I've noticed that some albums will show all artwork for each track when you 'get-info' withIN iTunes; however when you search the actual music's folder/file on the Hard-drive OUTSIDE of iTunes, some of the tracks have NO artwork - just the usual music symbol. See the first screenshot below.
This discrepancy shows up when you 'get-info' for individual music files (outside of iTunes). See the second screenshot.

The album I'm using as an example is an 80's compilation, and you can see the differences in the first three tracks. I'd imagine the obvious goal is to have the artwork show up on both the upper left corner next to the file name AND at the bottom in the preview box. Can you explain why this is happening and maybe how to fix it?

I've tried using Yate to fix this but to no avail. Yate sees the album and files the same as iTunes: All artwork intact and fine for each file. The problem persisted even after I tried altering something (designating the 'picture type') so as to allow Yate to re-embed the artwork.

All this started when I noticed missing artwork in iTunes-Match on my iPhone. I was frustrated because all the artwork was fine IN iTunes on my Computer but not on my mobile devices. Evidently, the same files with no artwork in the Get-Info preview box on the Computer also have no artwork in iTunes Match.

Thanks in Advance...

Thanks for the quick response - I didn't think you'd get back to me so soon. Unfortunately, in my impatience I tried various other methods - one of which seemed to have worked. First I selected the small image in the top left and deleted it. I also noticed that the artwork was not exactly alike for every file - in the same album. I found the highest resolution album artwork I could find (Discogs), copied and pasted at the same place again and then suddenly it appeared at the bottom area. Out of curiosity, I selected the top image again and deleted it - and a nice surprise: the bottom image remained.

Using the same artwork, I updated the files in iTunes and Yates. It seems to have worked on all the files as far as on the computer. In iTunes-Match though the results are less consistent. It's updated on some but not all. Perhaps I need to give iTunes-Match a little more time to do its thing.

I'm still a little confused as to how all this works. Is there a way to access and manipulate the iTunes db?

Thanks again...

As I mentioned earlier, my reason for even bothering about this was my frustration with missing artwork on my mobile devices. I actually contacted Apple, but they weren't any help. As far as they're concerned, missing artwork is non-existent with iTunes-only purchases; the problem is with CD-ripped music and those from other sources such as Amazon, BeatPort, BandCamp, etc - i.e. the competition.

Well, after trying various methods I'm now getting some success. The key it seems is to make sure that every file has the artwork displayed in the bottom 'preview' area when you "get-info". This of course is outside of iTunes and Yate. Even if the artwork appears fine in iTunes or Yate, it won't necessarily be present when you go 'get-info'.

Strangely enough, the only way to have the artwork appear in the bottom preview area and thus on the mobile devices is to use both iTunes and Yate. I have yet to see the rhyme or reason to it, but it works.

I usually start with iTunes. Selecting ALL the tracks on each album and then 'get-info' will bring up the info window. Next make sure that artwork is checked then I copy & Paste the highest resolution artwork I can find in the little box. Click OK and let it do the embedding. If this doesn't fix it, I'll use Yate to do the same. If it's still not doing it, I go back to iTunes and repeat. In most cases, the problem is fixed after using Yate. Sometimes, I've had to use iTunes 3-4 times before it would take.

I've made some headway but I'm not entirely positive it will help. I've found that dragging an image to the 'small icon' in GetInfo does not change the actual data contents of the file. It writes modified data in the resource fork of the file. There is a free app called FileUtility in the App store which will allow you to remove the resource fork.

As I've previously said, once I drag into the 'small icon' the Finder only displays a generic icon. I've managed to get around this by using xattr in a terminal window to remove the com.apple.FinderInfo extended attribute. Once the attribute is removed, the Finder displays the correct icon. (xattr -d com.apple.FinderInfo filename)

Try copying a file which is 'messed up' and playing with these two methods. If either or both of them fix the issue I can attempt to do something programatically.

On a related subject: Is there a way of having separate artwork for the album AND individual tracks? This is especially relevant to "Compilation" albums where their's an album cover for the entire album, but also different artwork for each individual track...