I mistakenly entered a State/Province for several of my photos. When I try to clear that field (e.g., selecting several images, then clicking “clear content” followed by “OK”), the entry disappears for a moment, then reappears. I check the file with ExifTool, and the entry appears in:
Location Created Province State
Location Shown Province State
State
Province-State
I can clear this data from the file with:
exiftool -State= -Province-State= -XMP:LocationCreatedProvinceState= -XMP:LocationShownProvinceState= <filename>
If I do this and then tell PSU to read the metadata from the file, the data disappears from the State/Province field displayed in the metadata tab.
But if I write metadata to the file with cmd-S, then the cleared State/Province data reappears!
I’ve opened the idimager.cat.db file with vi and can see that the State/Province data is not removed from there at any point in the process.
This only happens when I try to clear the field. I can change it to something else and the changes are propagated to the file correctly.
Is there a database browser that I can use to open the catalog and manually remove the entries?
Unable to clear State/Province
Re: Unable to clear State/Province
I'm only guessing here so ignore me if this doesn't apply to you. It sounds like you are trying to remove the metadata from your files by using the details panel. If you have labels assigned to those same files and the labels are configured to write metadata to the fields from which you are clearing it, then what you describe could happen.
If you have your preferences set to automatically write metadata to your files and you clear the metadata from the files using the details panel that will trigger PSU to sync your files. During that sync process, PSU will look at your label assignments and if there are labels assigned that are mapped to metadata fields it will write that metadata out to the files again.
The solution is to revoke the offending labels first. It's been a long time since I've experimented with this so I could be mistaken but this might give you a hint as to where to look for a solution. Modifying data directly in the database is never a good idea. Also, using labels to manage metadata instead of the details panel is usually a good idea.
If there are labels and you still want to have the labels assigned but not to have the metadata written to certain fields in your files, you can always configure your labels not to be mapped to those metadata fields.
One other consideration is Geocoding. When you geocode files using PSU, labels get created automatically. It's possible you created and assigned labels without realizing it.
I hope something I've pointed out helps you.
If you have your preferences set to automatically write metadata to your files and you clear the metadata from the files using the details panel that will trigger PSU to sync your files. During that sync process, PSU will look at your label assignments and if there are labels assigned that are mapped to metadata fields it will write that metadata out to the files again.
The solution is to revoke the offending labels first. It's been a long time since I've experimented with this so I could be mistaken but this might give you a hint as to where to look for a solution. Modifying data directly in the database is never a good idea. Also, using labels to manage metadata instead of the details panel is usually a good idea.
If there are labels and you still want to have the labels assigned but not to have the metadata written to certain fields in your files, you can always configure your labels not to be mapped to those metadata fields.
One other consideration is Geocoding. When you geocode files using PSU, labels get created automatically. It's possible you created and assigned labels without realizing it.
I hope something I've pointed out helps you.
Tom Stoddard
Re: Unable to clear State/Province
Wow—that did it! PSU had created some errant geocoding-related labels. Deleting them solved the problem. Thanks!