I need to run IMatch as Administrator

[TomS]

I upgraded my computer to Windows 10 and reinstalled the IMatch trial. After installing the trial, I tried to start the application and it stalled when trying to load the database. I deleted the old database and created a new one. IMatch started to do that but never finished. The progress bar moved about 1/3 of the way through and then just stopped. I let it run for about 5 minutes and finally gave up. I had to use the Task Manager to shut it down. I am able to get it to work but only if I run the application "as Administrator". I've looked at the permissions in the folder where the database is stored and I don't see any reason why the application would need administrator permissions to access it. I'm not sure what else to look at. I can continue to run the application as administrator but would prefer not to have to do that.

[Mario]

IMatch does not need Administrator privileges. If this is the case on your machine, your file system permissions are messed up or something. If the database creation process does not continue it's either file system permission or a virus checker preventing ExifTool from running, from accessing files etc.

Delete all files in your TEMP folder (which contains runtime files from ExifTool).
Disable your virus checker
Retry

Please follow the instructions given in How to report problems and attach at least the log file IMatch creates. See log file in the IMatch help system for more info. Because this will show us what IMatch is doing, where it stalls, which error messages or warnings are logged, Windows error messages, permission errors, ...

[TomS]

I only use Windows Defender and File History. I disabled both of them and started IMatch normally. IMatch quickly gets to the point where it says "Loading thesaurus data and tag metadata..." and it just hangs. The log file is attached.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Mario]

Did you delete the files and folders in your TEMP folder?
At least delete (while IMatch is not running!) the par-<USER NAME> folder. My guess is that the security privileges of that folder are messed up and that this prevents ExifTool from completing.

Also, switch the log file to debug logging via (Help > Support). IMatch then logs more detailed information.

[TomS]

Yes, I did delete everything from my Temp folder. I will do it again. First I ran IMatch as administrator so that I could switch to debug logging. Then I deleted everything from the Temp folder including the par-<USER NAME> folder. Then I attempted to run IMatch normally and it hung at the same place. The new log file is attached.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Mario]

IMatch hangs because ExifTool does not return from a function call.
I have seen maybe one or two times in the past two years.

The typical reason for this are file missing or wrong system privileges (ExifTool cannot create or access data in the par-... folder in your TEMP folder or the folder containing IMatch "C:\Program Files (x86)\photools.com\IMatch5\") where critical configuration files are located.

And since it works when you run IMatch under an admin account, it's surely messed up file system permissions on your system.

Make sure that "Everyone" can read/write/Modify the TEMP folder.
And that the C:\Program Files (x86)\photools.com\IMatch5\ folder and sub-folders and files within are also accessible to all users.

Messed up file system permissions is a known issue when upgrading to Windows 10.

If you have some experience with computers you can use the Microsoft Process Monitor tool to monitor file system access by the "exiftool.exe" process and look for ACCESS DENIED messages. This will tell you which folders on your system are not accessible for your normal user account.

[TomS]

I've checked every folder that I can think of that exiftool or IMatch would need to access and given all users, administrator, and system "full control". I added the "Everyone" user for each folder and gave it full control. I did this with my temp folder, the IMatch folder in C:\Program Files (x86)\photools.com\, the photools folder in the appdata folder under my username, and the folder in which the database is located. Still no luck.

If you recall, I had similar issues before upgrading to Windows 10 so it may not be strictly a Windows 10 issue. In Windows 8.1, before upgrading, I could start up the application with no problem but exiftool was unable to read metadata from the sidecar (xmp) files. It never caused the application to hang and I could use exiftool without a problem. The only issue was that the metadata in the xmp files wasn't getting imported in the IMatch when I indexed the files.

I have a lot of experience with computers and am not afraid to experiment but the last time I looked at the Microsoft Process Monitor tool, I was a little overwhelmed by it. I guess I will need to spend another hour or two reading and learning how to use it. The fact that IMatch works fine when run as Administrator does seem to indicate that it is a permissions issue but I just can't figure out where it's happening.

