Issue with Album Art when playing tracks from Playlists

[MLDeMeo]

Hi,

I recently received my Ultra. I am experiencing an issue with the album art when playing tracks from playlists. I have an open ticket with Wiim Support. Have any of you had this issue?

I have the Ultra configured to stream the files from Plex Server running on my QNAP NAS.

Any tracks that I select by browsing to “Home Music Share\Plex Media Server\Music\Music\All Artists\Artist\Album\Track” on the Wiim Home App displays the Artist, Track, and Album Art correctly.

If I create a new Playlist and add tracks from the Plex Server running on my QNAP NAS, they display the Artist, Track, and Album Art correctly when selecting the tracks from the Playlist.

The issue happens after restarting the Plex Server on the QNAP NAS and rebooting the Ultra. When selecting a track from the Playlist, the Artist and Track information displays correctly, but the Album Art is not displayed. It will display the art from the track that I had previously selected by browsing to a track through the “Home Media Share”. The only way to get the Playlist displaying the album art correctly, is to delete and recreate the playlist. This seems to work fine until I restart the Plex server and reboot the Ultra.

Browsing/selecting a track through the “Home Media Share” will always display the Artist, title, and album art correctly. Even if the tracks selected from the playlist are not displaying the album art correctly.

As an example (see attached photo): I had selected Back in Black from the AC/DC album by browsing through the "Home Music Share". Everything was displaying correctly. I then selected "I got the Blues" by Albert King from a Playlist. The Artist and song name changed correctly on the display. But, the album art continued to be displayed as AC/DC.

Thanks.

 

[simbun]

The issue happens after restarting the Plex Server on the QNAP NAS and rebooting the Ultra. When selecting a track from the Playlist, the Artist and Track information displays correctly, but the Album Art is not displayed. It will display the art from the track that I had previously selected by browsing to a track through the “Home Media Share”. The only way to get the Playlist displaying the album art correctly, is to delete and recreate the playlist. This seems to work fine until I restart the Plex server and reboot the Ultra.

I noted this behaviour in a post just last week.

When you save a track to a playlist/bookmark WiiM stores the basic metadata (including the artwork URL) for later display and retrieval. The problem with Plex is that the URLs for the artwork seem to change every rescan/restart so the subsequent lookup fails.

Unfortunately the only options are to use another server or hope that the Plex integration helps.

 

[MLDeMeo]

Thanks @simbun for the response.

Hopefully, the Wiim support folks will work with Plex to resolve this issue. If not, I'll try contacting Plex support to see if they can help in getting this fixed.

 

[Mr Ee]

Have you tried minimserver on your qnap?

 

[MLDeMeo]

Have you tried minimserver on your qnap?

Thanks for the Suggestion. I have not tried minimserver. I would prefer to keep using Plex and not install another media server on the QNAP. But, if Wiim/Plex cannot come up with a resolution, I'll take a look at minimserver.

 

[simbun]

if Wiim/Plex cannot come up with a resolution, I'll take a look at minimserver.

It's unlikely this particular issue will get resolved (WiiM can't and I doubt Plex will), but hopefully the upcoming Plex integration will meet your needs.

 

[d6jg]

It's unlikely this particular issue will get resolved (WiiM can't and I doubt Plex will), but hopefully the upcoming Plex integration will meet your needs.

Do we have any further idea about what this is?

 

[simbun]

Do we have any further idea about what this is?

No idea, although Darko did say PlexAmp was coming to WiiM in yesterday's PlexAmp video (pointing to the roadmap which states nothing of the sort).

The roadmap still states it's coming to the Mini though, which I doubt would get the PlexAmp endpoint, so maybe there's a WHA integration too.

 

[d6jg]

No idea, although Darko did say PlexAmp was coming to WiiM in yesterday's PlexAmp video (pointing to the roadmap which states nothing of the sort).

The roadmap still states it's coming to the Mini though, which I doubt would get the PlexAmp endpoint, so maybe there's a WHA integration too.

