So the other day while playing with my iPod Nano, I managed to break it. I did not break it literally, but I did manage to mess it up so that whenever I played a song it showed the incorrect album art. At first I thought it was slightly funny, and quickly deleted the song displaying the wrong album art from the iPod. My thinking was that this would fix the problem. Wrong!
As I updated my iPod with new songs and deleted the old ones, I noticed the album art problem slowly but surely getting worse and worse. It got so bad that the artwork it showed in the “Now Playing” screen would not even match the artwork it displayed when viewing the artwork Full Screen. Huh? How is it possible that the iPod was looking in two completely different places for artwork. It made/makes no sense.
Well, being a Windows user, my first plan of action (idea) was to go ahead and format the drive, wipe it clean, and start over. Well, thank goodness when it comes to my pricey piece of fun I play on the cautious side, as Apple clearly states that doing such an action is a bad idea. A very bad idea.
Do not use a disk utility program, such as Disk Utility, Drive Setup, or Windows Explorer, to erase iPod. Erasing songs from iPod this way can disable its music playing capabilities and you may have to update or restore iPod to get it to work again.
Whew! I got lucky with that one. I would have had to smack myself if I disabled the “music playing capabilities” of my Nano. So I am happy that I did not kill my little machine, but that did nothing to fix the problem with the displaying of incorrect album art.
Well, I researched, researched, and researched. And, after Googling, MSNing, and Yahooing, I came to the conclusion that I must be the first person ever to break their iPod in such a fashion. I could not find the slightest tidbit of information which listed ways in which I could get my iPod back to normal (well, I could do a restore, but I was hoping for something a little easier).
Then, by pure luck, I decided to open up iTunes and have a look around in the iPod Preferences pane. I noticed a check-mark which enabled or disabled album art on the Nano, and figured I would go ahead and give it a shot. Well, when you disable support, it does exactly what you would think. It makes it so that your iPod will not show any album art. So basically, it forces the Nano to display song information in the old center justified format (AKA ugly).
Thinking that I had conquered my troubles, I once again enabled album art. It took a few minutes for iTunes to optimize the album art for the Nano, and when it finished it quickly transferred over all of the artwork. And, surprisingly, it worked! Wooohooo. My Nano is now back to its original greatness and displaying the correct album art (both in Now Playing and in Full Screen). Sweet. I am happy.
Oh, for those wondering, I think I managed to break it by enabling “disk use” and disconnecting the iPod without actually hitting the eject button in iTunes or disconnecting the device through Explorer. I know I should not do that, but sometimes you are just in too much of a rush to actually go through all of the necessary steps. It is just easier to pull the plug on the device.
Update (12/07/05): Since this seems to be such a big problem, and to make life easier for everyone, I have created some simple steps for you to follow to get your iPod Nano (or Video) to display the correct album art.
Edit: Old steps removed. Please see update.
Update (10/14/06): Some people in the comments section have reported problem using the above methods in iTunes 7, while others have had great success using the above methods within iTunes 7 (please note that in iTunes 7 the iPod options are NOT located under edit -> preferences). I have tried looking into it but have been unable to get my iPod to have the same problem. Therefore, the above fix may or may not fix your specific issue. Either way, please post a comment, your version of iTunes, and any steps you had to perform differently, so that others can benefit also. Thank you.
Update (05/06/08): The steps have changed slightly for iTunes 7.x. Thanks to everyone in the comments that pointed this out.
Update (12/24/08): I’d like to say THANK YOU to everyone who has given this post praise in the comments below. I definitely appreciate it.
Follow these 8 simple steps.
1. Plug you iPod into your computer and open iTunes.
2. In iTunes, goto iPod -> Music
3. Deselect “Display album artwork on your iPod” -> click apply.
4. Your iPod will update. So wait (should take a few seconds).
5. Repeat step “2″
6. Select “Display album artwork on your iPod” -> click apply.
7. Your iPod will update. So wait (may take a minute or two).
8. Tada! Your iPod / iPhone should be back to its original greatness.
– - – - – - – - – - -
9. Add this podcast to your iTunes collection and enjoy (Shameless plug. I apologize.).
259 Comments
Thanks! I managed to do the same and I think you’re right about how it happend. I managed to also disconnect without ejecting and the art issue happened then. Your fix works fine.
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! The same thing happened to me when my annoying little sister unplugged mine! Its taken me AGES to find a solution so thanks heaps!!!
You are both welcome. I am just glad I could help.
Thanks for the info. You are not the only one with this problem….but you are the only one that posted the information I needed. I tried your solution and it restored the artwork to its right song.
THANK YOU
I have a similar problem, songs that previosly displayed albumart has automagically stopped doing so. New additions to the library does show album art, and in iTunes, every track works a charm! But in the actual ipod, nah! I will try the cecking/unchecking of the dialog box when i get home from work!
Cheers!
THANK YOU! This has been driving me crazy, no other posts worked for my nano but yours did!
Thanks a lot man, worked like a charm for me! You really are about the only person i could find that posted a fix for that annoying little issue.
Thanks – a quick google to find you, but it has been bugging me for ages…. why don’t apple say something themselves?
Thank you!! I have an Ipod Video with the exact same problem and couldn’t figure out what was going on, tried everything and FINALLY your solution worked! I however did not diconnect my ipod without ejecting… near as I can tell, it happened after I was doing a large (video) update and had to run to catch the bus, so cancled the update, properly ejected… then music artwork was all wrong. Whatever, as long as it works. Thanks for the help!!
Wow. The iPod Video has the same problem huh? And now that you mention it, I guess it could have been from one of the times I cancelled an update. I just assumed it was from disconnecting the Nano because that seemed more likely to cause problems. Either way, glad all of you were able to get your devices to work without much hassle. Since this is becoming such a wide-spread problem, maybe I should edit the above entry with some simple to follow steps.
I have the same problem, but have spent 20 mins now trying to find that setting in itunes and cannot find it!. I have the latest version of itunes as i only updated a week or so ago. Can anyone help?
Cheers, Adam
Adam – Open iTunes, click on “edit” and then click on “preferences.” Once inside the preferences window, you should see a tab titled “iPod.” It is between the “General” and “Podcasts” tab. At the bottom of the screen you should see the phrase “Display album artwork on your iPod” with a checkbox next to it.
Note: Your iPod must be plugged in for this to work. If it is not plugged in, the “iPod” tab will say “No iPod detected” and not show any of the options. Hope this helped.
Fonzo.. Have just tried it again and it has worked!.. I think the problem befor was todo with a dodgy docking station i have. Befor when i was trying I had the Ipod tab so it was saying it was connected but the tick options at the bottom of the forn where missing.. Very strange. I suggest if anyone has the same propblem it is best to try it after restarting your computer.
Thanks for the help, Adam
yatta! it worked…dude you’re a god…
and yeah I think maybe stopping updates does itt…come to think of it the first time I cancelled an update was just before the problem appeared…
and oh god I never even knew about the “eject iPod” button…I’ve just been taking it off! never gonna do that again…but I don’t think it’s that which causes the problem at all…
Fonzo – you are a genius. I had this problem on my new 5G 30G White iPod. I was getting Gloria Gaynor album art for KORN songs!!! Thanks for posting this solution.
BTW – I never unplugged my iPod without properly doing steps in iTunes, but I did cancel 1 or 2 updates, so I think that may be where the problem is.
