5.2.10 Data driven categories and file extensions

[Carlo Didier]

I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Attached screenshots of the problem.
I have created a data driven category "Multimedia". With the following replacement filter, I want to get my files grouped by type with each type corresponding to several possible file extensions:

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avi,Video;m4v,Video,;mov,Video;mpg,Video;mpeg,Video;mp2,Video;mp4,Video;m4v,Video;arw,RAW;dng,RAW;mrw,RAW;nef,RAW;cr2,RAW;jpg,JPEG;jpeg,JPEG;psd,Photoshop;psb,Photoshop;tif,TIFF;tiff,TIFF;bmp,Graphics;gif,Graphics;png,Graphics

This works mostly correctly as you can see in the screenshot, but a number of files that should appear under either "JPEG", "Photoshop", "TIFF" or "RAW" are listed under "Other" instead.
And some that should be under "Other" appear in their own sub-category.

Database Diagnosis ok. Refreshed all data driven cats.



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[Mario]

What's special about the files which don't work?
File extension in the proper case? Replacement expressions are case-sensitive...
Any other common thing about the files which fail?

[Carlo Didier]

Nothing special or common between the files as far as I can see. But I didn't realize that the replacement expressions are case sensitive (I hate case-sensitiveness in anything).
Renaming a ".DNG" to ".dng" effectively removed that one from "Others" and put it under "RAW" as it should. Did I say that I hate case-sensitiveness?

Strangely enough, there are files with ".tif" and others with ".TIF" under the "Other" category ... although the ones with ".tif" should go to "TIFF" ... and most do.

As I want toe rename all ".DNG"s to ".dng" I wanted to filter for them but there, I don't have an option to make the regular expression case-sensitive ... ! (did I say that ...)

[Carlo Didier]

I still don't get the expected results. Anyone having an idea?

[jch2103]

This isn't exactly an answer to your question, but you can try using a new data-driven category using photools.com::IMatch\101200\file.ext\0 as the tag. That should deliver all the different file extensions in your database to let you rename extensions as necessary.

[Carlo Didier]

That's the tag I use, John. But as you can see in my screenshot, there are file that go to the "Other" subcategory, although they all have a proper file extensions.
Either I'm doing something wrong or there is a bug.

[Ferdinand]

Can't see that you're doing anything wrong, but you could try the File Format variable (third one in the list of standard fields) and see if it behaves any differently.

[Carlo Didier]

I think something is wrong with the metadata of some files. I took one of the PSD files that showed up under the "Other" subcategory and re-saved it in Photoshop. After that, it went to the correct subcategory.
So I took a DNG file, opened it in ACR and changed a few settings. That one too went to the correct place afterwards.

How and why these tags are not correctly read by IM or are not present in the files (although the file extension should be readable without metatdata tags), I don't know.

[sinus]

I would also think, there is something wrong with these 40 files, whatever it is. 82'000 Images are sorted correct, so these 40 files are simply outstanding. Sometimes Digital things are a mystery. :-)

[Carlo Didier]

Yes, but the strangest thing is that most of those files have nothing in common. Different file formats (dng, tif, psd, jpg, mov, avi, ...), different cameras, different dates (from 2007 to 2012), ...

[sinus]

Yes, but the strangest thing is that most of those files have nothing in common. Different file formats (dng, tif, psd, jpg, mov, avi, ...), different cameras, different dates (from 2007 to 2012), ...

Yep, but it is curious, if you "reedit" them in PS, that it seems than to work?!
I have no idea! 

[Carlo Didier]

The re-editing is a relatively easy workaround (given the limited number of files), except for some formats like MOV and AVI, but I'd still like to know what is wrong in the files and why IM can't take the file extension directly from the filename instead of the metadata inside the file.

[Mario]

The photools.com file name and extension tags are set directly from the file name, not from metadata.

[Carlo Didier]

The photools.com file name and extension tags are set directly from the file name, not from metadata.

Then I can't imagine how iMatch ingested those files (and displays the complete names with the extensions!) and still won't find the information ...
I'm trying to find a way to debug this to find out if it's a bug in iMatch or something else.

[Mario]

If it also fails with these fails in a new database (create a new db and just import these files) we have something to work with.
I don't recall all the details posted in this thread, but did you try without your very long replacement expression? Just for a test?

[Carlo Didier]

I created a new db with default settings and imported only those files (actually copies of them in a temporary folder). Then I re-created the data driven category and they all show up correctly under their file extension.
A database diagnostics of the original database showed no errors. There, the problem persists with or without the replacement expression.

[Carlo Didier]

On my main db, selecting the problem files and running a reload all metadata (by Ctrl-Shift-F5), I reduced the number of problem files to 3 which I then opened slightly edited (two jpgs and one tif) and re-saved. Now they are all ok.