Workaround [Mac]: m4a Artwork not showing

Engine DJ Software Engine DJ (Mac & PC)
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This is a summary of approaches found in this forum to workaround artwork not showing in Engine to help anyone searching for a solution.

m4a artwork from apple music files does not show in Engine DJ leaving blanks.

If, you use Apple Music to manage your library and find artwork helps with faster track recognition when performing this will make it less enjoyable to use your hardware.

Apple seems to manage artwork separately from the m4a files. While artwork will show when you do get info in finder, or Apple music, the artwork is elsewhere.

EngineDJ cannot cope with this and imports a the track with no artwork. Rekordbox can successfully import m4as from itunes.

If you manage your library in Apple music to take advantage of cloud sync and other things, it means the majority of your music will be m4a as apple matches files to its m4a library

The workaround on mac is as follows:

1 Re-embed Artwork using Dougs Scrips

This script does all the heavy lifting for you, and its well worth donating to Doug. Massive thanks to Stu-C for the recommend.

2 Open Engine DJ & a. Re-import track information or b remove the tracks and re-import them

a. Risky route: You can try selecting the tracks you want to fix artwork for and using Re-import track information, which will add the artwork to Engine. However, for me on a Mac with 3.4.0, it randomly strips tag data, leaving me with just file names for ~50% of tracks re-imported, or worse, completely blank entry. A Restart of my computer reduced this, and doing in batches helped, but I still ended up with blank entries in Engine for some files.

Does anyone know why or have a solution for this? It would be great to hear.

b. - safer route: Unfortunately, the better option, as with most Engine issues, is to remove the tracks and re-add them to your library. This will mean a loss of cue points, loops, analysis, and other engine-specific data.

3 Sync your Engine drive

if you re add your files using option b above, open your performance drive in Engine, remove all affected playlists, and then resync the drive. Skipping this step will add duplicate entries.

You’ll now have artwork for M4a files in engine.

If you have any improvements on above let me know and Ill edit and update

big thanks to @STU-C and @0ddw0rld , and Doug’s Scripts

Bugs and Notes:

  • For me, Re-import track information command strips tag data from engine from random tracks. so you will need to remove these songs and re-add, and reanalyse, losing your cues and loops.

  • The embedded artwork file is only stored locally. If you are using apple music with a subscription to sync your library, re downloading the file will lose the embedded artwork (Apple Music pulls down a source file from its library, only storing files for you personally it can not recognise in its catalog)

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