[Mario]

When loading the database, IMatch asks ExifTool for information. ExifTool does never return from that call, which means that it is blocked or hanging. I have seen this only twice:

1. A virus checker / security tool blocking ExifTool from running
2. A system with messed up file system security where ExifTool could not update _some_ of the file in the par-<USER NAME> folder. This folder contains the Perl runtime on which ExifTool depends.

And that was all, in almost 3 years.
And since you can run IMatch and ExifTool under an Admin account, it's some security or privilege issue for sure. Can't help you with that.

There are numerous tutorials for Process Monitor out there. Maybe start here:

http://www.howtogeek.com/school/sysinternals-pro/lesson4/all/

[TomS]

Thank you, Mario, for pointing me in the right direction. I'm at work now but will try to use the process monitor tool later tonight. Hopefully, I'll get this resolved. I'll let you know what I am able to learn.

[Mario]

If you monitor exiftool.exe (set a filter for process exiftool.exe) and then run IMatch you should see if there are any errors.

You can also try to run ExifTool from the command line, under your normal account.

1. Open a command prompt window

2. cd to C:\Program Files (x86)\photools.com\IMatch5\

3. Type

exiftool -list

and press <Enter>

After a few seconds this lists all tags supported by ExifTool (long list). There should be no error messages and ExifTool should not hang.

[TomS]

Well, I've spent the last hour and a half trying to find something in the process monitor tool that would help me determine what is going on and I'm clueless! When I run exiftool from the command prompt using the -list argument as you suggested, I get nothing. No error and no results. When I run IMatch with the process monitor running, I don't get any access denied results. I get some other stuff that makes no sense to me but nothing that indicates the the program has frozen. I'll email you the output from the process monitor that I got by filtering to include IMatch5.exe and exiftool.exe and then running IMatch and trying to open my database. I will also send the much smaller output from process monitor when I run exiftool from the command prompt with the -list argument. Maybe it will mean something to you.

[TomS]

Something interesting is that I have exiftool installed in a couple of different places on my hard drive. One of them is in the appdata folder to IDimager. When I run that version of exiftool from that folder using the command prompt, I get the long list that you indicated I should get.

This gave me an idea. I renamed the version of exiftool that IMatch had installed and copied the version of exiftool that was in my IDimager folder into the IMatch folder. When I ran IMatch, it recognized that a new version of exiftool was there and it updated the database and opened up right away.

Then, I went back and renamed the exiftool files again so that the original exiftool would be used and IMatch opened up with no problem at all. This time, however, it didn't notice that it was using a different version of exiftool so I don't know if I've created problems with my database or not but I'm using a test database anyway so I'm not too worried about it.

[TomS]

I also came across this thread: http://u88.n24.queensu.ca/exiftool/forum/index.php/topic,6713.0.html

Perhaps there are more than 3 of us who have experienced issues with this but they just haven't brought it to your attention. It seems that there could be some issues with exiftool and Windows 10. My problems seemed to get fixed when I swapped out versions of exiftool. I just downloaded version 10.07 from the exiftool site and am running it with IMatch5 and it's working well. Very strange!

[TomS]

Okay, sorry for all of these posts but I think this is important. I must have gotten the file mixed up earlier. I never have gotten IMatch to run successfully using the version of exiftool (version 9.9.9.0) that was originally installed in the IMatch folder. I have now identified that it is only exiftool 9.99 that causes IMatch to freeze on my system. I have downloaded and tested three other versions of the exiftool windows executable. Versions 9.7.5.0, 10.0.0.0, and 10.0.7.0 all work fine. The version that was originally installed into my IMatch program folder went I installed the trial version of IMatch5 was version 9.9.9.0.

[Mario]

I understand that the problem is now solved?

[TomS]

Yes, as long as you can tell me that using a different version of exiftool than the one that was originally supplied by IMatch5 won't cause any problems.

[Mario]

IMatch 5.5 ships with ExifTool 10.06. I have not experienced any problems with the versions in-between.