Much larger file sizes after tagging

MusicBrainz Picard
1

Hello, i have been using Picard for about a week now, and last night i came across a “problem”.

Was browsing my tagged music folder, and clicked on Nirvana - lithium, and i ecountered a big slow loading time, only to notice that the file is 30.1 MB large. I thought this is strange, so i looked on the internet, and found various sources for this problem, so i started eliminating variables. One of them is Picard itself, which i couldn’t rule out, so i came here.

The process was simple, i downloaded the exact same file, which is 9.81 MB large (from the same place). I tried moving it using Picard, but no tagging. The size remained the same so no problem. Then, i put it backin the download and tagged it there without moving, the filse after became 30.1 MB large. I am confused about this.

Among other causes of this problem i found out on the internet it may be something with sym and hard links, anti-virus problem (which in my case never caused something like this), Dropbox and other cloud based services and failing hard drive.

It is suggested to use WinDirStat, so i did, the file was still showing 30.1 MB, and i found like 20 more songs which are about this size, one of them being smells like teen spirit from the same album, tagged at the same time as lithium. Also, Come as you are, from the same album, tagged in the same manner, showed slow downs, but after a few seconds it showed its original size value and no more slowdown, just by accesing it from windows explorer.

I hope i described the problem well, and if more details is needed feel free to ask me. I am using windows 10 x64 and picard version 1.3.2.

I would really appreciate some help and explanation. I didn’t find the problem on the forum or the picard bug page, but if exists already, a link to the discussion would be much appreciated. Thank you in advance!

2

Are you maybe embedding full size images on files, and does this have a super high quality scan? That’s the only reason I can think where Picard would cause this.

1 Like
3

Per @reosarevok you might have Picard set to use “full size” cover art, or you might have configured Picard to embed all of the album artwork into the file instead of just the cover.

See here: https://picard.musicbrainz.org/docs/options/#cover_art

4

Guys, I have good news.

Seeing the replyes, i was going to do more testing regarding the artwork, to try and tag without it and see the result. But when I went in my folder to look for Nirvana - lithium, i was surprised to see that the size dropped down to 10 MB, which is ok from 9.81 considering the tags and cover. So i stood there thinking what i did or what happened. And the only new things that happened were: I tagged some more music, I moved music in that folder, and also listening to the respective song. And i worked around that, with another file, again too big in size.

Moving the file around did not do anything. So i played it (with MusicBee) and i noticed no cover art, though in explorer a picture was showing. Choosing Edit and moving to artwork, it gave me a warning that the picture was corupted, inexistent or inaccesible. Curious. I played the song having the option to autosave artwork for songs that do not have any, it played fine, artwork was downloaded and placed. At this point no change in size or anything, only after i clicked next and moved on, the size imeditely cahnge to a normal value (this is because MusicBee probably saves the changes when the song is not in use anymore, or something similar). Tried the method for another files and it worked like a charm.

So, a CONCLUSION would be that indeed is something wrong with the image, or maybe is unsupported format, or maybe is indeed susch a big picture that is downloaded, i don’t know. Is true that i have checked FULL SIZE in option but honestly i tought there is still a limit, guess i was wrong.

I still did the testing with another file, and indeed the option for cover art does the trick, changing from Full Size to 500px produced a file with normal sizes. You need to refresh the album, so the cover art is changed. Still i wish there would be mores resolution option like 1000x1000, don’t ask me why :).

So that is the story, for anyone having this problem, to fix it, just put another cover art, and to prevent it don’t use full size. Hope this helps. And thanks for assistance.

1 Like
5

No size limit on cover art at this stage… which is actually pretty awesome, if total overkill :slight_smile:

Yeah, a lot of people think this too!

Here’s the ticket:

There you can see the discussion and vote for it!

1 Like