Metadata write back problem

[jln]

I have six photos that always show as needing Metadata-writeback problems. If do Command-->Metadata writeback-->For all pending files repeatedly, I always get the message that there are six files with pending metadata. If I select them all in Categories-->Pending Metadata Writeback and then select writeback for selected files—same result.

No error message is apparent in the Output-->ExifTool Window. There are none of the *tmp* files that ExifTool leaves when it encounters a problem.

If I look at these files with Windows Explorer, the keywords I have assigned appear, so they, at least, have been written back. I don't see anything in these files that distinguish them from hundreds of others that were originally processed the same.

[Mario]

Have a look at Metadata Problems and Pitfalls, especially Files Pending Again After Write-Back and let us know if this helped.

[jln]

I still can't find the problem. The master files are tif files scanned from color negatives by a Nikon LS-50 using Vuescan. From these, jpg files were created by DxO Photolab. iMatch was used to add keywords to the tif files which were then propagated to the jpg files. This is the only software involved in writing these files. If I encounter the writeback problem with the tif file, it also occurs with the jpg.

The Metadata Analyst only finds one problem labelled "minor."

I have searched the Metadata panel looking for a difference between the pictures for which metadata works and those for which it doesn't work. I don't think there are any "legacy IPTC" entries, although there is an "XMP IPTC Extension." I think the entries there were added when I used Google in the "map" panel to assign a location. In at least a few of the files without the problem, the entries in these two sections are identical.

I have noticed that in the pictures that have the problem, the "XMP Adobe Lightroom" and those in the "XMP Dublin Core" are not identical. The former has one additional entry I added in the keywords panel. It is a hierarchical keyword, although other hierarchical keywords appear in both sections.

[Mario]

I have noticed that in the pictures that have the problem, the "XMP Adobe Lightroom" and those in the "XMP Dublin Core" are not identical. The former has one additional entry I added in the keywords panel. It is a hierarchical keyword, although other hierarchical keywords appear in both sections.

That sounds exactly like what is described in the help topic.
Your keywords are out-of-sync and IMatch / ExifTool are unable to sync them automatically.
This depends on the keywords in the files, your Thesaurus and the options set for flattening keywords under Edit > Preferences > Metadata.

If you point the mouse cursor at the write-back pen icon in the File Window and it lists dc-subject and/or lr-hierarchicalSubject, the problem are out of sync keywords. Such cases need to be checked manually, for each file, and resolved e.g. by deleting the existing XMP data in the file with the ExifTool Command Processor and then letting IMatch write back a fresh set of XMP data.

Without the problem files here in my lab I cannot tell more.

[jln]

That seems to have fixed it. Thank you very much