I'm a IM user since about 2003. Recently I've migrated from IM3.6 to IM5. I have about 130,000 files in IM. About 100,000 are offline on roughly 300 CD/DVDs.
Since working in IM5 I realize that this is an XMP based system where IM3.6 was IPTC. So I have started doing a Reload Metadata operation on each CD/DVD to populate the XMP fields in IM5 to make them more friendly for data viewing and searches. This operation leaves me with little yellow pencils on every file since the system cannot write back XMP::Lightroom\HierarchicalSubject to the protected CD/DVD. After searches of the forums for help it seemed viable and I started running the Database Tool Clear Metadata Write Back Queue. Perhaps this is a slight loss of data but I doubt more than 1% of 10 years in locked files will ever be opened as writable in the future. With an eventual 100,000 entries in the Pending Write-Back Collection, this collection would be useless for dealing with day-to-day checks that my current work has been updated as desired.
Perhaps I am making a mistake to clear the pencil on off-line CD/DVDs. Is my thought process wrong? Does it make sense for me to be clearing the offline file pencils? Any comments are appreciated.
Hi Stan,
I move your post because you are asking a question, not providing a tip or answer to a question.
When IMatch imports your metadata it creates new hierarchical keywords (and maybe some other data as well) from the existing flat keywords, IPTC, EXIF and GPS metadata in your files. Files where the metadata in the database differs from the file on disk will be marked with the pen for 'needs write-back'.
If the pen irritates you and you don't intent ever to write back the data, you an clear the queues. This will not delete any data in your database, just reset the 'needs write-back' state and thus remove the pen.