Album art FAQs

What happens to my existing art?

It depends on the album art rule you setup.

For a separate image file in the same directory as your album's music files, bliss will use this and not overwrite it when the name of the image is the same as (or has the same prefix as) the 'Saved artwork filename' setting, unless some other rule is broken for which there is an automated fix (e.g. maximum size, see below). If a file exists with a different name, it is ignored by bliss.

For existing embedded art, if you have chosen to embed art it will not be overwritten.

For all art, existing art will be preferred over Web based art when a rule needs to be satisfied. E.g. if you have a separate image file but no embedded art (and you have said you want art embedded), the separate image file will be embedded.

For all art, if you have chosen a maximum size below that of the art, it will by default be overwritten automatically. You can change this by choosing the 'Manually' for the 'Overwrite existing art' option.

I ran bliss but I don't see the new album art in iTunes. Where's it gone?

bliss embeds album art into the music files themselves. iTunes has to be told about the new album art. In iTunes, right click the album affected, click 'Get Info' and then click 'OK' on the next window. This forces iTunes to retrieve the album art from the music files, and use it in iTunes. If you need to do this for many albums, try multi selecting the albums concerned.

What does "File not saved - tracks not in an album directory" mean?

bliss tries to save album art in a separate file in the same directory/folder as the music files for the album. If the directory holding the music files is not named close enough to the album name, bliss will not save the album. More detail on "File not saved - tracks not in an album directory" here.

Why would I only "embed art where possible" - why can't I specify to always embed art?

Not all file formats support album art. For instance, WAVs or MP3s with ID3v1 tags. In the ID3v1 case, bliss will offer a manual upgrade of the tag to ID3v2 and will then automatically apply any album art.

Some of my albums are marked "Unknown" and "CMMException" is shown on the album detail page. Why?

The "Unknown" bit means bliss couldn't assess the album's compliance. This is because it failed to read the existing art to check its dimensions.

I'm working on this. The cause are JPEG album art images that cannot be handled by the imaging software that bliss uses (the default Java imaging API, for the technically curious). For now, the only workaround is to change the errant album art yourself manually in a music tagger.

Why does bliss sometimes append art and sometimes replace the existing art?

When bliss embeds art it always embeds it as a 'front cover'. If a 'front cover' already exists, bliss will replace it. If other art exists, for instance pictures of the back cover, sleeves, inserts etc, it will leave these alone to avoid losing this artwork, which may be important to you.

For file formats that only support one piece of artwork, existing artwork is always replaced.

How likely is bliss to find my cover art, and how accurate is it?

It depends on your music library, but bliss will typically match in the low 80%s range for a 'normal' music library consisting of mostly mainstream releases and some more alternative recordings. I aim for accuracy of at least 95%. As bliss is automated I tend to concentrate on accuracy first.

Furthermore, each release of bliss is "stress tested" using a large, diverse music library. By doing this for each release I can keep track of how successful bliss is at finding artwork and its accuracy over time. In addition, a large scale bliss cover art lookup test is run using album and artist names sourced from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.