Erin
It didn’t fix my problem..in itunes it shows the right artwork, but on my ipod they are always wrong, with one of four or five artworks randomly showing over every track!!!!
aaaahhhh
i have a 30gb 5g ipod, and it is almost full with music, i put a lot of effort into mangaing it..please help
Hey erm, can ya help me, My album art doesnt even show on my pod, and the settings is turned on in preferences, Thanks
Unfortunately this didn’t work for me. My artwork was all showing as a blank white square (AKA nothing) so I’m trying a full restore and I’ll post back.
-kevin
Hey folks. For the last few who posted and have problems with the artwork showing at all, my first recommendation is to update iTunes to its latest and greatest, and then try playing the song in iTunes to make sure the album art is showing there, because if it does not show up in iTunes, it will NOT show up on the iPod.
If the above works fine, my second recommendation would be to try and uncheck all playlist items, that way the iPod is blank (no songs), do the steps outlined in this post, and then place all the songs back on the iPod. If you need an easy way to do this, create a playlist with 0 or 1 songs, and have that be the only playlist that syncs with the iPod.
Hope this helps, and Happy Holidays to everyone.
Hey Fonzo man, You’re a life saver thanks a lot for posting this solution, I’ll be forever thankful, it worked like a charm on my 5g 30g video ipod, but There’s still something I don’t Fully Understand, Since I Got my Ipod I’ve been using it correctly, I’ve never ejected it without the eject button on the ipod and I never stopped an update, but still I had the Album art all mixed up! Can this be an internal mistake imprinted into all Ipods from apple?, and is this problem gonna show up in my Ipod again? That really worries me!! thanks bye
I had the exact same problem as George above, but your advice fixed it. I actually thought of that, but I figured it wouldn’t make any difference if my songs got corrupted somehow. Thanks!
Ok…after i deselected the box and selected it again and when it was saying “optimizing artwork” i got an error it said unknown error any explanation for this?
Hi! The same thing has happened to me too, except I have an Ipod 30GB video ipod. The artwork for a song does not match the song! I tried you instructions exactually, and it still does not work! I am desperate, and extremely frustrated! Please Help! THanks!
Thanks! Your a lifesaver! I’m not sure how i broke my ipod because I always hit the eject button. I really messed up my first ipod because i didn’t do that. Anyway problem solved thanks again!
Very bizarre problem and incredibly frustraing…glad to know I’m not the only one. Thanks for the fix, seems to have worked fine on my 4G 60GB colour iPod.
Surely Apple must be aware of this by now?!
OMG! i spent ages trying to sort out my nano and none of the links that apple had worked for me. all the options that i tried jsut led further and further away from the answer that i needed. you are the only person to have created a page to solve this problem! thank you from stopping me going mad!!!!!
Man, what a hit this page is, never thought success would come like this did ya? I like how you break things and accidently fix it, people don’t think he is a genius, he does this all the time ( LOL). And it’s not on purpose.
I don’t know if you are still checking this fonzo…or if anyone else can help but i still can’t display artwork!! It never has at all, not even with the wrong albums!! Can anyone help me?? I have tried the preferences thing and still nothing!! HELP!!!
Thanks
Cat: It’s hard to say why with just that info. For starters, does your Nano display a blank box while playing, or nothing at all (it will look like the “old format” mentioned above).
If it is displaying a blank box, then play (or select) the song in iTunes and double check that iTunes shows the album art. If it does not, then head on over to allmusic.com or amazon.com and drag/drop the album art into iTunes.
If it is displaying songs in the old format, then go into iTunes and find the artwork preference. Make it opposite of what it is currently, OK all the prompts, and let your iPod update. Then, go in and do it again, and let your iPod update another time.
Hopefully this will fix your issue.
Hi Fonzo,
Thanks for replying. My i-pod displays nothing at all, as you say its the old format. I went into my settings and it had the display artwork box checked. So I un-checked it then disconnected my i-pod then re-connected it and checked the box. It said optomizing artwork for i-pod nano but it still doesn;t display the art work!! I don’t understand!!
Thanks
May God bless you for posting these instructions. My main pet peeve about my new ipod 20 gig was that the album art would show up incorrectly. I have a Jackson 5 song with album art, and that song’s artwork would show up on countless other songs. The most annoying was when the Jackson 5 artwork showed up on songs by 50 Cent! Ugghh. Anyways, this problem was so frustrating, but I never got around to addressing the problem until recently. I googled some search terms, your site came up, I followed your instructions, and now I love my ipod so much more! Thank you from the bottom of my heart for being so considerate to post that information. Have a great day!
You genius mate!! I thought i was also the only one….i think apple should re-think the software design. Thanks
holy crap thanks so much, i thought i would had to get a new one, i just want every one to know that this not only works for nanos, but i fixed my 30 gig by doing this
Thank you very much! I was ready to throw my iPod photo out the window!
Today, I was very surprised to see mess of album arts in my nano. Luckily, thanks to you, I could solve my problem! Thank you a lot!
You are all welcome.
Thanks a lot! Solved my problem.
Thanks man it really helped me out!!!!
Dude, you saved me some embarrassment. My 5G ipod was having this problem….except mine was displaying thumbnails from my porn on my regular music. Thanks for the fix.
Thanks Fonzo. My 5G was really annoying me. I’ll disconnect properly next time.
thanks so much!
fixed my nano in two seconds!
=)
Thank GOD! I was ready to hurl this elaborate toy out the window … after taking the time to import the artwork to itunes … (can anyone tell my why it will not import the artwork by itself from the CD – a divine mystery to me) … and then sync-ing the iPod … you can imagine the distress when all was not right with the world (wrong art with wrong music) … reading the manual to no avail, searching the apple support site to no avail … but THANK GOD FOR YOU – It worked, and you’re wonderful!
Allyn: iTunes will not import the artwork from a CD because album artwork is not pressed to the actual CD (at least not to any CDs I have seen). Other programs which display album art while playing the CD (I believe WMP does this) actually download the album art from the internet in the background and then places .jpg’s in the folder where the files are contained. Trust me, the way iTunes handles album art is much better.
hi,
thanks for the advice.can i create my own pictures of artist to album art?is there any way i can do that.
pls repy to my mail
thanking you,
vincy
there seems to be a limitation to album artwork that iPod can handle; i found some affirmations that said it is recommended that the image files used as cd covers should be less than 200×200 or 150×150. i used small images (resized by me to 45×45) because on the tiny screen of iPod nano there is no need for better quality of pictures. As for me, once i set up the pics in iTunes (after adding each directory for the album, i immediately selected all songs from that album, right click and “Get info”, and in the dialog i selected the picture desired to be album art for that album). when uploading the songs on the Ipod, every song had the cover near it… no special tricks, no nothing…. just small images
hey thanks a lot, if it wasn’t for ur help i might hav been stuck with incorrect album art for the rest of my life. do u also know y everytime i select ‘manually manage songs and playlists’ preferences, the lock icon always appears on the screen, it drives me mad because i can’t select anything on my ipod via itunes.
Vijay
Sorry Vijay, I have never tried to manually manage my playlists. I use a series of smart playlists to keep my iPod full of good music. I will write up a blog about my playlist situation sooner or later.
Fonzo, thank you SO much! My iPod nano didn’t show the artwork of any songs other than those downloaded from iTunes.
I tried to follow your initial advice, but that didn’t work, as it came up with an error. I didn’t know what to do and then I saw you recommending getting the latest update of iTunes, which I did. I also updated my iPod software and emptied it and filled it again… and it worked!
Let’s hope that Apple become more aware of these problems that users are facing and include something in their Help directories.
Thanks a lot again!
mines not even showing album art even though every song has album art
Nice fix, now I just need to get artwork for all my music.
I hate you. You’ve ruined my ipod!
I did everything you told me to, and now it’s not displaying ANY artwork!
