Keyword hierarchal structure missing

[Danubius88]

After a crash I reinstalled PE18 and restored from backup. Now  all the tags are there in a list but it's just a list now. What happened to the hierarchy ?

Is there a way to restore the hierarchy?

[MichelBParis]

Danubius88  wrote

After a crash I reinstalled PE18 and restored from backup. Now  all the tags are there in a list but it's just a list now. What happened to the hierarchy ?

Is there a way to restore the hierarchy?

A restore from the organizer will retrieve everything including keywords and albums hierarchies. Restoring from external copies or backup can only retrieve tags if you have 'written metadata to files' before the crash; in this case, you 'import', you don't restore. There is no way you can get a missing hierarchy from the organizer, either the restore fails, or it includes the hierarchies.

If you did restore from the organizer, can you post a screenshot of the keywords panel?

[Danubius88]

Not sure what is meant by restore from the organizer but I did everything through organizer. I had also saved the keyword tag .xml file before backing up.

So now as a desperation measure I imported the keyword file and the hierarchy keywords appeared. This is now in addition to the keyword tags that are already there. However the hierarchal keywords are all empty.

I suppose i could now drag the keywords into their appropriate place on the hierarchy but I haven't tried that yet. Here is a partial screen dump showing both the keywords that came with the restore in blue and the imported keyword that has the hierarchy in yellow.

Thanks.

[MichelBParis]

I don't remember seeing exactly the same issue as yours in this forum and it seems highly unlikely that the restore can display a simple keyword list instead of a hierarchy... So, thanks for your further information: you did nothing wrong in the restore process from the organizer. The saved file hierarchy is only useful when you restore it before importing files, that does not help in your sitution.

Just another question: can you select files by checking the checkboxes in the list view? Or by using the search by keywords ? That's just to be sure the problem is only with the keyword hierarchy display.

So, we are left with generic and empirical troubleshooting steps. We don't really know if there was an issue before the backup (repair, optimize steps), during the backup or during the restore. Or even a catalog corruption after the restore... Before trying a new backup and restore attempt, I would:

- delete the organizer preferences in the Edit dialog (reset on next launch)

- repair (repair anyway) and optimize

- create a new catalog, import the keyword structure from the saved xml file as you did. Then import a test folder to see if the keyword hierarchy is recognized. Then close everything, reboot and have a new look at the restored catalog. That has been reported as helping in similar issues.

[Danubius88]

I created a new catalog and imported the keyword structure first, then imported the same pic file as before. This time the keyword structure was properly populated. But the imported keywords are also there.

Same picture as before but this time the keyword structure is properly populated.

I guess I can delete the imported keyword tags (the blue ones). Am I correct in doing that?

Thanks again

[MichelBParis · Accepted solution]

I created a new catalog and imported the keyword structure first, then imported the same pic file as before. This time the keyword structure was properly populated.

This means that the organizer works as expected when importing files.

But the imported keywords are also there.

If they were in the keyword structure list, that is normal.

Same picture as before but this time the keyword structure is properly populated.

Does it mean you have 'imported' all your picture files in the catalog? If so, it looks like all is well for the re-import process.

I have to stress that reimporting is different from :

- converting a catalog in an older PSE version to a newer one

- using the backup and restore process of the organizer (menu File >> backup or restore)

Reimporting as you did recovers not only the tags hierarchy, but the tags themselves, the captions, notes, albums.

It does not recover albums, stacks, version sets, creations...

My first answer assumed that you had used the backup and restore process. If you had simply re-imported your media files in a new catalog, your (blue) tags would have appeared under a category named 'Imported Keywords'. Was that what happened?

I guess I can delete the imported keyword tags (the blue ones). Am I correct in doing that?

Yes.

[Danubius88]

Yes, imported all picture files in catalog and it looks like life is good.

Many thanks for the help, much appreciated.