Versioning problem

[photophart]

I was happily going along using Autotagger to add descriptions to files. Each file was in 4 versions which were setup manually. During metadata write back the XMP descriptions were being written to the versions as expected. It was working so well I stopped checking each file in the versions to make sure the XMP descriptions were being written. Several hundred files later I discovered that the versioning had stopped working, no XMP descriptions were being written to the versions. Not sure when it happened, perhaps after update to Imatch version 2025.1.14. Now I am unable to to get XMP description to automatically propagate to versions no matter what I do. I can copy and paste (ctl-c, ctl-v) from master to versions but that's pretty tedious for hundreds of files and sort of defeats the purpose of having versioning. I suspect I've broken something but after several days of headbanging I'm currently beyond perplexed about what might have happened. These are JPG versions and XMP description is checked in the "what to propagate" box. These are manually created versions that appear correctly with the orange and blue version icons. Any ideas how I might fix this?
Mark

[Mario]

Tip: If you start a new paragraph once in a while, your posts are much easier to read. I read your post on a phone, and it is a wall of text.

I have a manual version relation that propagates XMP data.
I select two files A,B and apply the relation.  B is the version of A.
I add a rating, label description and headline to A.
I write back A.
A is written, B is written automatically because it was pending and then metadata is propagated from A to B.
B now has the same rating, label, description and headline as A.
OK.

I create another set C,D.
I AutoTag C.
I write back C.
D now has the same keywords and description as A.
OK.

Propagation seems to work just fine here. No reports from other users.
XMP tags are propagated when the master is written back.
After checking your version rule and the propagation settings, select the master and press <F4>,<P> to force a propagation right now.

See how adding a new paragraph makes my post easier to read?

[thrinn]

As Mario said, you can always select a bunch of masters and trigger propagation manually. Much easier than using copy/paste file by file.

Please also check that your manual relation rule has not been deactivated accidentally. A screenshot of your relation rule settings would help us to help you.

[photophart]

Yes, I understand how to select masters and trigger propagation with F4,P or right click, versions, propagate.

While Imatch says it is propagating data nothing is copied.

I've included screen shots of JPG version rule.

[Mario]

Version correctly detected?
I see that you use JPG for both the master and the version. And you detect 6 levels (!) down, which can be quite a drag for large databases with many files. Do you really need this?

How do you avoid that versions accidentally be detected as masters and vice-versa. Hard to fathom with looking for versions in six folder levels down. I'm sure you have a very tight naming convention?

Any "Exclude" options enabled on the versioning tab (you show only a small section of the possible values so I don't know).

Open the ExifTool output panel (View menu  > Panels).
Write back a master with a changed description or do <F4>,<P> and then copy the contents of the ExifTool output panel into a Notepad document, save and attach.

Propagation of metadata is performed by telling ExifTool what to copy from the master to the version.
The output shows us what IMatch it selling ExifTool to do.

I've just checked again and it works nicely. No reports from other users either, so this must be something really specific for your configuration, versions and files. Any info we can gather will be helpful.

[thrinn]

These are manually created versions that appear correctly with the orange and blue version icons.

Do I understand you correctly that there should be a relation rule of type "Link via...  Manual only"? Because your screenshots show an automatically applied rule (Link via File Name).

[photophart]

I goes like this: I was trying to get Imatch to do the heavy lifting of adding XMP descriptions to my local copies of files on my webserver.

I would then upload the files with the new metadata to the webserver helping me satisfy the demands of SEO for file descriptions in image files.

Each image file has four JPG versions in four sequential directories. Each file in every group of 4 files has the same name. The only difference in the image files is that they are all different sizes, from thumbnails to quite large downloadable files, and some have watermarks others do not.

This multi-image directory structure supports both online sales of images which I print and deliver and the purchase of directly downloadable images. I've been doing it this way for quite awhile and it works nicely.

Enter AI Autotagger, a revolutionary improvement in how I was adding image descriptions!

Seemed simple enough:
A: Use Autotagger on the first file of each set of four images to add XMP descriptions.
B: Setup a manual versioning of the 4 files with the first as the master.
C: Propagate the XMP descriptions to the other 3 files.
D: Repeat the process for several hundred images.
E: Upload the new image files to the webserver overwriting the original files.

Except, the manual versions will not propagate the XMP description to the other 3 files OR will propagate to the first of the 3 files sometimes, but not always, and will never propagate to the 2nd and 3rd file.

I apologize for the length of this post. I understand, I hate them too. But that's about as succinct as I can make it.

I suspect that the files all having the name but being in different directories has something to do with this not working.

I have followed Marios instructions step by step above and have used Thrinn's idea about a relation rule for strictly manual versioning. If you made it this far in the post thanks for sticking with it. I'll entertain any and all suggestions.
Mark

[PandDLong]

Sounds like you have a good plan to automate this work.

At the moment, I use manual versions exclusively and you mention manual versions but your screen shot shows a relation definition that uses IMatch to detect and link. 

If you are relying in IMatch to make the links, have you verified that your Master is linked to your other 3 files with this relation before you propagate?

Is the label propagating and not the XMP or is nothing propagating?


Michael