IR: Make sure you re-enable your iPod to show album art. If that does not work, feel free to send me an email through the contact page and I would be glad to help you figure out what the problem is.
It did’nt work for me at ALL… my problem is that some of my songs has it’s album art, but some others did’nt have that. why is it like that?? Please help me out here… i try and try to re-enable my ipod to show album art, but it seems that this showed up ” an unknown error occured, your ipod could not be updated ( -50 ) ” what’s the ( 50 ) anyway… ?
i really hope you can help me with this… thanks..
Thanks — That mixed-up artwork on my iPod video was driving me crazy! You’re the best !!
I am new to this whole Nano ipod thing I just want to now does artwork only show up if you buy from I tunes because I have spent hours trying to get to display the artwork on the nano.
LatinoPride: The eastiest way to put album art on your songs is to
1. Within iTunes, select the “album” from the menu.
2. Locate album art on the internet.
3. Drag & Drop album art onto the album art section in iTunes. It is in the lower left hand corner.
Let me know if that did not make sense.
Thanks man you saved my ass!
I tried following all of your instructions but I can’t get any artwork. Your reply to ‘LationoPride’ indicated to find art work on the internet. Is there a specific site you suggest?
Thanks
Melisa: I personally use http://www.allmusic.com to find album art. It has album art, reviews, track listings, etc. for just about every album ever released. Try searching there, and let me know if it works for you.
Sup Jr. Have you heard about Little Brother’s Seperate but Eqaul CD coming out? YES MY QUESTION MARK BUTTON IS WORKING AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *snifle* I just had a moment with my computer. I finally fixed it. I had to take the button off then put it back on. I think its in our blood to fix computers and listen to a lot of muzic. O i don’t need that headset for my psp if u were planning on getting one ‘casue i already bought one. I just bought the Chitlin Circuit off of iTunes cause i heard “Nobody Like Me” and loved it… So i bought it.
Was really annoying me that artwork didn’t match track playing! Luckily this was the first fix I found! I-pod artwork back to normal!Many thanks!
Yo Nephew: Nope. I didn’t know Little Brother had a new CD, but I will surely check it out. Thanks for the heads-up.
Can’t wait to get home and try this, if it works you are my hero!!!
Thanks for the recommendation. This site is perfect.
Works like a charm. Thanks for the tip!
I have not been able to get past the (error -50) unable to update album artwork notice. I have a lot more music in my itunes than on my ipod, is there any way to clean out my ipod and then reload it with all the same songs? If I could do that, then I would be able to get past it.
Thanks.
Cameron Mount: To erase all of the songs on your iPod, simply create a blank playlist, and tell iTunes (under options) to only use that playlist to update the iPod. That will erase all of the songs on your iPod. After that, go back and select the playlists you want to use and it will reload all of the songs for you.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. You managed to save the few strands I have left!
Thank you soooo much for this! I was completely at a loss on how to fix this! I was about to do a restore. I am so happy that I came upon your site!
Great work Fonzo! =)
I’ve really been pissed a few days since the same thing happend to my iPod Video… thanks to your tip, my iPod now accurately matches the pics and songs =)
from Manila…
Well, ive tried this method, and i’m trying to use it so my ipod would show artwork. Cos i try to put in a album cover, and the thing doesn’t even try to put it on itunes. I write the tags myself and try to put the album on the album songs by highlighting them and go to get info and copy and paste artwork into that little box. The pic shows up in that little box, but when i click ok the album cover doesn’t show up on itunes anywhere, so im tryin to fix it ill check back shortly.
Also, some albums work and display albums but some don’t. My guess is that it has something to do with the resolution. Usually i go for 300X300, 400X400, or 500X500-sometimes. Fonzy, get back to me on this im pissed off beyond pissed off.
Thanks
Oops i mean fonzo sry lol
Mark K: Try this instead. In the “browse” section, select the artist, then album. The songs should be listed below. From here, drag & drop the album art into the album art section of iTunes (lower right hand corner). This should add the album art to all of the songs in that album.
Also, I get my album art from http://www.allmusic.com, and they all work great. You might want to try there.
hi there… i tunes just pop a box w/c says cant update marks ipod (-50) i dont know what happen man… can you help me pls
Mark: I cannot really recommend it, but this fix seems to have worked for some in getting rid of the -50 error. Good luck.
Thanks so much for posting this fix!! I’ve got a 60gb 5G ipod video that I unplugged prematurely, and this worked perfectly.
Why doesn’t Apple warn peple about this?
Dude, thank you so much! I was having so much trouble with this. You are a savior in my ipod world
THANKS!
it doesnt work for me…
my 30gb ipod video displays some artwork from like 2 months ago but when i add artwork recently it just doesnt show up. i went to the ipod preferences thingy to discover that the display album artwork box was unchecked, and when i checked it this came up:
The iPod “Jessi’s iPod” cannot be updated. An unknown error occurred (-50).
so it wont work. i really dont wanna wipe out my whole ipod, but yeah what do i do?!?!
Just wanted to add my thanks to the long list. Same problem on 20Gb Colour iPod. Really bugged me … tried the obvious, reattaching the artwork etc … no joy. Finally occurred to me to Google it and found your fix. Many, many thanks. Excellent!
Thanks for the public service! I don’t understand why Apple doesn’t talk about this problem in their support section…
That whole ipod album art fixing thing worked! I’m So Happy. I’m not sure how my album art got screwed up in the first place. It was either I diconnected it when it said not to, or I uploaded a huge amount of files at the same time. I guess it doesn’t matter because its fixed now! =D
I got this problem last night with my ipod video. I found deleting the artwork manually, updating, then adding artwork back for each album fixed it. I was worrying seeing I’m going on holiday on saturday I would have to find 10 hours to sort it out my way. After googling and reading your solution I shall try it tonight and hopefully it’ll work and you’ll have saved me hours and hours and hours of updating. Thanks v much in advance.!
Another thing, I got the artwork problem from uploading a massive amount of tunes at one time….
I have tried it and to no avail it did not work,
I deselect it and let the ipod update.
Then select it again, and the ipod will update for about a second then throw this error:
The iPod “Name” cannot be updated. An unknow erro occured (-50)
where “Name” is the anem of my ipod.
And that is how far I gotwith album art and my iPod(Video).
Any Ideas?
Hey, thanks for posting the fix! So simple, it amazes me that I didn’t think of it first. D’oh!
Yep worked for me, thanks.
Johann, see above posts for the solution to the -50 problem.
Excellent! I’ve been putting up with this for weeks… I’ll never disconnect my iPod without ‘ejecting’ it first again!
You are the man. I killed myself trying to fix it one by one and it still didnt work. I was about to give up but you saved it. Thanks
Duh! This makes so much sense.
I, too, have been having this problem that’s become progressively more incorrect.
Thanks so much for this tweak!
Fonzo, you are fantastic. I was about ready to scream when I thought that I had actually been dumb enough to mix up the Forrest Gump soundtrack and Beastie Boys.
At least now I have a good reason to be patient and wait for my nano to eject itself!
THANK YOU! I knew I had a few songs with the wrong artwork due to iArt’s “automatic” album art inserter, but when I noticed “50 Cent” on Ja Rules song, i knew something was terribly wrong. 50 Cent was takin over my iPod!!!!!! He was on every album artwork!!! I would not sleep until I found the answer!! Thank you somuch for letting me get to sleep somewhat early, I refused!
