Tuesday 28 March 2017

Easy automated cover art removal from MP3 files

Sunday 26 March 2017

Solving the pre-embedded song lyrics issue in iOS 10.x

When Apple had updated its mobile OS to version 10, some users began complaining that their music app no longer shows lyrics that they painstakingly added to their tracks before placing into iTunes media library and later uploading to iPhones or other iOS devices.

Whether the reason is a bug in the new iOS or a desire to force iPhone owners to use only Apple's own paid music services, there are several solutions that users might try to make phones display the 'lost' lyrics again.

First of all, Apple made the process of lyrics displaying in the app a bit more difficult. Previously, to view the lyrics for the currently played song, it was enough to tap the album's cover. Now the user must first tap the three-dots icon in the lower right corner of the screen, and then choose View Lyrics from the menu.

However, as it was said above, some lyrics that previously had been showing, 'mysteriously' disappeared in iOS 10 and above. Currently, there are two solutions to this issue that worked at least for some users.


How to recover lyrics that disappeared in iOS 10


Solution 1. Delete the entire music library from your device and re-upload all your tracks


For this, you must have the full copy of your music collection on your computer properly tagged, and with lyrics pre-embedded. To save you the trouble of manually re-checking song information correctness in iTunes after recreating your music library there, you can use one of the available automated music taggers. I personally prefer taghycardia. The program scans your entire music collection indicating any issues such as album/artist spelling inconsistencies or missing cover art, and fixing the problems in a highly automated fashion. 

In addition, taghycardia can find lyrics online for the tracks that miss it and embed them for you into your albums. You can download taghycardia here.

After you've made sure your music collection is properly tagged with lyrics and cover art, add the library to iTunes and re-sync with your iPhone. 

Most of the 'lost' lyrics should re-appear.


Solution 2. Slightly update the embedded lyrics


If some of the lyrics still appear to be missing on your iPhone, there is another workaround that can help restore them: the texts should be modified just a little bit and re-uploaded to iPhone.

If an album still lacks lyrics after the re-syncing described in the Solution 1, change the lyrics of the tracks slightly, for example by adding an empty line before each song text. 

The easiest way to do this is again by using taghycardia. Point the program to the original folder on you HDD containing an album that needs fixing, press Go, double click the line beginning with the word 'Lyrics', and add an empty line before each song text one by one. Now press Update in tags, and re-upload the album onto iPhone. This can be done without re-syncing by enabling Manual music management in iTunes. Having activated the manual option, you can just remove the album from the library, add it from your local HDD folder again, right-click the tracks and choose 'Add to my iPhone'.