Tagging doesn't work sometimes PM 6

[manuel]

Tagging doesn't work sometimes on PM6. Restarting PM 6 fixes the problem, but sometimes it takes several restarts of PM 6 to get it to work again.

When the issue arises none of the ways to tag work, clicking the tag box, typing T, or command +.

Tagged photos are not affected. They remain tagged unless I untag and try tagging again during the period when tagging is not working.

The problem seems to arise randomly. Sometimes I can go a whole session without any problem. Sometimes tagging doesn't work right after starting PM 6. Sometimes it stops working in the middle of a session.

I am using Photo Mechanic Version 6.0, build 2818 (66ae7fc) on an iMac running Mojave OS X 10.14.4

Thanks in advance for your help.

[Kirk Baker]

Manuel,

Tagging doesn't work sometimes on PM6. Restarting PM 6 fixes the problem, but sometimes it takes several restarts of PM 6 to get it to work again.

When the issue arises none of the ways to tag work, clicking the tag box, typing T, or command +.

Tagged photos are not affected. They remain tagged unless I untag and try tagging again during the period when tagging is not working.

The problem seems to arise randomly. Sometimes I can go a whole session without any problem. Sometimes tagging doesn't work right after starting PM 6. Sometimes it stops working in the middle of a session.

I am using Photo Mechanic Version 6.0, build 2818 (66ae7fc) on an iMac running Mojave OS X 10.14.4

Thanks in advance for your help.

What kind of files are you tagging?  RAW?  Which kind?  JPEG? TIFF?  Are the files new from the camera, or have they been modified before?

-Kirk

[manuel]

The files are RAW files from a number of different cameras, NEF, CR2, and RAF. The Cameras are Nikon D300 and D700, Canon 6D and 7D, and Fuji X100S and XT3.

The files have been renamed, otherwise no modifications, except for the XT3 files which have xmp's (before the XT3 images were delivered to me some were color tagged in PM on a different computer). The files have not been imported into Lightroom for any editing, color correction etc. yet. There are about 4900 images in the folder.

[Kirk Baker]

Manuel,

The files are RAW files from a number of different cameras, NEF, CR2, and RAF. The Cameras are Nikon D300 and D700, Canon 6D and 7D, and Fuji X100S and XT3.

The files have been renamed, otherwise no modifications, except for the XT3 files which have xmp's (before the XT3 images were delivered to me some were color tagged in PM on a different computer). The files have not been imported into Lightroom for any editing, color correction etc. yet. There are about 4900 images in the folder.

For one of the problem files, if you examine the modification dates of one of the RAW files and its accompanying XMP sidecar file, which file is newer?

-Kirk

[manuel]

[/quote]

For one of the problem files, if you examine the modification dates of one of the RAW files and its accompanying XMP sidecar file, which file is newer?

-Kirk
[/quote]

According to the Finder info, the XMP modification date is newer than the RAW file modification date, but only the RAF files from the XT3 have XMP sidecar files. The problem seems to occur on all the types of RAW in this folder.

[Kirk Baker]

According to the Finder info, the XMP modification date is newer than the RAW file modification date, but only the RAF files from the XT3 have XMP sidecar files. The problem seems to occur on all the types of RAW in this folder.

Is there something special about this folder?  Permissions?

-Kirk

[manuel]

According to the Finder info, the XMP modification date is newer than the RAW file modification date, but only the RAF files from the XT3 have XMP sidecar files. The problem seems to occur on all the types of RAW in this folder.

Is there something special about this folder?  Permissions?

-Kirk

No, nothing special. Permissions look like all other folders. I have read and write permissions. The folder decides on an external HHD for which I have read and write permissions.

[Kirk Baker]

Manuel,

According to the Finder info, the XMP modification date is newer than the RAW file modification date, but only the RAF files from the XT3 have XMP sidecar files. The problem seems to occur on all the types of RAW in this folder.

Is there something special about this folder?  Permissions?

No, nothing special. Permissions look like all other folders. I have read and write permissions. The folder decides on an external HHD for which I have read and write permissions.