I had the error -50 problem as well. I tried many things, finally I unplugged it from my laptop and plugged it into my desktop and repeated the steps. Then it worked! Both versions of iTunes are the same and up to date. I’m clueless on why it worked the way it did.
dude, you are my savior. my cousins ipod was all screwed up and we couldnt find any ways to fix it anywhere, but finally we found this site!!!! thanks a ton, now her ipod is finally back to normal!!! YAY
OMG THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! I spent hours trying to figure out how to fix this stupid problem, thinking I was the only one. Finally I went to google and found you! You’re a genius.
*phew* i got the same problem with my nano…did a quick google search and your link was the first on the list..and it works! awesome…thanks for sharing this with everyone!
My iPod Video has been doing this too, I will try the fix tonight – thanks for the info.
dude, you totally rock. my ipod was doing this exact song for only like 20 of my songs, but they were the songs i play the most right now, and it was driving me nutzo. thank God for google, and thank God for you and ur blog. thanks a wholle bunch!
Errg my Album artwork wont show up =[
I have tried this thing like 5 times.
Do I have to wait a certain amount of time for it to work ;l
OMG Thanx alot man
My Ipod nano got dropped down the toilet now it won’t even charge is there somewhere i can send it to get fixed or some way i can fix it myself?
I have a 60 GB iPod and my problem was songs that had artwork and showed it in iTunes didn’t show up on the iPod itsself. So I tried this solution. The process was slightly different with iTunes 7 or whatever it is, but when I disabled photos the bar at the top said something about deleting photos which freaked me out. Well after they deleted I went to re-enable them but mutch to my supprise and displeasure the progress bar only made it a quarter of the way and then a message popped up saying that an unknown error occured and the iPod cannot be updated. Help!
If you catch this Fonzo, you might have to update this article, or atleast let it be known that this process will NOT work on the current release of iTunes 7. When I followed these instructions and unplugged my iPod (60GB 5g), I foud that it ended up losing ALL of my album artwork.
From what I gather, it seems that NOW they really try to force you to work more with iTunes library, rather than manually. So to get the album artwork BACK on your iPod, you’re going to have to copy all of the files from your iPod to your iTunes library and begin to manage from that from now on, or revert back to iTunes 6 and follow the instructions provided in this journal entry.
I hope this helps people having trouble with the current iTunes release like this entry helped me almost a year ago.
Ron: Thanks for the update. I will take a look at the new version of iTunes and revise this post as necessary. Once again, thanks for letting me know.
In Regards to Ron’s message: how do you copy music from the iPod back into the iTunes library? Whenever I try the classic drag and drop I get the circle with a slash. This would be really helpful as I don’nt have most of my library on my computer and do not want to have to reload every album one by one
Andrew – I don’t know, as I’ve reverted back to iTunes 6. For that, just uninstall 7, move your current “iTunes Library.itl” (which is in your iTunes folder) to another location and get the iTunes disc that came with your iPod. But I think what is meant by what I said a day ago is to copy and paste the files directly off your iPod. Go into your iPod (it shows up as another drive) though Windows Explorer > iPod Control > Music and try to copy and paste from there. The filenames look weird, but it’s all of your tags and everything that’s currently on the iPod, including artwork.
That should work for now until these issues with 7 are officially settled.
Thanks for healing my ipod after it went crazy. I thought it must have a stroke or something. Sooner or later mac will probably catch on and call it an iStroke, and pretend its cool. Thanks again
i recently installed itunes 7, and since i did my little nano, doesnt show any album art on the pod screen, but displays it on the itunes window.
have tried your advice, also have tried restoring pod. still unsuccesful, does the problem lie with itunes 7?
Thanks for the info, man… I’ve had my iPod for ages, and never had this prob, even when I disconnected it wrong. I guess I just did it once 2 many times. By the way, for any1 with iTunes 7, don’t go to edit>preferences>ipod, go to your main iPod screen, then to music (the button on the top). the disable artwork is right at teh bottom of the window. THANKS AGAIN!!!
OK, I have iTunes 7, the wacky one. I finally found the disable artwork on iPod button, and did all the other steps u said…and IT WORKED—for about five seconds. but now, nomatter how many times i press the disable/enable artwork button, my iPod never shows the art now. Never. I dunno if i’m just stupid, or if my iPod is seriously messed up. HEEEEEELP!!!!
I have a fix for Itunes 7, although it works it takes a long time depending on the size of your ipod, and speed of your machine and USB port type.
Go to your itunes XML and Itunes Music Database file are found ( By default C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\My Documents\My Music\iTunes )
1)Make copies of both files & store in another location.(itunes XML and Itunes Music Database file )
2)Open Itunes with Ipod not connected and de-select all your selections. (Ctrl-A to select all)
3)Plug in your Ipod and all your de-selected data will begin to remove itself from the Ipod. The processing time for this will vary depending on the speed of your PC my 800Mhz took about 15 minutes to deselect 28Gigs worth of stuff on USB 1.0, it took a few hours to remove all the data.
4)Eject Ipod when done
5)Close Itunes
6)Replace the file from Step 1 (This will replace all your selected music back)
7)Open Itunes, Re-sync your ipod, this took me over almost 9 hours to put back all the data (Do this overnight)Again speed of machine is a factor.
8)By Morning you Ipod should have all the Artwork back.And your Itunes isn’t messed up.
Cheers,
Davey Wavey
I have been trying forever to get photods on my iPod and everyone says ” edit+preferences+Ipod tab” so i tried doing that but my itunes doesnt have an ipod tab… i really need help with this… if you can help me get pictures on my video ipod email me or somethin!
Bobby: The preferences for the iPod have moved. Now you just have to select the iPod on the main iTunes screen. From there the steps should be relatively the same. Take a look at comment #115. I have not tried it, but it may work for you.
Thanks heaps for the step by step guide. Ive had this problem for ages now and it drove me nuts, but all is good now.
Thanks mate!
Just read ur procedure, “Davey Wavey” (nice), and if this works, I’ll worship u for the rest of my life….here goes…
Thank you for nada chile con queso cor dog con frijoles & tortillas
thanks so much for the info–here it is October 2006 over a year after you posted your initial instructions and Apple still hasn’t posted this problem in their “help” section–what gives!!! I have the nano and my album art started to go wacky on me today–but after disabling the artwork and reenabling it it worked. thanks!!!!!!!
Worked for me. The place where the toggle for display ablum artwork is different in iTunes 7.0. You need to select the ipod and go to the music tab.
ok, none of u guys’ suggestions worked, but I found 1 of my own! This only works if u DON’T have a new generation iPod — it has to be compatible w/ iTunes 6 or lower. So, on to the steps.
1)use the iTunes disk u got w/ iPod, and install unupdated version of iTunes on comupter (you have to erase every last trace of itunes 7 or higher before u do this)
2)open iTunes
3)plug in your screwed ipod
4)go to iPod options>iPod>music
5)at the bottom of the box, uncheck the “show album art on iPod”
6)press “Ok”
7)repeat step #4
8)check the “show album art on iPod” box
9)press “Ok”
10)eject iPod (u may want to restart the iPod now)
YOUR IPOD IS NOW BACK TO NORMAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!
REMEMBER: this only works w/ iPods that are compatible w/ iTunes 6 or lower. hope this helps, SOS
Okay I tried re-installing my iTunes 6, after I was using iTunes 7 which wouldn’t fix my problem of displaying the wrong album art, but now it’s giving me this message.
“The files “iTunes Library.itl” cannont not be read because it was created by a newer version of iTunes.”
So basically it’s not openeing my iTunes 6 that I re-installed. How do I fix this?
