Album art for local files + remote playback

[ON555]

Plan

Premium

Country

Australia

Device

Desktop PC, Notebook, Apple iPhone 12

Operating System

Windows 10 Pro & iOS 15

My Question or Issues

I genuinely tried searching as suggested but could not find my exact "issue".

MY SCENARIO:

I have a desktop PC which I use to manage my local music files (MP3). All of my MP3 files all have ID3 tag info and album art. These songs are synced to my cloud storage which keeps both my desktop PC and notebook synced and acts as a "first level backup".

When I add any local music file to any spotify playlist on my desktop PC - all is well. I can see the song appear perfectly with the info displayed correctly, album art is all there and shows when I play the song. My notebook syncs up all good (via cloud storage) and my mobile phone syncs perfectly too.

Here's where the "issue" arises - say I'm listening to the local music file that I've just added on my desktop PC, I can see the album art appear correctly. However, Spotify on my notebook shows that I am "Listening on my desktop PC" but the album art will not appear. It just shows the music note. The same goes for my mobile phone.

The album art for my local music files only seems to appear on the device that is actually playing the track. As soon as the song changes to one that is available from Spotify, the album art appears on all of my devices.

So my question is - how does one make the album art for local music files appear on my other devices when they aren't playing it?

I have attached screenshots of Spotify on my desktop PC, notebook and my mobile so that everyone has a better understanding.

Thanks in advance everyone 😄

[Alex]

Hey @ON555,

Thanks for reaching out about this in the Community. 

We can confirm that currently, cover art metadata for local files is not synced between devices, when using the Connect feature. This is because, when the app is playing local files it is streaming them from the local device cache. Using Connect, not all metadata is synchronized as the app works more like a a remote in this case. However, we're looking into different ways of improving playing local files with Spotify on mobile devices so this might change in the future.

We appreciate you taking the time to share your feedback with us and will make sure to pass it onto the right team. 

If you need help with anything else, just let us know. 

[aidanSaun30]

Plan

Premium

Country

United States

Device

Desktop PC, iPhone 16 Pro

Operating System

Windows 11 Home & iOS 18.3.1

My Issue:

I don’t think the solution is quite accurate now because it seems in recent updates the album art can transfer over to iOS when connected, but certain songs are not loading the album art while others are. Is there certain metadata to look for when fixing this issue? 
Thank you in advanced. 

[Yordan]

Hey there, @aidanSaun30,

You're right - the local files process has changed since and now the files to be physically stored on both devices. For more info check out this article.

As for not loading the album art, does this only occur when you're using Spotify Connect or also when listening on just one of the devices? It's worth editing the metadata of the file and replacing the album cover to see if that helps.

Cheers 🤘

[aidanSaun30]

Hello @Yordan,

Sorry for the late response. I believe this only happens when using Spotify connect. I posted on the iOS album art bug post.

I left a link in that post showing a video of my album art bug that when I play a song with no album art, the rest of the songs in queue (with album art) do not display their album art. 
The image_2658 attached below is a screenshot of my Spotify playlist with my transferred local files showing some of the album art but most of them do not show it. 
While image 2659 is from my iOS Local Files that show the songs duplicated when transferred from PC. Image 2660 is further down in my Local Files on iOS that shows that the 3 songs with album art did not duplicate and found the songs that were downloaded to my iPhone. I should mention that the album in question is downloaded on my PC and iPhone from iTunes. Some songs are recognized and the album art shows but others are duplicated with no album art. Hopefully I made this make sense. 

[OscarDC]

Hey @aidanSaun30,

Thank you for keeping in contact and for the info shared.

It's possible that the system could be having issues showing the proper metadata, so in this case, would you mind confirming if you've already performed a clean reinstall of the app on your iPhone? If not, we'd recommend following the steps mentioned in this article. 

Also, since you've some duplicated tracks and to make sure we covered all the basics, could you confirm if you're following the process mentioned here to add the local files to your phone?

Lastly, could you confirm if this behavior affects the playback of your local files or if it's only a visual issue?

We'll be on the lookout.

[aidanSaun30]

Thank you for the advice and I did spend a bit of time researching on my own end. I did a clean install of the app on my phone, and the album art did not load. Would this issue be caused by the timestamps of the songs being rounded on Spotify's end? The pictures below might explain:

(iTunes PC Song Data shows song length at 43.844)

(Displayed in iTunes Album preview as rounded to 44 sec)

(Song length is 43 sec in Local Files on iOS)

I use Spotify connect to play my Local Files on PC but controlling which song I play through my phone. The songs that show album art are the only songs where both Spotify and iTunes have matching timestamps. Didn't know if this is the metadata reason I asked about in the iOS album art bug post. 

[Yordan]

Hey there, @aidanSaun30,

Thanks for the reply.

Not sure to be honest, but what I'd recommend is using another app to edit the files' metadata and reupload the album cover to see if that helps.

You mentioned you're using iTunes to upload the files from your PC to your iPhone. Just to confirm, are you using the File sharing option or syncing your Music library? It's worth checking if trying a different method yields a better result. You'll find details about both methods in this article.

Hope this helps! Cheers 🤘