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Adobe PSE Support Failing

Community Beginner ,
Sep 30, 2019 Sep 30, 2019

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Is it only me that finds Adobe Technical Support for PSE 2019 entirely lacking. I raised a Ticket 2 weeks ago describing an issue with Duplicated Location Tags and no one has answered. In fact they keep emailing me asking for a response to my ticket otherwise my ticket will be closed. What response do they expect? I have provided my phone number 3 times now but no one ever calls, I've provided my email address but all I get is 'we need your response to your ticket or else it will be closed'.

I'm in chat session right now and no one answers.

It is very annoying and frustrating. I don't even know if it's possible to raise a complaint, and supect that would be ignored as well.

Any suggestions welcome.

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Community Expert ,
Sep 30, 2019 Sep 30, 2019

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I suggest you post the specifics of your problem in this public forum (unless it has something to do with personal information such as serial numbers or purchase information).  If we are unable to answer your question, we can probably escalate the problem to somebody on Adobe staff who can.

 

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Community Beginner ,
Oct 01, 2019 Oct 01, 2019

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With the greatest respect Greg I reported the issue here first before reaching out to technical support. A guy named Akash Sharma from Adobe Staff picked up the issue and said he try to reproduce the problem, he quickly did a disappearing act when I chased the issue with him directly. You can find the post at: https://forums.adobe.com/message/11227620#11227620

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Community Expert ,
Oct 01, 2019 Oct 01, 2019

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That's exactly what I thought. There is absolutely no mystery about the reason of the duplication. I first searched about your older post and found the same post.

You are probably aware about the fact that Adobe and Google stopped agreeing on the use of APIs to allow PSE to access Google Maps. For whatever reasons ($$$ ???) Google stopped the APIs allowing access to Google Maps and replaced them by new ones, resulting in PSE users not being able to us the Map function. Adobe did chose to change the map provider for a more future-proof one. The result is what has been described in the previous discussions.

- Adobe job is not to provide the map services and database. Whether users like it or not, its advertied job is to provide 'integration' with an 'external' software to get coordinates, geographical and hierarchical locations database and display maps based on the stacks in the catalog. (Refer to the system requirements and license terms). So, with the new provider, you can't have the same worldwide geographical places hierarchies. Hence the duplication you are seeing.

- The duplication issue has nothing to do with geography, it's to insure a translation form a hierarchy in a database (tags hierarchy) to another one in the other database. And I don't see how asking that to the new provider or to Adobe might be do that.

- So, when I read the answer by Akash Sharma, I had no doubt that he would never get a positive answer!

 

What friendly (really) advice can I give you?

If you are not happy with Adobe help and the duplication issue, rather use the feedback forum.

https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/categories/photoshop_family_photoshop_elements

You have very valid reasons to do so.

I am quite sure that will make you feel better, but don't expect anything practical as a result.

 

Don't underestimate the quality of the help you can get in this community forum. The advantage your fellow users have over the help desk is that you have specialists on every detail of the software, including old versions and accessory features like Maps.

So, the problem of  merging the two databases may be partly solved by yourself. There I am sure you'll get practical help.

 

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Community Beginner ,
Oct 01, 2019 Oct 01, 2019

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Hi Michel - so do you know the solution?

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Community Expert ,
Oct 01, 2019 Oct 01, 2019

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As I said, I believe you can have a partial solution. First describe your workflow and how you use the map feature to display according to your needs. Greg has already answered very similar questions, so he is more competent than me on that topic. I don't need the map module since I use the standard keyword hierarchies and tags for places and I don't care for showing my photos on maps (I don't travel much...) I may be able to suggest ways to 'merge' two distinct keyword hierarchies tomorrow...

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Community Beginner ,
Oct 01, 2019 Oct 01, 2019

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Thanks Michel - Look forward to your suggestions. I believe the problem already existed in PSE 2018. So not necessarily introduced when upgrading to 2019. Also somewhere along the versions they removed the built in Tag Merge functions. Anyway I welcome anything you can offer to sort this out.