Thank you so much! I had this problem start a few months ago and it’s slowly gotten worse and worse. Tried your fix and everything was back to normal in about 2 minutes.
hi i did the uncheck the display art work and check display artwork but everytime it uploads the artwork back to the ipod it has an error its said (unknown error)-50 and it would put 1 artwork in the correct song but thats it what happened to the others pls help.
oh yeah i forgot im using itunes7
not sure what your computers prob is, David…I never had that cum up w/ me. Im not sure if it makes a difference, but i manage my songs manually…maybe that has somthing to do w/ it. hmmmmm. i’ll work on it…
by the way, if any1 has found out how to fix the prob on a new generation ipod, post it, caus my friend has 1, and I cant help…
i had a variation of the problem.
things were going fine until i realised that now when i try to input artwork for songs already in my ipod, they won’t appear in my ipod, but on itunes. however, if i delete the song and then upload it onto my ipod, the artwork could be displayed.
unfortunately i lazily didn’t want to go to all the trouble of deleting and reuploading so many songs so i unchecked the “display artwork” tab then rechecked. that was when the (-50) error happened and now not a single artwork appears.
tried all kinds of fixes, even the one whereby i disconnect it without ejecting as someone suggested on the apple website (which is incidentally what broke fonzo’s ipod in the first place) but nothing worked.
Denise & Max: Have you guys tried restoring your iPods? In iTunes 7.x under the iPod preferences there is an option to restore. This reformats your iPod with the latest firmware. I have not tried it, as I have not been able to get my iPod to show incorrect album art of the -50 error, but it may work.
yay!
no more listening to charlotte gainsbourg, but seeing picture of yeah yeah yeahs on song screen and picture of beck on album artwork screen!
brill!
Thank u for replying fonzo but the thing is i dont have all the music and videos anymore in my PC so i cant really restore it if you have any ides how to do it without retoring pls help. thank u
Tank you so much!!!
Great fix, worked perfectly on my 1G Nano, with iTunes 7.0.2; I’d try erasing all musics from the iPod and synching again, but was useless. This did the trick (easier and faster d’oh). After I disabled album art on the iPod I closed the iTunes and opened again to enable, always disconnecting the iPod the correct way (I’ve screwed it disconnecting on the rush too) and it worked, maybe that was the issue with the iTunes 7.
IT works…………………….horray, thanks.
This has been driving me insane,(I unplugged during an update) I have deleted and re-installed all the songs from the Ipod using the uncheck method and it still didnt work. Even a physical delete and a reload is not 100% reliable at restoring the link between art and Ipod and who wants to reapply 7000 rating scores manually.
Hi there get the same “bug” and to fix it with itunes 7 just plug your Ipod then when itunes is launched you’ll see it on the left select it and then on the main screen you’ll see all ipod option just go to the “music” section and unselect “Display album artwork on your iPod” (hope it something like that i use a french version). clic “apply” on the bottom right, wait for ipod update. then reselect and re apply, should work now!!
thank u sooooo MUCH!!!!!!!!!! u are a lifesaver, i was on the brink of gettin a new iPod thank u sooooooooooo much
Thanks a lot man!! Worked like a charm on Itunes 7. I just clicked on the ipod then on the music tab, unchecked album art and then re-enabled it and voila! No more Metallica on Beyonce or the Killers in 50 cent! Thanks again!!!
i had been having trouble with the artwork on my nano. it was showing some artwork but not some songs and i tried repeatedly changing dsettings and nothing would work. it just seemed to want to show artwork for some and not others. sods law typicaaly said that it was my fav songs that were not showing. but yippadidooda!! ive found a way to fix, so im posting just in case i can help mayb one person. go to the main library on ur i tunes, and go.. edit- select all. then right click somewhere in the highlighted area( so as to chose an option for all the songs. the press – convert selection to mp3. it will take a while depending on how many tracks you have but when its done them all. you will have two versions of each tune. (all next to each other) then go thru and delete all the 1st versions of the tracks(the ones top ones) ansd now all the artwork you put in will show up. i know it takes a while, ( i had 235 tunes!) but i thought it was worth it? i hope that this helps someone. as it caused me hours of annoyance.
Tom: Thanks for the info. I could see that being a bit too much work if someone has a few thousand tracks, but good info none-the-less. Did you try consolidating your library? That has helped me out a few times with random lil’ iTunes problems.
Thanks for showing me how to fix the screwed up pictures/art.
your da man!!
Hey, I got an album art from amazon and when I applied it to the album, I saw that it was VERY small, and is fuzzy when played on my video ipod (as the ipod scales it up to fit). I then put the correct size art in over it, and it still showed the small art, so I tried yet another. Now, I have THREE album arts on the album, and in itunes I can view all three by scrolling through, but the 2 correct sized pix do not show, as the small one is front in line.
My question is HOW DO I DELETE AN ALBUM ART FROM ONLY ONE ALBUM AND/OR SONG. I don’t want to reset the whole thing, as I did it all manually and this is the only problem I have.
BigPrib: It is a bit time consuming, but select a song, select “get info” and then select the “Artwork” tab. From there you can delete the artwork you no longer want. Or, you can try selecting all of the songs in the album, going to “get info” and simply selecting the checkbox next to album art. It should overwrite any previous entries and thus, delete all of the artwork from the album.
Thanks!
I finally jumped on the iPod bus and hit this problem very soon. With “wrong artwork ipod”, Google, and you, I’m back in business. I still think iPod’s artwork system is prone to errors and lacking in details, but you saved their rep to me.
Have a Blessed Day!
I could KISS ya!!!! Thank you!!!
In response to the artwork not displaying properly…I have a brand new 80 Gb, and ran in to a similar problem. I’m using iTunes 7 and everything works and looks nice in iTunes…but the iPod seems to have gone a little crazy with the artwork. It seemed to affect only artwork that I added manually though…not artwork that iTunes found. So anyway, I followed the suggestion (in iTunes 7 the option is located by selecting the iPod, and then selecting the ‘Music’ tab), and…it worked like a champ! All the right artwork, with all the right songs. Thanks!!
juss wondering…
My iPod has got the same pro. as most of u, but i fixed it a while ago. but it just happend again, and it fixed it — again. But now im wondering if any1 has actually found a permanent solution, or if I have 2 keep covering my iPod up w/ bandaids.
Hey,
I just got a 5gen 30gb iPod Video and the album artwork is very mixed up – sometimes it doesnt display at all, sometimes it displays the wrong artwork and sometimes it actually gets it right.
I’ve tried following Fonzo’z instructions, but even when my iPod is connected to my PC and being recognised by iTunes (I have the latest version) there is no section under ‘Edit’-'Preferences’ for my iPod
Please help as my iTunes is very well-organised with artwork and I am very frustrated with the problems with my brand new pod!
SOS: I have broke my iPod again recently, and fixed it again recently also. From what I can tell, the only permanent fix is to properly eject your iPod each time through the iTunes interface. A bit of a pain when you want to grab n’ dash, but it has worked for me flawlessly.
Sunsanne: The iPod preferences you are looking for are under the iPod’s preferences. In iTunes v7, the iPod shows up on the left pane like a playlist. Click on your iPod, click on the “music” tab, and the checkbox should be located at the bottom.
Thanks for the tip! Worked like a charm on my 5G 80GB iPod. I always eject my iPod before disconnecting it, so in my case i think it was something else that destroyed my nice artwork-order, maybe it happened when I turned off the autosync feature. Anyway, thanks again!
Fonzo, you’re the man. Thanks for your help!
It worked perfectly for me (5th G iPod, iTunes 7), but I still can’t figure out why did this happen to my iPod. I always ejected it properly before unplugging, etc. Perhaps Bluray is right: at first, I used to manually update my iPod, but since some months ago I switched it to autosync.
