Can't Change Keywords on Some Photos

[erichaas]

My original keywords were not well thought out, and so I have been going through my collection and updating my keywords to a better system. However, I have encountered a few files that will not let me change their keywords.

I enter the new keywords in the keyword panel, and delete the old ones, then click on the check mark to apply the changes. The files in question all show the pencil icon, so I do a metadata write back for all pending files, and everything appears to have gone as planned, and the file show the new keywords.

However, the next time I load IMatch, the reading metadata window immediately appears, and when it's done, the keyword changes for the files in question are all undone. The old keywords are back and the new keywords are gone.

Does anyone have an idea what might be going on here, and how I might be able to fix it?

[Mario]

This is usually caused by existing and out-of-sync keywords in your files.
Files can contain keywords in legacy IPTC, XMP subject and XMP hierarchicalSubject. These must be always in sync. Depending on your workflow, the software you used to create these files etc. you may end up with a metadata mess. We have discussed this numerous times here in the community.

Select one of the files, run the ExifTool Command Processor with the "All Keywords" preset and show us the result. This will quickly reveal if your files have out-of-sync metadata that IMatch cannot fix on its own.

[erichaas]

Here are the results from one of the files:

[IPTC]          Keywords                        : Calvert Cliffs State Park, Animals, Birds, lens, Piciformes, Red-headed Woodpecker, Woodpeckers
[XMP-dc]        Subject                         : Calvert Cliffs State Park, Tamron 150-600mm, birds, Melanerpes erythrocephalus, Red-headed Woodpeckers, woodpeckers
[XMP-lr]        Hierarchical Subject            : Tamron 150-600mm, Calvert Cliffs State Park, Melanerpes erythrocephalus, birds, woodpeckers, Red-headed Woodpeckers

[Mario]

As expected, the keywords in your files are out-of-sync. Different keywords in all 3 copies.
This causes IMatch to revert back to the merged set on re-import after write-back.

Use the ExifTool Command Processor to delete the legacy IPTC keywords. Then make a change to the file (e.g. reset/set the rating or click on the yellow pen in front of any of the tags displayed in the Metadata Panel or the Keyword panel). Then write-back. IMatch then writes the hierarchical keywords in both Subject and hierarchicalSubject and also copies them into the IPTC keywords. Then everything should be working nicely.

[erichaas]

That seems to have done the trick. Thanks.