Fetch Art Development Stopped at the end of 2011

I am sorry to say that due to constantly changing APIs and application requirements as both iTunes and Mac OS X gets updated (as well as 3rd party web tools such as Amazon's album art retrieval API) I am ending support and development for Fetch Art.

This has been a difficult decision and it has been a great experience having so many happy users.  But the technology has changed and the core of Fetch Art is written in AppleScript and there are now other (albeit not free) applications out there that do what Fetch Art did and they run faster and handler larger file libraries better.

Thanks again for all of the great support over the years.

Fetch Art 2.6 stopped working November 2011

Amazon once again changed the calls I have to make into their servers to get album art. The change went into effect at the end of October. From that point on Fetch Art 2.6 (the current version) and any previous version will not function.

I plan on updating Fetch Art to support the new calls but I ran into the problem with the latest XCode no longer supporting PowerPC Macs. I'd like to keep PowerPC support but will have to try to get the older XCode up an running again in order to even compile a new version of Fetch Art.

I'll keep you posted of my progress here.

Let me know how important PowerPC support is in the comments.

New 2.6 Version Released Fixes Bug With Latest iTunes 10.2

Ok well I was able to use my Developer account at Apple (your donations help to pay that $99 a year fee I have to pay to Apple for that) and download the older version of XCode that supports PowerPCs.

So that means I was able to create an updated version that still supports PowerPCs.

You can grab the new 2.6.0 version here: Fetch Art on MacUpdate

REQUIREMENTS:

This should work on Intel or PowerPC Macs.

This should work on iTunes 7.0 or higher.

This has been tested and verified on Mac OS X 10.4.

This has been tested and verified on Mac OS X 10.5.

This has been tested and verified on Mac OS X 10.6.6.

This has been tested and verified on iTunes 10.1.

This has been tested and verified on iTunes 10.2.

How would you feel about losing PowerPC support?

Ok so you might be wondering why I'm several days past my deadline with a new release.

Well the reason is the version of XCode that I have has dropped support for PowerPC. I've been trying to work around this issue but so far I've been unsuccessful. So I'm curious how many users would be affected if I dropped PowerPC support?

Basically moving to the newest XCode makes it difficult to support even Mac OS 10.4 on Intel let alone 10.4 on PowerPC.

So I'm curious what version of OS X you want support for (10.4 and newer, 10.5 and newer, or 10.6 which is the current version) and if you need PowerPC support?

Update Coming Soon

Ok so iTunes 10.2 broke Fetch Art. The good news is I've been able to find the source of the bug. I have to make changes to several parts of the code as well as add logic to still work with older iTunes (I experimented with a quick fix and it worked for 10.2 but broke Fetch Art for any older versions of iTunes.) This should only take me a couple more days but I might not make my deadline of Monday March 20th for release. That's still my goal but I thought I'd be a little closer to the final fix by now. I'll keep updating the information here and have a new release soon. BTW might be a good time for feedback... do you think I should release Fetch Art in the Mac OS X App store, and if so for free or for a small fee?

Fetch Art NOT Compatible With Latest iTunes

Well I've been getting emails about error -206 with the new version of iTunes 10.2. This was a minor update to iTunes so I didn't test it right away but sure enough, they've changed something in how art files are copied in and it's broken Fetch Art.

I'm pretty busy but I'm going to look into this. It could take about two weeks however before I have time to fix this, test it, and create a new installer.

Sorry for the delay and thanks for the supportive emails!

Fetch Art 2.5.4 Released

Ok, so the installer still has some issues.

Here is 2.5.4

I've tested this on iTunes 9 and 8, and Mac OS X 10.5.8 on Intel and PowerPC Macs.

Let me know if you have anymore problems.

New Fetch Art 2.5.3 Released

Changes this version:

Fixed the preferences to actually save what you choose.

Rebuilt the installer from scratch. Hopefully this will end the occasional installation issue that has been reported.

Improved handling for extended unicode characters in song names. If you get any errors related to accents or special characters, please take a screen shot and report it to me.

Improved automated version checking. It should notify you if a new version is available.

You can download it here.

Fetch Art 2.5 Released

CHANGES in version 2.5.0:

Added support for Amazon's new Web Services. As of August 15 2009, any version of Fetch Art prior to 2.5.0 will stop working as Amazon changed how their servers worked. This requires encrypting part of the call, which does slow each call down a little bit over the previous version.

Added more logic in constructing the query to Amazon to improve search accuracy and speed. It can often find album artwork now even if the album name is spelled wrong and it requires fewer calls to the server to find it.

Added a debug logging mode. This mode is off by default, but when activated will save a detailed log that you can send to me for support if you are having problems.

Added an option to turn off extended searching. Previously Fetch Art would try to find art for any album even if it found the wrong art. Now that level of searching is off by default. It may not find as much are, but accuracy should improve. You can turn it back on in the preferences if you like.

Added an automatic check for new versions.

Improved error handling.

You can download it here.

Fetch Art 2.5 will be released by 10pm PDT

Check back here after 10pm PDT as Fetch Art 2.5 will be available for download.

Version 2.5 Estimated Release on August 17

I expect to release a new 2.5 version of Fetch Art by August 17.

Amazon has changed their search service so that all versions of Fetch Art prior to 2.5 no longer work.

Keep checking back here for updates.

Working on version 2.5

I wanted to let you know I've been spending a lot of time on a new version 2.5 that will make sure Fetch Art keeps working beyond Amazon's latest changes. On Saturday, August 15 Amazon will require encrypted signing of all calls to their web services that Fetch Art uses to get album art.

My goal is to have a new version 2.5 available in time for that change.