In the iOS PlexAmp app you can already cast to Chromecast and stream to Airplay but have no Android to check situation there. I’m led to believe that the Raspberry Pi endpoint is based on MPD which doesn’t have an enormous footprint but then neither does Squeezelite which wouldn’t fit on a Mini

 

[simbun]

In the iOS PlexAmp app you can already cast to Chromecast and stream to Airplay but have no Android to check situation there.

You can cast to Chromecast but that's not gapless, and no UPnP.

I’m led to believe that the Raspberry Pi endpoint is based on MPD which doesn’t have an enormous footprint but then neither does Squeezelite which wouldn’t fit on a Mini

PlexAmp (endpoint) is a revenue stream for Plex (Plex Pass required) and given the "competition" (PlexAmp onboard) is Lumin and AudioLab I'd be surprised if WiiM put it on their entry level streamer. I'd be surprised if Plex wanted them to!

It's overdue already so I guess we'll find out soon.

 

[Slosh]

The same thing happens with Jellyfin DNLA. If I switch to MediaMonkey or Foobar2000 DNLA the correct album art displays as the tracks change within the playlist.

 

[simbun]

The same thing happens with Jellyfin DNLA. If I switch to MediaMonkey or Foobar2000 DNLA the correct album art displays as the tracks change within the playlist.

These systems (Emby/JellyFin/Plex) really shouldn't be used with WHA over DLNA, and certainly not if you ever want to create playlists. If you're not using their native apps the only thing they give you over the free version of MinimServer is artist artwork, and a lot more complexity and fragility.

The one exception I suppose is if you're already using them for video, then the compromise might be worth it.

 

[Slosh]

This is a WiiM issue. When I play these playlists via Jellyfin on my Nvidia Shield Pro, another Windows or Linux PC (even out of my local network), as well as my phone or iPad the correct album art does display. All of this is a moot point in my case since MediaMonkey works flawlessly on my WiiMs. Of course the main point in using Jellyfin is for my blu-ray rips but I also use it along with Finamp to stream my FLAC library to my phone connected to my car stereo via the headphone out when I'm driving.

I don't see any point in installing yet another DNLA server software on my media PC when MediaMonkey already does everything I need it to on my WiiMs.

 

[simbun]

This is a WiiM issue. When I play these playlists via Jellyfin on my Nvidia Shield Pro, another Windows or Linux PC (even out of my local network), as well as my phone or iPad the correct album art does display.

This thread was about Plex, which is at fault in the described scenario.

I did try to look at JellyFin but had problems with its discovery across a number of control points. I'll try another clean install.

I don't see any point in installing yet another DNLA server software on my media PC when MediaMonkey already does everything I need it to on my WiiMs.

Nobody suggested you should.

 

[simbun]

This is a WiiM issue. When I play these playlists via Jellyfin on my Nvidia Shield Pro, another Windows or Linux PC (even out of my local network), as well as my phone or iPad the correct album art does display.

I've looked at the data that Jellyfin sends and it's about as robust as it gets, without being useful for exporting playlists. If I were to guess I'd say they were using a hash of the file path to generate the track and album art URL, as nothing short of moving the files (introduce a parent folder) changed it.

This should mean that tracks and album art presented within the WiiM app persist across even reinstalls of Jellyfin as long as the root of the content directory remains the same.

Can you explain the problem you were having, as I've been looking for a simple server to recommend to others - that absolutely need artist artwork - and I had been pinning my hopes on Jellyfin, given KODI isn't headless.

 

[simbun]

This is a WiiM issue. When I play these playlists via Jellyfin on my Nvidia Shield Pro, another Windows or Linux PC (even out of my local network), as well as my phone or iPad the correct album art does display.

I managed to find your post but I haven't been able to reproduce the problem. Playlists served by Jellyfin seem to work, with the Now Playing screen reflecting the artwork of the active track.