I’m now rethinking this whole artwork thing. It’s currently using over 400MB of my iPod… that’s about 100 songs!
Thanks a lot anyway!
thanks so much! I was getting horridly frustrated with it and it worked just like you said. thanks a lot!
In iTunes 7, plug in your iPod and click on it in the Devices section of the left-hand bar. Then click on the Music tab in the top-center of the main pane and the checkbox for “Display album artwork on your iPod” will be at the bottom.
Thanks for the tip, but I’m experiencing the -50 error and now my album artwork won’t display on my 60GB iPod.
i fuckin love this guy! i was panicking when all my artwork was mixed up.thanks alot!
This worked like a charm last time the album art got scrambled a few months ago.
But this time, something weird is going on.
You see, unchecking the box for showing artwork on my iPod isn’t working.
Even with the box unchecked, after syncing 4 times and rebooting iTunes twice, it still won’t get rid of the artwork. It’s like it’s stuck on my iPod, doomed to be misplaced in the wrong songs.
Heeeeelp, I really don’t feel like restoring my iPod. It takes long enough to sync as it is. It’d take a week to get 500 tracks back at iT7’s speed.
Wicked! thanks alot…….. worked a treat. Yay!!!
Worked a charm on my iPod Photo. A quick google search revealed this site, where no other site could help me =)
Thanks!
I’m going to add yet another thanks here. It happened to me (60gb photo) after I had to force quit itunes one time. Anyway, it works now!
wow, thank you so much.
The procedure works with iTunes 7. Thanks
Just wanted to add to the growing list of “thank you’s.” Your post fixed the scrambled artwork problem on my 30gb video iPod.
Thanks for the tip, but I’m experiencing the -50 error and now my album artwork won’t display on my 60GB iPod.
Mike, the same thing happend to me. Just re-sync your iPod and the issue should be resolved.
I was having the same issue as a few other posters. My 2 GB iPod nano would display the album art for SOME tracks, but not for others. I saw a few posts from folks who completely restored they’re nano from scratch, but didn’t want to take the time. Most of my album art was manually added.
I found a new way to fix it! Once the album art has been added, it MUST be displayed at some point in the iTunes viewer. I tested this with one album and it worked fine. Then I enabled the View->Album Art option and went through EVERY song on my iPod. I didn’t need to listen to the whole thing, just run it long enough to load and start playing. Then I went back and did Options->Disable Album Art and Options->Enable Album Art again and ALL MY ALBUM ART WAS THERE.
Thanks to all for posting enough brainstorming ideas for me to figure this one out!
album loading in my ipod after 1-2 seconds. is that normal? 8gig ipod nano 2nd gen. thanks.
ya, i think it’s fairly normal for the artwork 2 take a few secs to load… It might have something 2 do w/ the size/res. of the artwork as well, though I’m not sure that effects the art on a nano (as opposed 2 the actual computer). mine usually cums right up with the song, but takes a min. if i view it in full mode.
thanks for the help worked like a charm…like a charm
Worked for me too. Thanks, y’all…!
Thanks so much man! Same problem, easily solved. Very helpful
This has saved my sanity. Thank you so much! Tool art doesn’t display anymore, but maybe it’ll work on my next sync. Thanks a ton!
THANK YOU! you have no idea how much that was bothering me. i checked all over itunes and couldn’t find any help. your solution fixed the problem right away. :]
Thanks for the tip. It fixed my problem!
I have a 5g 80gb iPod with this very same problem. I did as stated above, but the iPod stopped showing album art at all. And yes I did turn the album art tab back on. Then I restored the iPod to it’s factory settings with iTunes 7, no success. Now it shows random album art again, but that’s better than nothing. Some albums that have had their album art ‘automatically’ when I have added them to iTunes, work just fine.
Thanks for all the helpful advice! Here’s how it worked for me:
I had my 80Gb Video iPod plugged into my windows PC and iTunes was running with the iPod displayed in the program.
The PC was on for a while and went to sleep, and I soon did the same. When I awoke, I unplugged the iPod from the PC without waking it up. That was all it took to cause the iPod to stop displaying album art of any kind.
After finding this site, I mounted my iPod in iTunes and clicked on its icon. I then clicked on the “Music” tab and clicked the bottom-most check box “Display album artwork on your iPod.”
Now the IMPORTANT part: I had to CLICK on the lower-right button marked “APPLY” to start the process of fixing album art. iTunes quickly deleted all album art from my iPod and then loaded it all back from scratch. This took 3-4 minutes for 6,200 songs. Finally, I ejected the iPod and BINGO, all the album art is now being displayed perfectly.
Apple really should add the info from this page to its support site. Anyone have a contact to whom we could send the link?
I have a 5g 30gb ipod and I was getting the same message… uknown error (-50) when I checked and unchecked the album art icon. I tried unplugging the ipod without ejecting it… didn’t work. Then, I restored my ipod, tried putting only a few songs with album art on and still only some of them show up. Can someone please help??? I’ve tried everything and I’m going insane.
Thanks
Another success story! 5g 30GB Video with really screwed up artwork. Running iTunes v7. I did remove it a couple times w/out ejecting and had a power outage while it was plugged in to my PC. Anyway, going through the uncheck/check process did the trick. Thanks!
Thanks so much, I have a 30Gb Video Ipod and your fix worked a dream.
In version 7 you click on your ipod in the left hand column, then click on the ‘music’ tab and deselect ‘display album artwork’
Then follow other steps as per instructions…
So stoked to have my ipod back !
P.S. Yes I did the same thing, disconnected my ipod while it was doing it’s thing, there may or may not have been alcohol involved
Wow, You should work for apple support! What a bunch of Know nothings over there. Had the same problem with my 80 giger over 5,000 songs(just starting) and unplugged before ejecting ipod. Half of artwork was F-up and pissing me off. Your trick put the right artwork back to where it should have been, but still left some artwork missing.(at least the problem of wrong art work is fixed)
Thank you my friend.
Chop.
Thanks so much. I looked everywhere on Apple for help, because I had the same thing happen to me. I even started erasing all my songs off the iPod and manually putting them back on! 500 songs later, my hopes were crushed when it all the songs had the wrong artwork. It’s such an easy problem to fix, but I couldn’t find it anywhere, and I never would have thought of it. THANKS!
has anyone come up with a permanent solution with itunes 7? after trying this fix, instead of getting random artwork i get none at all and the (-50) error. help?
James: To my knowledge, no fix has been found for the -50 error. You can try restoring your iPod, but I have no proof that it will work. I have tried different things, but have yet to receive a -50 error. If restoring works, let me know. Good luck.
how do i get album artwork, is it free, i dont have a itunes account
Ka’Ori: Setting up an iTunes account requires a credit card, but it is free. I have had an account for about a year, downloaded a few gigs worth of data, and spent $0 so far (they offer free items every week). Another option is to use http://www.allmusic.com to find all of your artwork.
Hi Fonzo,
i got my ipod a while ago and i’ve been trying to figure out how to get photos on…finally today i figured that out and now i’m trying to get the album art on. I’ve googled a lot and havn’t found any aswers. I know this site is about fixing album art probs, but how do you get the album art on in the first place? Thanks in advance!
-soccer child
o and i have itunes 7
has anyone tried restoring their ipod to original settings? im about to try it but would like to know if anyone has done it before.
