Deleting metadata from certain photos crashes Photo Mechanic

[MikeT]

I'm running Photo Mechanic 5.0, build 17719 on a Mac Pro, Sierra v 10.12.1

I have a collection of approximately 1,000 photos received from various company employees. While attempting to delete the IPTC metadata from all of them, PM will freeze up when it gets to certain photos. I can't seem to find a pattern as to why certain photos cause PM to lock up but when it does, the "Abort" button in the Progress bar doesn't work and the only way to recover is to force quit PM. So far, none of the photos that PM is having trouble with have any metadata to delete but the problem is that in order to batch delete metadata from photos that contain it, I'm forced into a time consuming and tedious process of selecting a batch of photos, usually around 8 - 16, attempting to delete metadata from all of them and if PM freezes during this process, isolating the bad photo then repeating the process making sure to leave out the problem files for the next round. For each photo that freezes PM, I must force quit, restart, create a new Contact Sheet and remember where I left off in order to carry on. So far, the bad photos are all .jpg format and some are coming from different sources. For example, employee Jane sent 8 photos and 1 of the 8 are bad, the rest of hers are OK. Employee John sent 8 photos and all of his cause problems. I don't know what makes one .jpg lock up PM and another not.

Any ideas on this?

[Kirk Baker]

Please post images that reproduce the problem.  Use the 'Attachments and other options' link when you're composing your reply to this message and there you'll be able to upload your file(s).  If you do not want to post them publicly, contact me privately and we can arrange for another method of providing us your sample files.

Thanks,

-Kirk

[MikeT]

Kirk,
Since these aren't my photos, I'm uncomfortable posting them publicly so I'll contact you.
Thanks.

[Kirk Baker]

Mike,

Thanks for the sample images.  They have malformed IPTC data in them (two IPTC records, one is legitimate, the other is poorly formed) and I have identified that there is a bug in PM5 as to how malformed data is handled when deleting metadata.  I have fixed the bug in a development version of PM5 and I will make a new build available to you soon for your testing.

-Kirk

[MikeT]

Thanks for the prompt response and attention to this issue. I'll look forward to the updated version. In the mean time, I've created and applied an IPTC Stationery Pad with all fields empty and checked to blank out the fields with brute force. This approach seems to be working and is not getting hung up on the photos that were crashing PM5 before. Perhaps there may still be malformed IPTC data behind the scenes that hopefully will not negatively impact my project.

[Kirk Baker]

Please give this build a try:

http://www.camerabits.com/download/PhotoMechanic5R17900.dmg

Thanks,

-Kirk

[MikeT]

Newest build works like a charm. Thanks for the super quick fix!