Behaviour of JPlay iOS

Hello everyone,

I have been trying out JPlay on my iPad connecting to JRiver MC31 as the library server with the SoTM SMS200 as end point. I’m glad to say it works in this configuration. There are a few unexpected things pertaining to how it behaves that I would like to sort out. Most important now is how covers are displayed. With some albums their covers are displayed correctly but with others JPlay displays a folder graphic instead of the correct cover art. I am certain the cover art is correct as they display correctly when I use JRiver natively or when using JRemote on my iPad. They also display correctly in Audirvana. What can the problem be? I have resynchronised the library on JPlay but that did not correct the problem. I have included a screen grab to show what I mean. See the album “Come Away With Me” and the two next to it on the top line. Any idea what’s causing this?

Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions. 

3 hours ago, swcng2001 said:

I am certain the cover art is correct as they display correctly when I use JRiver natively or when using JRemote on my iPad.

Are the covers embedded in the tracks and/or is there a folder.jpg (or cover.jpg) file in the album folders?

Hello Stefano,

Thanks for taking the time to answer.

There is a cover.jpg file in the folder of some an a Folder.jpg in others. Similarly for the other albums where the covers are displayed correctly.

Stephen

21 minutes ago, swcng2001 said:

Hello Stefano,

 

Thanks for taking the time to answer.

 

There is a cover.jpg file in the folder of some an a Folder.jpg in others. Similarly for the other albums where the covers are displayed correctly.

 

Stephen

And what about tracks embedded artworks?

I have not checked every album, but I would say some have embedded cover art and some don’t.  Is there an issue with embedded cover art or a separate cover.jpg/Folder.jpg

6 minutes ago, swcng2001 said:

I have not checked every album, but I would say some have embedded cover art and some don’t.  Is there an issue with embedded cover art or a separate cover.jpg/Folder.jpg

 

You should check if the issue is for albums/tracks without embedded artworks

Shouldn't JPlay just use either. Every other app I've used does not care. They just display what's available. I have thousands of albums. There's no way I'm going to go through all of them to fix something like this. It will be extremely time consuming.

On 9/13/2024 at 12:17 PM, stefano_mbp said:

Are the covers embedded in the tracks and/or is there a folder.jpg (or cover.jpg) file in the album folders?

22 hours ago, stefano_mbp said:

You should check if the issue is for albums/tracks without embedded artworks

That should be irrelevant as far as JPlay iOS is concerned since as a bog standard UPnP/PNP controller it should be obtaining the album art indirectly via a URL contained in the UPnP info requested from JRiver's UPnP/DLNA media server, ie, not directly (either from the audio file's embedded album art or from an image file in the album folders). It's the JRiver UPnP/DLNA media server's job to make sure that the URL delivers the album art once it exists, regardless of where it originally comes from.

7 minutes ago, Cebolla said:

That should be irrelevant as far as JPlay iOS is concerned since as a bog standard UPnP/PNP controller it should be obtaining the album art indirectly via a URL contained in the UPnP info requested from JRiver's UPnP/DLNA media server

Well, then it might be a JRiver issue somewhere as I’m using JPlay with Minimserver and “all” my tracks have artwork embedded and many album folders contain folder.jpg artwork too and I’ve never had that kind of issue

…

and my artworks are all 600x600pxl maximum …

12 hours ago, swcng2001 said:

Shouldn't JPlay just use either. Every other app I've used does not care. They just display what's available.

Yes, JPlay iOS likely is behaving in exactly the same way as any other UPnP/DLNA controller. However it's possible that it's the image itself that JPlay is not happy with, such as its size and/or its dimensions. I believe there's a 'provide small album art' or similar option in JRiver's DLNA server advanced settings that may be worth trying.

@Cebola, @stefano,

Thanks for your responses.

I have checked the cover art for a few albums to see if their sizes had anything to do with the problem. I have smallish 500x500 px files and larger 1000x1000 px "Folder.jpg" files in various albums and there was no difference in their behaviour. On some albums the larger files displayed correctly whereas some with smaller image files did not display.

In Jriver the cover art tag will show either "inside file" or their full path and in both cases JPlay may or may not show the correct cover art. There is no consistency.

Can you confirm that you are not getting the same issue with a standard UPnP/DLNA controller app  other than JPlay for iOS (JRemote & Audirvana aren't), as that would support it being a JPlay problem rather than a JRiver DLNA media server one?

I suggest you try the free mconnect Player Lite app on your iPad as the UPnP/DLNA controller to compare JPlay with, if you haven't done so already.

@Cebola,

Sorry, I have not had the time to try other controller apps. I did however, switch to Minimserver and at least I noticed some consistency with it. Any folder which contains a 'cover.jpg' or 'folder.jpg' will display correctly in Jplay. It seems JRiver is not behaving like other UPnP servers.

