restore from back up missing tags

CodeSoldier  wrote I backed up everything properly on a new drive after saving all the tags and meta data to the photos. I then reloaded the media into the organizer from the new drive but even though it asked me to import the tags (which I did). they don't seem to be connected to anything.

To be clear, you have:

- used the menu 'Write metadata to files'. The tags, captions, star ratings are saved in the files themselves (in the metadata header) and they are available to other softwares (the Explorer, other programs...) That step does not write albums, stacks, version sets or creation which are only stored in the catalog.

- used the Explorer or any backup software to copy the files somwhere (for instance to an external drive).

- reimported the copies with the menu 'Import' from 'files and folders' in a catalog. The tags are now also written in the catalog for each photo file. Since you have agreed to 'import' the tags, the tags list (right panel) is updated to include new tags (they appear in the 'imported keywords) category.

The above procedure does not recover everything, not only the albums, stacks etc, but also the keywords hierarchies and sub-hierachies. For that you would need to also save the keywords hierachies in a text file and restore it before re-importing.

The best way to backup and restore is to use the built-in options in the catalog manager.

- simply 'convert' catalog if you are working in the same computer

- doing a backup and restore when you migrate to another computer or drive.

I have 70,000 pictures with all the people identified and now the program I working hard to identify faces.

The face identification process is an extremely heavy job which I don't want to use, so I have no personal experience with it. I am not sure it is written in the files themselves (I guess they are...) and I don't know how long it takes to update the catalog if that is the case.

Although my tags are listed on the side they don't filter anything. The message I get is No Media available. Please clear applied

That message may suggest you have 'photos' or 'videos' unchecked in the View by media types unchecked.