Foobar 2.1 Not displaying folder art?

2023-12-23 16:51:32

I have just updated to Foobar version 2.1 and I noticed that it is no longer displaying JPG art if it is a file in the folder.

For clarity, the way that most of my music is set up is that there is no embedded art inside the MP3 files.  I put a JPG in the folder called folder.jpg.  This allows Windows to display the art and all the media players I use (until today) to find and display the picture.  Foobar used to do this but, as of the 2.1 update, it doesn't.

If I embed a JPG inside the MP3, then Foobar will display it.  So I know that it hasn't lost the ability to display the pictures that I am using, but it can't display them if they are not inside the MP3.  The album art display panel just shows "[no image]".

I hope this is merely a bug to be corrected rather than a feature change.  I have well over a terabyte of music.  So, embedding pictures in all the files would take a very, very long time.  Or maybe something has changed in Foobar that I need to adjust in my preferences?

My layout:

Re: Foobar 2.1 Not displaying folder art?

Reply #1 – 2023-12-23 17:08:57

Look at File>Preferences>Display>Album Art>Front cover. Make sure all filenames you use are listed there.

If you make changes, you might need to restart fb2k.

My preferences have only contained a single entry for years (cover.jpg) and it has survived every upgrade I've thrown at it and I always use the latest betas all the time.

Re: Foobar 2.1 Not displaying folder art?

Reply #2 – 2023-12-23 17:18:29

Thank you for the reply.  That certainly looks like the correct place to look.

Unfortunately, it doesn't fix it for me:


I have tried folder.jpg, folder.* and removing the other entries leaving only the file name that I want.  Nothing worked (and I did restart Foobar each time).

Maybe it is a bug?  From the above it certainly seems like it should be working.

If I load the exact same MP3s in, say, MPC BE, the folder.jpg file shows just fine.

Re: Foobar 2.1 Not displaying folder art?

Reply #3 – 2023-12-23 17:25:34

I just rolled back to Foobar 2.0 and my album art worked again.  Re-updating back to 2.1 and it's not visible.

Re: Foobar 2.1 Not displaying folder art?

Reply #4 – 2023-12-23 17:35:51

Oh! Critical piece of information that I missed out, and I shouldn't have. 

I always set the "hidden" file attribute on folder.jpg.  And that's apparently the issue.  Foobar (and no other media player that I use) didn't care about the "hidden" attribute.  So, to keep things nice and tidy, I set it and so my music folders only show me the MP3 files when I browse them.

However, it now seems the Foobar can't see the JPGs if they are set to "hidden".  I mean, I get that this makes sense (and it therefore worries me that it might be a deliberate change) but it wasn't that way before (and hasn't been for years - probably ever.  So, it's a change that does cause me problems.

[edit]
Looking at the 2.1 changelog, I suspect this is where the issue crept in:

"Rewrote external album art lookup code, wildcard lookup now works where it didn't before."

It's unclear from that, however, whether no longer seeing files with the "hidden" attribute was deliberate or not.

Re: Foobar 2.1 Not displaying folder art?

Reply #5 – 2023-12-23 20:04:51

There is a hidden files checkbox under Advanced preferences. I don't know if it works that way, but you could test it.

Re: Foobar 2.1 Not displaying folder art?

Reply #6 – 2023-12-23 20:13:46

Thanks for the suggestion.  I assume this is the one:


I didn't have it checked, but checking it did not make my album art reappear. 

While I was in the advanced options, I tried the various album art source choices in there too.  This also did not fix things for me.

Re: Foobar 2.1 Not displaying folder art?

Reply #7 – 2023-12-23 20:26:12

Yes. (I vaguely remembered it was there, so I just typed "hidden" into the "Filter" field on top, but yes it matches.)

Anyway, sounds like a bug room for improvement.

Re: Foobar 2.1 Not displaying folder art?

Reply #8 – 2023-12-23 20:28:09

"Room for improvement" I like.  It leaves the door open for change/fixes.

"It's a feature not a bug", as is so often heard elsewhere, does not.

Thank you for helping.

Re: Foobar 2.1 Not displaying folder art?

Reply #9 – 2024-01-19 17:34:03

Just to confirm: I have just updated foobar2000 (to 2.1.1) and the issue in this thread is fixed for me.  My hidden-files album art seem to be getting displayed in the same way that they were before the previous update.

Thank you very much for addressing this.  It really makes a difference to me and how I use the program.

Thanks again.