There are other issues, though not showstoppers, such as under one artist, obviously there can and often will be many albums. In the main Jplay "My Artists" screen the icon displayed is often just capitalised names of the artists or a simple Folder icon instead of an image. What is the recommended standard to ensure some pictorial representation is displayed on that main screen? All the albums are stored under a main folder, for example, I have all the Pink Floyd albums in a folder of that name stored as individually titled folders with the album name, but in the main "Artists" screen in Jplay the icon is simply a folder!!!

Stephen

35 minutes ago, swcng2001 said:

What is the recommended standard to ensure some pictorial representation is displayed on that main screen?

You should use the index artwork feature in Minimserver, you can read about it here (Minimserver full license is required) Remember to download artists and composers images in JPlay

.

this is an example for Composers

Stefano,

Thanks. That certainly did the job.

Stephen

@cebola, I’m sorry I was diverted from my original trial with JPlay and JRiver. I have now tried using Mconnect with JRiver and all the album covers seem to display correctly and so does the uppermost main aggregated artist screen. It looks as if JRiver does not behave correctly inlike other uPNP servers. Unfortunately Mconnect’s interface is quite plain and not in the same class as JPlay, JRemote or Audirvana.

The display of cover art with jPlay & JRiver Media Server is an issue. There doesn’t seem to be a sure way to fix it that I can find.

@stefano_mbp, @cebola,

Back to JPlay and MinimServer - sorry for jumping around between JRiver & MinimServer!

The display of cover art seems to be a common problem. In latest example in my setup, for the main Artist page, if it’s an artist with a few albums, am I right to expect that page should display one of the album covers (either cover.jpg or folder.jpg in the folder of  the individual albums) or a jpg that is stored in the folder “indexArtwork“ which should be in the uppermost directory of my library and named exactly like the artist’s name?

Yet JPlay seems to not do it perfectly every time. For example, I have many Joni Mitchell albums but on the main Artists page the picture I get is that of Diana Krall😖 (I have included a screen capture on my iPad). I made sure I have all the cover.jpg or folder.jpg files in every folder for the various albums and a file named “Joni Mitchell” in “indexArtwork” and yet the incorrect image is displayed.

What am I doing wrong? 

The indexArtwork option is set as “auto”. 

51 minutes ago, swcng2001 said:

The indexArtwork option is set as “auto”. 

Quite difficult to understand … some questions:

• is the image of Diana Krall in your screenshot the main Artist image (ie Diana Krall.jpg) or is it the album artwork (ie folder/cover.jpg)?
• the track “A case of you” in the “Live in Paris” album is a Joni Mitchell cover, is perhaps Joni Mitchell referenced as an Artist in that album/track?
• did you import the Composer/Artist image in JPlay after adding images in indexArtwork folder and a Minimserver rescan?
• if your contentDir path is …/Music is indexArtwork folder at the first level under /Music?

try anyway to clear the image cache in JPlay and import again Composer/Artist images

Hello Stefano,

I've been looking at each of your suggestions.

• The image of Diana Krall is embedded into the file in the "Live in Paris" album and there is a "folder.jpg" in the same folder. There was no such file in the indexArtwork folder.
• I went through every Diana Krall album using "kid3" to make sure Joni Mitchell's name does not appear as an Artist on any track and vice versa on all of Joni Mitchell's albums. There were no cross references appearing.
• Yes. I performed an import of the Composer/Artist images after a rescan when there are any changes to MinimServer.
• the indexArtwork folder is at the highest level of the main folder pointed to by contentDir and I have only one such folder configured.
• I have also performed a Clear Image cache as you suggested.

I copied images of both Diana and Joni into indexArtwork and named them exactly like the artist's names and that did not make any difference.

The problem persists and I don't see how Jplay or MinimServer could have picked up that image.

Stephen

Stefano,

I’ve tried a couple of other control apps - mconnect and the new Linn control app. These apps are all able to connect to MinimStreamer effortlessly and present artist and album information from the same database (without changes from when using JPlay) without any of the problems I found in JPlay. I can only conclude that JPlay is not doing it right. It’s an AUD$72.99 annual rent for me which is about the most expensive iOS app I have. I hope the creators do something about it or it’s a wasted $73 on my part.

If there is a specific work around to solve these display problems I would really like to know. I will attach the few config screens in the hope you or anyone else can spot any problems.

BTW, do the creators (Marcin?) ever read what’s on this forum?

Stephen. 

@swcng2001 … I can see from your screenshots (the first one) that you didn’t configure how to split multi item tags (semicolon or comma) depending on which separator is used.

FYI I defined semicolon … 

I suggest to try it … after setting the separator make a full JPlay sync again

Hello Stefano,

The different separators did not make any difference to the pictorial display at the highest Artists menu. This is after a rescan, "Clear Image Cache" & "Sync Data".

Out of frustration I deleted the Jplay App from my iPad and reinstalled it. That did the trick!

It looks like Jplay will not clear its image cache using the "Configurations" settings menu.

Now on to other problems 😅

Thanks for all you help.

1 hour ago, swcng2001 said:

Thanks for all you help.

👍