Editable metadata fields always revert to previous value after an edit

[lnh]

With the GPS metadata fix which is part of 5.2.6 I've gone back to some of the files I struggled with which lead me to realize there was a bug in the first place. I can now assign the GPS coordinates and they stick just fine after writeback, however if I try to edit some location fields it always reverts back to the prior value. The problem files are RAW.

I examined the RAW file and the sidecar XMP with ExifToolGUI and think I've found the problem, but not sure of the best way to fix it. Not sure how it happened but the location fields have metadata split between the XMP sidecar and the XMP section of the RAW. Each of the files is slightly different in what data is where, but all have an RAW XMP section to the file. All my other RAW files have everything in the sidecar, and don't have any issues with them. For this database it's always been set to MWG compliance=yes, and all the file type use the default settings. In theory, the RAW files should never have had data written to the XMP section. Would a fix simply be going in with ExifToolGUI and delete the XMP part of the RAW? Or maybe I should remove those files from IMatch, do the ExifTool thing and then import them again?

Question: If you change metadata2 file defaults does it just apply to the database you set them in, or would it change things for all IMatch DBs you could access? I did change the defaults for a small test DB to help diagnose the GPS data problem, so if it's a global setting it could explain how the data got screwed up.

[Mario]

XMP sidecar and the XMP section of the RAW.

Competing XMP records are to be avoided. Only ever use sidecar XMP data or embedded XMP data. You can remove the duplicated XMP data with the ExifTool Command Processor. There is a preset for this.

Tip: You can switch between the databases and check the settings to see if they are per-database or global.
Metadata Settings are per database.

[lnh]

Thank you. That did the trick. Have no idea how those files got mucked up as I'm usually very careful to only allow writing to the sidecar for raw files.