Unable to remove keywords

[Aubrey]

I have tried and tried and tried... to remove the keywords in the the attached file (I have a number of other jpgs with a similar problem)

I want to remove all keywords and replace them with hierarchical keywords. The current keywords are Trinidad and Caroni Swamp.

Any ideas.

I've tried:
{File.FullName}
-XMP::Subject=
-overwrite_original_in_place
-v0

Also used the package ECP "Delete legacy IPTC (IIM) metadata"

All to no avail.

Thanks,
Aubrey.

[Mario]

The metadata in the file appears to be broken.
It has an XMP dc-subject record, but when ExifTool writes XMP data, it creates another XMP-dc:subject record...?

When I write a new XMP subject with

exiftool -overwrite_original -xmp-dc:Subject=ABC ...

ExifTool afterwards reports ABC as the only subject. OK.
When I now delete the subject with

exiftool -overwrite_original -xmp-dc:Subject= ...

ExifTool reports success. But when I then list the metadata again with

exiftool -G1 -subject

I get

[XMP-dc]        Subject                         : Trinidad, Caroni Swamp

This looks to me as if the file has two separate XMP records, somehow overlapping or something.
Real bad.

The only solution I've found is to a) export the XML data to a text file, b) deleting the XMP data from the file, c) re-importing the XMP data from the file.
After IMatch has reloaded the file, the old keywords are still visible in the Keyword Panel (Metadata Protection). I choose "Delete all Keywords" from the drop-down menu in the KW Panel, then write-back.
This seems to have fixed it.

1. Export XML data

exiftool -X FILE_NAME > temp.xml

2. Delete XML data in file:

exiftool -overwrite_original -xmp= FILE_NAME

3. Re-Import XML data

exiftool -overwrite_original -tagsfromfile temp.xml FILE_NAME

This seems to fix the broken XML record in the file.

[Aubrey]

Thank you!
I have about 15 files like this in my database. I have spent I don't know how many hours trying to figure it out.

I really appreciate you solving the issue with these files.  . They've been around for a long time and I had just ignored the fact that they would not rewrite.

Thank you,
Aubrey.