I also had problems with the (-50) error in my IPOD VIDEO. i checked the “display album artworK” clicked on “apply” and then it displayed the error message. BUT, i found a way to display the artwork on my ipod! I USE A DIFFERENT SOFTWARE FOR ADDING ARTWORK. i use Mp3TagTools software. you have to ADD THE ARTWORK FIRST before you upload the mp3 files to the itunes library!
here’s anothing thing i did that worked. I INSTALLED the ITUNES on a different computer, checked “display album artwork”, clicked “apply” and it WORKED! no problemo!
Thanx, Fonzo. Your trick worked just fine for my 60-gig Video and iTunes 7.1.1(5) for OSX-10.4.9. You may wish to update your webpage for your fix with iTunes-7; Mike’s comment #155 tells one where to find the display album art toggle in iTune-7. Best Regards, T.
In the Latest version of iTunes you have to click on your ipod on the left side, click the tab on the top labeled music and at the bottom there is a check box for “Display album artwork on your iPodâ€
Thanks Fonzo!!!
Thank you. It was such a silly problem but I had no idea how to fix it. Thanks man
I also had the problem with scrambled album artwork, and I tried your solution by unchecking and checking the display album artwork box. Unfortuantetly, this ended with a display of the (-50) error which I had no solution for. However, your advice about updating to an empty playlist and then re-synching all of your songs worked perfectly. It can be slightly time consuming, but its well worth it. Thanks alot!
my problem here is i have some artwork pictures for a song
but i do not know how to delete artwork or switch them
because i have one black and white picture and the other 10 or so
is a 2nd picture which is shown the same over and over again.
do you think you can help me with my problem?
ok i will rephrase my problem
basically i do not know how to remove the artwork without restoring or removing the song.
Bruudwin: If you right-click on the song, select “get info,” and go to the artwork tab, you should be able to delete specific pictures.
Let me know if that works for you.
I tried to follow your steps to display artwork correct and i get the (-50) Unknown Error. I noticed above Crazy Pete mentioned a solution/work-around but could not find what he was talking about.
Any chance you could enlighten me Fonzo?
Fonzo: thank you that helped a lot because i had like 1 pict and 10 picts right after that one which were all the same + i had some odd pictures too.
I have just used you post to fix this problem on my 80GB iPod Video, thanks muchly. I can not believe that this is still a problem in the very latest iPods!! Who are these people that say Mac/Apple are far better?? Coz they certainly don’t seem to be very responsive; c’est la vie eh. :-]
Man… I was having the same problem on my 30GB iPod Video… and had no idea why… Thanks for the hint, it’s optimizing the artwork now… I’m keeping my fingers crossed!
Thank you SO much! I had thought that I was the only one with this problem cause I couldn’t find anything about it on the internet, and then i stumbled upon this page. I had the problem with my 30GB iPod Video, and it fixed it!
The stupid artwork problem was driving me up the effing WALL!
Well i have a different problem! On itunes it shows the artwork but on my iPod nano it doesnt show the artwork! Also in the preferences i dont have an iPod tab it only has general, podcast, playbecl, sharing, apple tv, store, advanced, and parental control! ahhh i need help!!!!
I’ve found the error message(-50) can be fixed by uninstalling iTunes and reinstalling the latest version. A hassle I know, but I am close to blowing my ipods brains out if it doesn’t display the correct artwork soon.
Thanks. Had my computer crash while upgrading to iTunes 7.3, so I had to disconnect my iPod during the “Do Not Disconnect” phase and, sure enough, aloha to the artwork.
Unchecking, then rechecking “Show Artwork” fixed the problem. Took about an hour though for 45 GB of music.
Thanks! Thanks! Thanks!
Thanks for this.
After doing a whole load of artwork uploading last nite, the iPod decided to show a black square for a lot of my albums. Thought there was a resolution issue. Disabling then enabling artwork worked.
itunes 7.3.13 clicked on ipod, then selected Music tab. This gives the option to display artowrk.
Yo thanks indy,I had the exact same problem an if it wasn’t for you I would’ve just left it that way…thanks a lot!!!
thank you dude this saved my frickin ipod i was so pissed off when my black dahlia murder cd kept coming up with mac dre artwork.
Thank you so much for the solution!
Now I’ll be able to get all my album arts to display correctly again! Hooray!
You’re a genius. I’ve asked everyone about how that’s done, and you showed me how in a matter of seconds. I appreciate it!
Thanks so much! I’ve had this problem for 8 months now but have never looked into getting it fixed as it was such a minor thing but now I love having it fixed!!
Under the new iTunes you need to plug in your ipod and click the music tab for your ipod. There is a button to display artwork. Uncheck that then sync and recheck it and sync. Works like a charm.
Alright Here’s The Deal.
I got that bug fixed the last time (8 months or so) like your instructions here but found it out myself, the check and the uncheck thing
Now, my nano is FF’ed up again and i retried the procedure and I get a 50 Unknown error like some of the people here.
Apple should really look into that bug.
And yes, i’ve also tried that thing where you intentionally take out the ipod without ejecting and following the steps properly… just yank it out.
too bad didnt work..
so yea, im pretty much outta ideas and have to backup my ipod if i wanna restore it cuz i gots lots of songs from like internet cafes and school computers and they’re not in my Harddrive… (sighs..)
maybe someone could get me an update on this stuff if you’re also in my situation if there’s a new way….
acerious(at)gmail(dot)com
hi, i have a 30gb ipod video and have the same problem with the artwork mixed up. My computer with my itunes and music is currently back in the uk, can i do this fix from itunes in an internet cafe with out my original music on it? If not then is there another way or will i have to wait till i return home.
Not sure if you got thanked enough.
So
THANK YOU!
kevcrane: Not sure if you figured this out yet, but you’re going to have to wait to fix the problem. If you try it at another computer, it will delete all of the music you currently have on the iPod. Of course you could transfer the songs off the iPod, import them into iTunes, recreate any playlists you have, and then sync it back up, but that’s a lot of work for some album art.
Hi, I tried this method and after re-checking the Display album artwork box, I apply and then eject my Ipod. Some artwork is displaying, but others aren’t (even when I have the album and artwork on itunes. Any ideas why this is happening?
Thanks in advance.
Thank you, the “Display album artwork†suggestion has fixed my ipod.
THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!! You are are a life saver!!!
I have the most recent version of iTunes installed and there is no iPod tab in Preferences. What gives?
The man who has offered this help is to be blessed. If he is ever in Beijing, give us a call and drinks will be on me.
my iphone is diplaying the wrong album art. the album art, though displayed correctly in itunes, still isnt synching correctly with my iphone. the option of “preferences>>> ipod” does not apply to iphone users becuase there is no “ipod” under preferences…. despite making sure that there was only one album artwork under each album, and re-syncing and turning off my ipod and computer, it still isnt working!!! its frustrating… though not the biggest deal, it is annoying when i see the wrong cover when im listening to a song. any tips would be great. i dont want to reset my ipod in fear of losing all my contacts. any help would be great.
I Have Followed The Steps But I Get Stuck On #2 Because When I Go To Preferences, I Cannot Find The ‘iPod’ Menu. It Says General And A Number Of Others. Please Help Me.
Jordan & Brittany: Don’t go to preferences. Instead, click on the “music” tab of your iPod/iPhone (the screen that pops up when you plug in the device).
Fonzo, you are the man! Such a simple fix, I’ve been dealing with mixed up photos and most recently even the artwork was split into 4 panes, almost every song was mixed up with over 7,000 songs – the thought of manually managing it or something more drastic was scary! Thanks a million, I’m with the guy in Beijing, if you are ever in upstate New York, I’d be glad to buy you beers also!
