that the actual tracks would have to be on the PC. If you were to try you would probably get an error saying something like "File not found". That's always been the way it worked with me in the past.

[sannesley]

I've noticed that some of my tracks are showing up with the wrong album art even though I checked in media monkey and the correct album art is embedded in the ID tag.

At the start I added album art by dragging and dropping to zen media explorer. Now all my tracks have the album art embedded in the tags. How can I get rid of any folders on the zen which would contain album art from the drag and drop method? I think that this might be interfering with the album art of these albums?

has anbody else noticed any irreguarities when syncing music over to their zens?

[OldZVMDude]

Originally Posted by hurdygurdyguy

Up till now I've had no problem adding art to my tracks, whether it's auto-tagging from Amazon or making my own and adding with MediaMonkey then syncing. Til now. I made my own jpg art for a few tracks (as I have done before), added it to the tracks in MM, but now no matter how many times I try and sync the art doesn't get added to the tracks in ZVM

Here's a thought: after I synced up quite a few tracks to the ZVM I deleted the tracks from my PC (though MM still lists them). In order to add art to a track and sync it to the ZVM does the track have to be actually on the PC (rather than just being an item in the library) in order for it to transfer to the ZVM (am I being understandable)?

Thanks, hg guy

Yes. You can't add art to a file that doesn't exist. You can't sync a file that doesn't exist either.

One thing about MM that I noticed, I think, is that when you sync, it syncs whatever you select. It does not check to see if it already exists on the ZVM or prompt to overwrite. Also, if you edit a file on the device, it appears that it saves fine, but it does not. It seems that there is some confirmation and checking that doesn't happen. Less code could be why MM runs so smooth.

It make any change, the file has to be on your PC and you must edit that file, then, sync it up with the ZVM. I generally just delete whatever it is (the whole artist or whatever) from the ZVM then re-sync so it's completely clean.

[OldZVMDude]

Originally Posted by sannesley

I've noticed that some of my tracks are showing up with the wrong album art even though I checked in media monkey and the correct album art is embedded in the ID tag.

At the start I added album art by dragging and dropping to zen media explorer. Now all my tracks have the album art embedded in the tags. How can I get rid of any folders on the zen which would contain album art from the drag and drop method? I think that this might be interfering with the album art of these albums?

has anbody else noticed any irreguarities when syncing music over to their zens?

Are you deleting the old file off the ZVM then re-syncing with the edited file off your PC?

As for the art in folder thing, I'd make sure the art is actually embedded. You could always move all the art into a new folder somewhere unrelated just to make sure nothing it linked to it. Then delete whatever it is, off the ZVM and sync so you have a known clean, edited art sport'n file.

[sannesley]

All music files on my Player now have the album art embedded in the tag. At the start it wasn't that way.

Some artists are showing up with the wrong album art. The art that is beiong displayed relates to an album lower in the album list which is on the player.

Another quirk is that I changed the embedded album art on one of the albums using MP3 Tag Tools. This album was on my PC. I then deleted the album from the player and reloaded it onto the player. When I played the album it still showed the old album art even though I had chaged the art.

Just where does the album art folder live on the Zen?

Any ideas what's going on?

[sannesley]

Done a bit of experimentation and I've discovered something which was new to me about album art on the Zen.
I had the problem where the wrong album art would display for certain tracks. It turns out that the problem tracks were from a greatest hits album. In the album title tag it was just titled "Greatest Hits". Now I have a number of greatest hits albums on the player and all labelled as "Greatest Hits" in the album title tag.

It would appear that this confuses the player somewhat. I got round this by retagging the album title. An example would be: "Greatest Hits" was retagged to "Lenny Kravitz - Greatest Hits". This seems to have solved the confusion and now the right album art shows up.

[woza]

Hey guys, im a newbie and got my zen for xmas.

Im loving it so far and am just getting used to all its features. Album art is really bugging me though. Ive tried doing it through medi explorer and then clicking view and album and then dragging the picture. It appears to load something, an egg timer comes up, but no picture is shown.

Do i need to download something or is there an easier more simple way of doing it?

Please help and thanks

Woza.