Getting duplicate copies during ingest

[Donzo]

I frequently get duplicate copies of photos during ingest.  They would be in the form XXX-1234 and XXX-1234A.  It doesn't always happen and sometimes, not even all of the photos being ingested have duplicates.  I am using 4.6.4 beta5 on a MacBook Pro with OS X 10.6.3, but I have had this problem on earlier versions of both Photo Mechanic and OS X.  I am typically saving to one external hard drive and my laptop drive.  Sometimes I save only to two external drives.  In either case, the problem sometimes occurs.  Is there something I might be doing wrong, or have others experienced this issue?

[Kirk Baker]

I frequently get duplicate copies of photos during ingest.  They would be in the form XXX-1234 and XXX-1234A.  It doesn't always happen and sometimes, not even all of the photos being ingested have duplicates.  I am using 4.6.4 beta5 on a MacBook Pro with OS X 10.6.3, but I have had this problem on earlier versions of both Photo Mechanic and OS X.  I am typically saving to one external hard drive and my laptop drive.  Sometimes I save only to two external drives.  In either case, the problem sometimes occurs.  Is there something I might be doing wrong, or have others experienced this issue?

Are you renaming during Ingest? What is your renaming string?  Are you always ingesting into the same folder?  PM appends a letter (or digits depending on your preferences) when there is a collision in the filename trying to be added with one that already exists.

-Kirk

[Donzo]

I do rename files during ingest.  I have attached a screen shot showing the settings on my ingest screen which were used the last time I had the problem.

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[Kirk Baker]

I do rename files during ingest.  I have attached a screen shot showing the settings on my ingest screen which were used the last time I had the problem.

Does your camera's frame numbers wrap around at some point?  If so, then it's possible that the file names won't be unique.  Is this what's happening?

-Kirk

[Donzo]

I don't think that is the problem.  I am only up to 3100 shots and my numbering won't roll over until 9999.

[Kirk Baker]

I don't think that is the problem.  I am only up to 3100 shots and my numbering won't roll over until 9999.

Do you have a card with photos on it that you can reproduce this problem at will?  If so, could you post its directory contents here?

-Kirk

[Donzo]

Unfortunately, I reformatted the card this morning.  I am attaching a screen shot of the directory where the photos are stored.  The photos where the problem occurred were downloaded this morning, but others in the directory were downloaded yesterday.  All shots were from yesterday, but not all shots downloaded this morning were duplicated.  I don't know if this helps.  I did have some problems downloading this morning and had to redo the ingest after restarting PM.  Maybe that has something to do with it, but that has not always been the case.

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[Kirk Baker]

Unfortunately, I reformatted the card this morning.  I am attaching a screen shot of the directory where the photos are stored.  The photos where the problem occurred were downloaded this morning, but others in the directory were downloaded yesterday.  All shots were from yesterday, but not all shots downloaded this morning were duplicated.  I don't know if this helps.  I did have some problems downloading this morning and had to redo the ingest after restarting PM.  Maybe that has something to do with it, but that has not always been the case.

No, I'd need to see the contents of the card.

If you start the ingest again without starting with an empty destination folder then what you describe will definitely happen.  Files with the same name will already exist and PM will be forced to rename the new files.

-Kirk

[Donzo]

Ok.  I suspect this is what happened on this occasion.  I will watch for this in the future if I have to start an ingest over again.  I will also save the data on the cards when this occurs again, just in case I can't tie the problem to a restart of the ingest process again.

Thank you.