Thank you for all the emails requesting to participate as a beta tester. I have enough beta testers now for this version release, so please don't be offended if you didn't get chosen.

And remember Fetch Art is free, but there is the ability to make a donation to show your support.

On August 15th Amazon will kill all previous versions of Fetch Art

Amazon is changing how applications can interact with their Web Services.

On August 15th 2009 Amazon will make changes to how calls are made to get album art. This change is big and will completely break any software that is not updated to the new calls. This of course, includes all previously released versions of Fetch Art including the latest release version 2.1.

I am working on a new version to address these issues. Amazon has posted some information on how to use the new calls. Unfortunately they are not supporting AppleScript (the language Fetch Art is written in.)

I am working on some changes to Fetch Art that will allow it to work with Amazon after the 15th of August, however, these are not small changes.

Keep checking back here for updates. My goal is to have a new version available by August 15th when Amazon will disable the old calls. Due to my work schedule and the short amount of time, I may not make this deadline.

Also, Amazon is slowly rolling out these changes leading up to the 15th, so you can assume the current version of Fetch Art will start having more and more issues, until it finally stops working on the 15th. Amazon has said during the following dates and times, Fetch Art may not function:

• First Round: One in five unsigned requests (selected randomly) will be rejected.
  • In all regions (NA, EU, and JP) starting Monday, August 3rd 2009, 6 PM GMT/UTC for 24 hours (that is 11 AM PDT and 3 AM JST).
• Second Round: all unsigned requests will be rejected at these times:
  • Europe (UK, DE, FR): Monday, August 10th 2009 from 2 PM to 4 PM GMT/UTC
  • North America (US and CA): Monday, August 10th 2009 from 11 AM to 1 PM PDT (6 PM to 8 PM GMT/UTC)
  • Japan (JP): Tuesday, August 11th 2009, 10 AM to 12 Noon JST (1 AM to 3 AM GMT/UTC
  
  
  
  

Tutorial for using Fetch Art

Ok many of you have asked for a tutorial since Fetch Art doesn't work like a standard Mac OS app (this is because it runs as an iTunes Script.) Let me know what you think.

YouTube video (lower resolution but more compatible and quicker to load)

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Hi resolution QuickTime movie (might not work in all web browsers)

Fetch Art 2.1 Verified iTunes 8.0 Compatible

As soon as iTunes 8.0 was released I started testing Fetch Art 2.1 with it.

The latest version of Fetch Art is compatible with iTunes 8.0.

Often updates to iTunes will require Fetch Art be updated.  Thankfully that isn't the case this time.

Enjoy!

Fetch Art 2.1 Released, Adds iTunes 7.7.1 Support

I've just released a new version of Fetch Art.  This is the first "non-Beta" release in the 2.x series.

CHANGES in version 2.1.0:

1) Modified the code to fix a bug introduced by Apple in iTunes 7.7.1. Now this works with iTunes 7.7.1.

2) Added more logic in constructing the query to Amazon to improve search accuracy.

3) Amazon changed some behaviors with empty keywords, I've eliminated the existence of empty keywords in the search.

4) Prioritized album art so that it should find the correct album art before single releases. Earlier versions were returning singles instead of the album.

You can download it here: DOWNLOAD 2.1

NOTE:  For the first 10 hours after this post, the download was still pointing to an installer that installed the older 2.0.0 version.  I've fixed that now.  If you are still getting errors in Fetch Art, check to make sure you have the latest 2.1.0 version.

iTunes 7.7.1 Introduces AppleScript bug that breaks Fetch Art 2.0 and Earlier

With the latest release of iTunes, Apple introduced a bug.  AppleScript code that previously returned a track object now returns a list of tracks (it should return a track.)

I spent a bit of time narrowing the issue down, only to find Doug had already documented the problem here:  AppleScript Bug or Feature in iTunes 7.7.1  I sure wish I had found that before I spent a while blaming my own code and debugging.

Anyway, the next version of Fetch Art will contain a fix for that AND I wrote the code so if Apple changes the behavior back in a future version of iTunes, Fetch Art should still continue to work.  It will handle the return object whether it is a track or a list.

Stay tuned for the new 2.1 version update.  It will be available soon.

Fetch Art 2.1.0 Nearing Release

With the release of iTunes 7.7.1 Apple changed something in how you can reference a track by ID.  This has broken all previous versions of Fetch Art.

I'm testing a new 2.1 version that addresses some of the bugs that have been reported as well as this issue.

Fetch Art 2.0 has been working for many people prior to iTunes 7.7.1 and I've gotten feedback that will help improve the accuracy of the Album Art. 

It will be a few more days before I can solve this issue.

Check back here for updates and thanks for the great feedback!

Fetch Art 2.0 Released as Beta

Hi all.  I wasn't able to test the new version of Fetch Art enough, so I am releasing this as a beta.

If you encounter any problems please report back to me whether you are on an Intel Mac or not and the name of the song that caused the issue.  If you can include a screenshot of the problem, do that too!

Email me at aric@aric.org for support.

Also if you use it without any issues, I'd love to hear back from you.  Post to this blog with your comments.

You can download the new beta version here.

CHANGES in version 2.0: 

1) Fixes for compatibility with Amazon's new search web service. 

2) Improvements in accuracy logic in searching for art.

3) Added the option of skipping tracks that already have art 

4) Improved Unicode/extended character support 

5) Removed dependency on Perl which has caused problems when Mac OS X updates caused changes to Perl 

6) Increased performance by removing dependency on custom C application for image conversions. 

7) Added support for searches on Amazon Japan, France, and Canada as well as including the ones previously supported which were US, UK, and Germany

Fetch Art 2.0 Being Released...

I'm currently updating the files on my server.  The new 2.0 version will be available for download within the next hour.