Can't get album art or song titles - Newbie.

phrarod · Post by **phrarod** » Sat May 19, 2007 5:32 am

I went through all the settings as per the board and everything I could find. I even signed up on Musicbrainz. When the window appears when I put a CD it the tracks have no name, no album title. When I click on Musicbrainz nothing happens. I went over and over the prefs.

What simple thing am I missing?

Mike1 · Post by **Mike1** » Sat May 19, 2007 11:36 am

You don't need to be a member of MusicBrainz to use it. I'm not and Max will still pull down information from it for me.

However, MusicBrainz's database is limited and the problem here may simply be that it hasn't got information on the CD is question. I sometimes get that.

The artwork is fetched from Amazon not MusicBrainz. Again, you may have problems, if the CD is a little obscure, or you may need to try varying the information in the fields that are being sent to Amazon.

phrarod · Post by **phrarod** » Sat May 19, 2007 4:46 pm

I'm doing something wrong in the set up. I picked a generic Dire Straits album that's been reissued many times. I just get a blank.

I thought you had to be a member of brainz because there were fields for name and pass in the prefs window.

RonaldPR · Post by **RonaldPR** » Sat May 19, 2007 7:58 pm

What are your settings now in MusicBrainz tab in preferences? It should read:

Preferred server: mm.musicbrainz.org
Port: 80

All other fields blank.

(Those were the default settings, you did not need to change them.)

Mike1 · Post by **Mike1** » Sat May 19, 2007 8:04 pm

phrarod wrote:I'm doing something wrong in the set up. I picked a generic Dire Straits album that's been reissued many times. I just get a blank.

Yeah, if it's Dire Straits they must have it. Sorry, I'm stumped for a thought on what the problem could be then--unless it's some kind of connectivity issue, which seems unlikely. (There's no 3rd-party security software on your Mac that could be stopping programs connecting out, is there?)

How about the album art? If you fill in the album name and artist tags manually, and then click the control to get the art from Amazon, does Max fetch the cover?

I thought you had to be a member of brainz because there were fields for name and pass in the prefs window.

I think that's for if you want to submit information when MusicBrainz hasn't got it.

phrarod · Post by **phrarod** » Sat May 19, 2007 10:19 pm

I just tried that. No luck either. I'm on cable modem so I'm always connected. I've checked the settings over and over. I'm on 10.4.9 Would that have anything to do with it?

Mike1 wrote:
phrarod wrote:I'm doing something wrong in the set up. I picked a generic Dire Straits album that's been reissued many times. I just get a blank.
Yeah, if it's Dire Straits they must have it. Sorry, I'm stumped for a thought on what the problem could be then--unless it's some kind of connectivity issue, which seems unlikely. (There's no 3rd-party security software on your Mac that could be stopping programs connecting out, is there?)

How about the album art? If you fill in the album name and artist tags manually, and then click the control to get the art from Amazon, does Max fetch the cover?

I thought you had to be a member of brainz because there were fields for name and pass in the prefs window.
I think that's for if you want to submit information when MusicBrainz hasn't got it.

Mike1 · Post by **Mike1** » Sun May 20, 2007 7:33 am

phrarod wrote:I just tried that. No luck either.

So it won't connect to Amazon either. I guess that rules out MusicBrainz's servers having gone down.

I'm on cable modem so I'm always connected. I've checked the settings over and over. I'm on 10.4.9 Would that have anything to do with it?

No, Max is fine with 10.4.9 for me.

If re-starting the program doesn't help, you could try rebooting the machine--vague suggestions, I know.

RonaldPR · Post by **RonaldPR** » Sun May 20, 2007 10:00 am

Another vague suggestion:

First quit Max
Remove the file: ~/Library/Preferences/org.sbooth.Max.plist
and remove the folder: ~/Library/Application Support/Max/

When you launch Max now, it will be as if it was launched the first time. You will need to set the prefs again. Do not touch the default settings for MusicBrainz

phrarod · Post by **phrarod** » Sun May 20, 2007 4:57 pm

RonaldPR wrote:Another vague suggestion:

First quit Max
Remove the file: ~/Library/Preferences/org.sbooth.Max.plist
and remove the folder: ~/Library/Application Support/Max/

When you launch Max now, it will be as if it was launched the first time. You will need to set the prefs again. Do not touch the default settings for MusicBrainz

OK just did all that. No change. I'm going to try and reinstall the program.

Just deleted everything again and reinstalled the software. No change at all.

I did try one thing that was partially successful. I changed the CD to the internal CD/DVD drive and at least I got the names of the tracks. No album art though. What's odd is iTunes recognizes it immediately.

I even tried logging into my another user account and the same problem.

Post by **sbooth** » Mon May 21, 2007 2:42 am

Can you post the steps you are performing for downloading the album art?

phrarod · Post by **phrarod** » Mon May 21, 2007 2:47 am

sbooth wrote:Can you post the steps you are performing for downloading the album art?

Never mind....I just figured it out

Last problem is the program will not recognize track names if its reading from an external however. It will not show the title of the Album nor the Artist though. iTunes recognizes it fine.

I tried it under a different user as I said - same problem.

RonaldPR · Post by **RonaldPR** » Mon May 21, 2007 9:10 am

phrarod wrote:Last problem is the program will not recognize track names if its reading from an external however. It will not show the title of the Album nor the Artist though. iTunes recognizes it fine.

iTunes uses a commercial database (Gracenote) while Max uses the free MusicBrainz. The info can differ between the two services. Have you looked on MusicBrainz site if they have the complete info for the CD? Does your problem happen with all CDs or with just this CD?

phrarod · Post by **phrarod** » Mon May 21, 2007 3:01 pm

RonaldPR wrote:
phrarod wrote:Last problem is the program will not recognize track names if its reading from an external however. It will not show the title of the Album nor the Artist though. iTunes recognizes it fine.
iTunes uses a commercial database (Gracenote) while Max uses the free MusicBrainz. The info can differ between the two services. Have you looked on MusicBrainz site if they have the complete info for the CD? Does your problem happen with all CDs or with just this CD?

It happens with all the CDs I tried. They're pretty famous albums. Nothing obscure.

Mike1 · Post by **Mike1** » Mon May 21, 2007 3:57 pm

phrarod wrote:
RonaldPR wrote:
phrarod wrote:Last problem is the program will not recognize track names if its reading from an external however. It will not show the title of the Album nor the Artist though. iTunes recognizes it fine.
iTunes uses a commercial database (Gracenote) while Max uses the free MusicBrainz. The info can differ between the two services. Have you looked on MusicBrainz site if they have the complete info for the CD? Does your problem happen with all CDs or with just this CD?
It happens with all the CDs I tried. They're pretty famous albums. Nothing obscure.

Is there a confusion here?

Should the original statement have read like this?

... the program will not recognize track names if [it's] reading from an external [CD drive] ...

IOW, are you saying that if you pop a CD in an external CD drive, Max doesn't appear to be able to mediate between the CD and MusicBrainz, although it can if you use the drive that is internal to the computer.

phrarod · Post by **phrarod** » Mon May 21, 2007 4:00 pm

... the program will not recognize track names if [it's] reading from an external [CD drive] ...

IOW, are you saying that if you pop a CD in an external CD drive, Max doesn't appear to be able to mediate between the CD and MusicBrainz, although it can if you use the drive that is internal to the computer.[/quote]

Correct.