As an experiment, try copying the files to a different folder or even a different drive.  Can you tag them then?

-Kirk

[manuel]

Manuel,

According to the Finder info, the XMP modification date is newer than the RAW file modification date, but only the RAF files from the XT3 have XMP sidecar files. The problem seems to occur on all the types of RAW in this folder.

Is there something special about this folder?  Permissions?

No, nothing special. Permissions look like all other folders. I have read and write permissions. The folder decides on an external HHD for which I have read and write permissions.

As an experiment, try copying the files to a different folder or even a different drive.  Can you tag them then?

-Kirk

At the moment tagging is working, but as I mentioned the problem is that it randomly stops working. At least it seems to be random. I will try moving the files to another folder, and see if tagging stops working again.

[manuel]

Manuel,

According to the Finder info, the XMP modification date is newer than the RAW file modification date, but only the RAF files from the XT3 have XMP sidecar files. The problem seems to occur on all the types of RAW in this folder.

Is there something special about this folder?  Permissions?

No, nothing special. Permissions look like all other folders. I have read and write permissions. The folder decides on an external HHD for which I have read and write permissions.

As an experiment, try copying the files to a different folder or even a different drive.  Can you tag them then?

-Kirk

At the moment tagging is working, but as I mentioned the problem is that it randomly stops working. At least it seems to be random. I will try moving the files to another folder, and see if tagging stops working again.

I moved the images in question to another folder, and tagging still works. I sorted by by camera model and tagging still worked.

I ingested a new job into PM. The content of two cards were imported into two separate folders. No file name change or anything else was done to the images, and when I tried tagging the newly ingested photos, tagging did not work.

I went back to the older images that I put in a new folder, and tagging stopped working in the images in that folder.

As a test should I can try putting these images in a different HHD to see what happens to tagging, if you think that will help the troubleshooting.

[Kirk Baker]

Manuel,

I went back to the older images that I put in a new folder, and tagging stopped working in the images in that folder.

As a test should I can try putting these images in a different HHD to see what happens to tagging, if you think that will help the troubleshooting.

It would be interesting to know, yes.

-Kirk

[manuel]

Manuel,

I went back to the older images that I put in a new folder, and tagging stopped working in the images in that folder.

As a test should I can try putting these images in a different HHD to see what happens to tagging, if you think that will help the troubleshooting.

It would be interesting to know, yes.

-Kirk

I copied some images onto a different hard drive. Both the newly ingested, unedited images, and the original ones where the issue started. On the different HDD the tagging problem only seems to happen to NEF files. I can tag RAF and CR2 files.

I went back to the original HDD where I encountered the issue, and I find the same thing. I cannot tag NEF files, but I can tag RAF and CR2 files.

On both drives there are tagged NEF files which I tagged during the periods when tagging was working intermittently. The problem only with NEF's seems to be a new thing. I did not see that the problem was selective this way when I first started seeing it occur intermittently.

[dennis]

Manuel,

What are your IPTC/XMP preferences settings for RAW files - IOW the state of the 3 checkboxes under "For TIFF-based RAW files (non-DNG)"?

--dennis

[manuel]

Manuel,

What are your IPTC/XMP preferences settings for RAW files - IOW the state of the 3 checkboxes under "For TIFF-based RAW files (non-DNG)"?

--dennis

The first two checkboxes under "For TIFF-based RAW files (non-DNG)" are checked, the third one is not. See attached screen shot.

[dennis]

Hi Manuel,

We found the issue!  Believe it or not, it had to do with saving of preferences.  Apparently the setting to embed XMP into TIFF-based RAW files was not being "relayed" to the internal code (despite what the preferences dialog says).  So PM was not updating XMP (which contains pretty much all the metadata especially crops) unless the RAW file already had XMP embedded in it.  This can happen either from a newer camera that puts a rating in the RAW file XMP, or if you were editing a photo from PM5 where it had already embedded XMP.

Also there was no problem if you used XMP sidecar files which you apparently try to avoid with those preference settings.

We should have an update soon and will likely send you a build to verify.

--dennis