Your solution worked like a charm. Thank you.
itunes 7 diable atwork is under music in the actual ipod bit
thanks you rule dude!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks so much for the very simple tip after getting very frustrated with ipod. Thanks also to Chez for pointing out where to go in version 7 of itunes
Your posting to fix the album art problem on my iPod Classic, worked. Thanks
Hey,
In Itunes 7 the albumart can be found when you click on the ipod (and it should give you the information on how many storage space you used on music/video/photo’s/other stuff) then go to the music tab and there you can find the enable/disable albumart option.
But thanks for the solution, you’re a freaking genius
i really think i’m gonna find where you live and give you a hug. srsly… i love you kid! thanks!! >,<
Tried to do that and got a box that said (The iPod cannot be synced- Unknown error has occurred. (-.50) )
I want to cry and scream at the same time.
HELP !!!!!!!!!
Thank You Sooooo Much !!!!
You’re The Coolest Guy Ever !!!!!
This Solved My iPod Artwork Prob Right Away !!!!
And I Was Doing All Sorts Of Things To Correct The Stupid Problem !!!! It Even Interfered With The Artwork Of My Videos…. ( It Was Kinda Funny Though )…. But Your Solution Worked !!!
Simple Short And Sweet Solution……. Thanks A Bunch
OMG!
Thaaaankyou!
It worked!
But after I synced it it said an uknown error occured.
thank u man !! just saved me a brainburner
I had this problem and at first I too thought it was funny but I tried doing the same stuff as you (except wiping it), the only difference is that mine did this because iTunes had a fatal error when I was syncing my iPod (scary huh?). Thanks for the fix
TIP for album artwork + Unknown Error -50:
Updated firmware on 5th Gen 60 Gb Video iPod
Used iTunes 7 (and then tried
to sync music by checked playlists, about 20 Gb of music
Album Artwork was wrong on Large View but correct on main display but kept getting worse
Tried uncheck and check of artwork but got unknown error (-50) problem (common problem) and now cannot sync any artwork.
What worked (you can assume I tried everything else)
1) Uncheck all music playlists and sync (will delete all the music so be sure you have the original music in iTunes). This will delete all your music off your iPod!!!
2) Uncheck the box for artwork and sync again.
3) Create a very small playlist (say 10 songs) or use an existing small list. Sync this new small list. Now check the box for enabling artwork, you will still get the error but thats ok.
4) Now eject your iPod and reset it (hold down middle and menu buttons until it reboots).
5) Now plug your iPod back in, and recheck all your usual music playlists, and uncheck the one created in step 3 (small list). Make sure album art is enabled. Sync.
Worked for me! Was driving me nuts, have not seen this anywhere else…it seems you just get the error message the first time you try and put the album art back on, so put it back on with a very small playlist that you don’t care about.
thank you so much!
to let all of you know, this DOES work on the new itunes 8.0.0.35!
i have a 5G 60GB ipod video.
it worked well, and i’m so happy!
Thanks a billion!!! I was looking at my album art the other day and found they are clip thumbnails of my mariah carey mtvs… anyway, did exactly what you said on iTune 8, and it worked like a charm. And for the record, this was done on a different machine that didn’t have ANY of the album art. I think iPod keeps the album art in the drive, just need to resync the tags like i read somewhere else.
bug i’m glad it’s back to my original iPod goodness =)
btw, i forgot to say one thing, for all those who are looking for album art… apparently google image is probably ur best friend =D laterz!
Thank you very much for this easy yet clever solution.
It worked like a charm on a 120G Ipod Classic….
You’re the greatest! Thanks for sharing!
You’re the greatest! Thank you for sharing this info. Of course it worked!
THANK U SOOO MUCH TRICKY
i finally got rid of that damn -50 error
=)
Thanks for the solution!
You’re welcome.
THAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANK YOU SOOOOOOOOOO MUUUCH!!!!!!!!!!! ohhh man!!!! woooo!!! this just made my day!!!
thankyou!!!!! i was dreading having to send it back to apple and all that, i just got the ipod yesterday for goodness sakes!!
anyways you’re fab! thanks again
)))
Hello mate i have same problem with “Cat” i follow the steps.. after updating.. i disconnected the ipod then there is no album art…
Thanks!! This just started happening on my 80GB classic. Like you, I was amused at first, then I began to get irritated. Will fix it tonight!
YOU ARE AN ABSOLUTE GENIUS! I bought my ipod nano today and loved it and I was so angry when I thought it was faulty (its the 5th ipod I’ve owned!) thank you so much for your help
Ahhh thanks so much, I’m optimizing my artwork as I type. I hope to GOD this works, my ipod was getting to the point where it would show artwork that I never even had on my ipod
tHANK YOU!
Darling,
You ROCK! this has been bothering me so much! And the mac site is useless – as always.
Thanks a mill.
Thank you so much! I noticed this problem yesterday, and then noticed it on more songs today. After a little Googling I ended up here, and your fix got things back to normal. Awesome!
what about itunes 9? the show album art option is nowhere to be found. please
A ‘thank you’ note:
Brilliant!
Works. 6th generation iPod Classic (Aug. 2009). iTunes 8. Windows XP.
____________________________________________________
I can’t believe that Apple have still not bothered to fix this problem.
derek,
I’m using iTunes 8 and I don’t suppose that the check box would have moved anywhere else. Connect your iPod, click on the entry and click on the Music tab.
I too am using iTunes 9, and so far as I can tell they removed the “Display album artwork on your iPod” box, or whatever. Can’t fathom why they would do that… since it seems like version 9 has not fixed this Artwork problem.
My pod was disconnected halfway through a sync a few weeks ago and half the album artworks only show gray static when I’m browsing through the cover flow . It’s reeeeeeal annoying.
I’m looking at edit , preferences, and there’s nothing about album artwork there.i looked at iPod -> Music and saw nothing about artwork there either….also, when i first saw that my album art was messed up, mixing podcast art and music art, i deleted all the podcasts that had that art, even in my podcasts on itunes, and it still showed up everywhere… weird
ipod nano 5g here….can’t find that option in itunes 9 either….it really would have been helpful…as the only way to correct the problem otherwise seems to be to restore the ipod and re-sync EVERYTHING….considering that my art work goes haywire every other week, this is not an option…..i restored once b4 to fix the issue, and i think my ipod fell and they went crazy again….wonder if i good down grade to itunes 8….*sigh*
@ rusty…same here, podcasts and album artwork are all mixed up…
*sigh*
it is such an annoying little problem!!
yeah, also using itunes 9 here. and i really cannot find that menu ANYWHERE. please help
thx
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[...] I took this excerpt from Fonzo’s Biz Blog when I googled “mixed up album art Nano.” Giving up props and sharing in case his blog ever goes down. Update (12/07/05): Since this seems to be such a big problem, and to make life easier for everyone, I have created some simple steps for you to follow to get your iPod Nano (or Video) to display the correct album art. [...]
[...] I’ve been putting up with this problem for a few weeks now, and finally decided to Google for a solution. Fortunately I’m not the first person to have this problem and Fonzo has managed to find the solution. Kudos to him! [...]
[...] So I did some googling and came up with this site. [...]
[...] Cheers to Fonzo who’s post about broken nano album art helped fix my problem quickly and painlessly. My nano is displaying the album art just like she used to. share this postThese icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]
[...] Google’d for a solution. Fortunately I wasn’t the first person to have this problem and Fonzo has managed to find the [...]
[...] that doesn’t work i suppose you’d have to reformat it and thus fuck up your jailbroken programs. (fonzo.biz / iPod Nano Artwork – Fixed) Follow these 8 simple steps. 1. Plug you iPod into your computer and open iTunes. 2. In iTunes, [...]
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