PSE Organizer catalog moved to new PC, many tags missing

[David34830158sciv]

Hello

We moved our Photopshop Elements Organizer catalog from an old computer to a newer computer. On both computers the same version (2021) is installed. To transfer the catalog we used the built in backup and restore functionality of PSE Organizer, as described in the help article. (Full Backup)

The problem is: On all photos that are newer than 2012 the tags are missing, while on the photos that are from 2004 - 2012 the tags were transfered as expected.

The categories were not transferred at all.

Has anybody an idea why the tags on the never photos are not visible/were not transferred and how we can get them back?

Thank you

[Greg_S.]

When you performed the restore on the new computer, did you see a message that the restoration had been successful?  If not, perhaps you interrupted the process.

When you say that the categories were not transferred at all are you saying that there is no keyword hiearchy at all?  Where are you seeing the keywords from 2004-2012?  Icons in the grid? In the keyword tag hierarchy? In the individual Image Tags panel at the bottom of the Tags panel?  Do you have any People tags?  Please show us some screenshots to demonstrate what has happened.

The differentiation between pre- and post- 2012 is interesting because that is somewhat consistent with changes in the structure of keywords in the catalog and also indicates to me that the restoration process was interrupted.  If this is a possibility, I suggest that you perform the restoration again and make sure you wait until a success message appears.

[David34830158sciv]

When you say that the categories were not transferred at all are you saying that there is no keyword hiearchy at all?  Where are you seeing the keywords from 2004-2012?  Icons in the grid?

By @Greg_S.

There is a new category called "Imported Tags" that contains all the tags. But the individual categories were not transferred, there are just a bunch of standard categories there.

Regarding the success message I'd have to try again. It was a long proccess that happened a week ago, so I'm not entirely sure. Will also do screenshots.

[Greg_S.]

. . .  and also tell us what options you used for the full restore.  Did you use the Restore Original Folder Structure option.  If so, it may be possible to simply copy the catalog folder from one computer to the other and click on the catalog.pse19db file that you will find in the folder. 

[Greg_S. · Accepted solution]

If the keyword tags appear in the Imported category, then it seems to me that a full restore did not take place (unless that is where the tags were originally stored at backup time). 

So, if the tags are in fact present in the current catalog, it may just be easier to recreate the tag hierarchy and click and drag the keyword tags from the Imported Category to the correct one.  This would not  work for People, Places, Events tags but if this is the case, I can make some other suggestions.

[David34830158sciv]

It seems that indeed the first full restore was interrupted without giving an error message.

We performed the full restore again, and this time everything is as it should be.

[Greg_S.]

@David34830158sciv said:

It seems that indeed the first full restore was interrupted without giving an error message.

We performed the full restore again, and this time everything is as it should be.

Thanks for the report.  I agree that the process should give better status messages.  Unfortunately, that last stage, which appears to be the final storage of catalog files, can take a while, particularly with a large catalog.  The user thinks everything is done and starts clicking around and thereby interrupts the finalization of the restoration.