PM6+ not updating when renaming files

[mike999]

When renaming files PM6+ does seem to automatically update its index etc BUT when doing a replace operation on the filename it does not seem to update and you are left with loads of files that it thinks have vanished (yellow dot rather than green dot) and there is no way to easily select these and remove from the catalogue so you end up with loads of duplicates some with the old name and some with the new name.

A specific example of this was that I noticed a load of files had two underscore characters so I wanted to replace two with one. This worked fine but then the catalogue showed the old files with the two underscore characters with their thumbnail but as missing. When updating the catalogue on that directory the 'new' files that only had the one underscore character appeared but the old double underscore files were also still there.

A second issue on filenaming is that it seems impossible to rename files to have a name e.g. Quercus_robur_(canon file number or whatever other manufacturer filenumber). You can rename to still have the old filename so if you want Quercus_robur_IN2_1563.cr2 (the IN2 being characters you can set in the camera and the 1563 being the filenumber between 1 and 9999) by using {filenamebase} but this is no good if you happen to have already named those files wrong_name_1563.cr2 and need to correct it as you simply end up with longer and longer wrong names.

[Kirk Baker]

Mike,

When renaming files PM6+ does seem to automatically update its index etc BUT when doing a replace operation on the filename it does not seem to update and you are left with loads of files that it thinks have vanished (yellow dot rather than green dot) and there is no way to easily select these and remove from the catalogue so you end up with loads of duplicates some with the old name and some with the new name.

A specific example of this was that I noticed a load of files had two underscore characters so I wanted to replace two with one. This worked fine but then the catalogue showed the old files with the two underscore characters with their thumbnail but as missing. When updating the catalogue on that directory the 'new' files that only had the one underscore character appeared but the old double underscore files were also still there.

I take it that you're doing the replacement with the Find and Replace panel?

A second issue on filenaming is that it seems impossible to rename files to have a name e.g. Quercus_robur_(canon file number or whatever other manufacturer filenumber). You can rename to still have the old filename so if you want Quercus_robur_IN2_1563.cr2 (the IN2 being characters you can set in the camera and the 1563 being the filenumber between 1 and 9999) by using {filenamebase} but this is no good if you happen to have already named those files wrong_name_1563.cr2 and need to correct it as you simply end up with longer and longer wrong names.

Definitely not impossible.  Has been possible and in common use for many years:

https://docs.camerabits.com/support/solutions/articles/48001077381-variable-substring-extraction

You'd want to use {filenamebase:-4}

HTH,

-Kirk

[mike999]

Yes I was using the find and replace panel.  I have used it many times for other things in metadata and it worked fine but in this case, with these bits of filename, it does the replacement but then the items are not dealt with properly by the database.

Thanks very much for the comment about {filenamebase:-4} this sounds just what I want.