 

Many thanks

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Community Expert ,
Oct 01, 2019 Oct 01, 2019

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Just to add to what Michel has said, as you probably know, this Community Forum has gone through some changes over the past couple of weeks.  Unfortunately, some posts that were created during a two to three week period before the changeover have been lost.  Also, because of problems with the original setup of this forum, it was difficult to find and respond to unanswered questions from the old forum.  In any event, you have found your way back and I think I understand your issues. 

 

Like Michel, I don't use the Maps feature.   I also don't use the geo-location metadata from my files even though it is at least available from my iPhone photos.  I prefer to use a keyword tag method of finding my media by location.  Nor do I need to drill down to a granular location on a map.  Tagging a photo with "Disneyland" is more useful to me than locating it as United States>California>Anaheim>Space Mountain.  However, I do create tag hierarchies for major vacation trips.  There are, of course, a limited number of levels for the hierarchy.  But these can be overcome by simply adding keyword tags to a photo.

 

As for avoiding the duplicates in your Places tag hierarchy, I would first check whether the tags are truly duplicated.  For example, if you check the top level "England" box, does it contain the same number of media as checking the lower-level England box?  The number of media will show up in the status bar at the lower left of the grid.  If the numbers are identical, I think you can simply delete the lower level tag and be left with all of the England tags correctly attached in the hierarchy. 

 

 

 

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Community Beginner ,
Oct 01, 2019 Oct 01, 2019

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Hi Greg, thanks for the explanation. I use it similarly to yourself just to tag holiday destinations or important locations. I don't use geo-location data but I do use the maps feature. I tried your suggestion re the duplicated England Tags and the counts are dramatically different 1679 for England in the main hierachy and 457 in the second lowest. I had intended to send two images showing the top and bottom of the England Tag entries but I can't do it here for some reason. What I have been doing is entering the place data in the image caption field and then deleting the duplicated tag data and recreating the tag from the caption data. Very time consuming as you can imagine.

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Community Expert ,
Oct 01, 2019 Oct 01, 2019

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I tried your suggestion re the duplicated England Tags and the counts are dramatically different 1679 for England in the main hierachy and 457 in the second lowest. I had intended to send two images showing the top and bottom of the England Tag entries but I can't do it here for some reason.
In order to post an image on this forum, you need to hit the blue Reply button next to the original post, not the grey Reply button next to a later post.  (If you edit a later post, it will also have the full text editor with the ability to post images and attach files.)  Hopefully, this problem with the forum will be fixed soon.
What I have been doing is entering the place data in the image caption field and then deleting the duplicated tag data and recreating the tag from the caption data. Very time consuming as you can imagine.
Here is a much easier and faster method. 
  • Select the second tier England tag by checking its box
  • Select all of the media in the filtered grid (Hit Ctrl+A)
  • Apply the first tier England tag to the selected media (click and drag from the tag to an image in the grid)
  • Clear the filter
  • Select the text of the second tier England - not the box.  It will then be hightlighted.
  • Hit Delete.   You will get a message telling you that the selected tag will be removed from all of your media.  Click OK.

This will apply the top tier England tag to all media that you want to be tagged with the country name and will delete the duplicate tag in your hierarchy.  It's a 10 second operation.

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Community Beginner ,
Oct 02, 2019 Oct 02, 2019

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Hi Greg - Thanks. I have tried this but I raise a concern about the Delete of the Second Tier England Tag. The message received when I select Delete states the Tag England will be Deleted along with all (Underlying Places)! I don't want to Delete the Underlying Places just the England

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Community Expert ,
Oct 03, 2019 Oct 03, 2019

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I'm afraid this is a problem that I think can't be solved.  It is also a reason why I am glad I have continued to use keyword tags for my places rather than adopt the new Places tags.  In Places, the hierarchy is governed by the Maps interface and you are a victim of the changes that have been made in that department.

The only thing I can suggest is to reconstruct your hierarchy using keyword tags.  It is a fairly easy process to select your existing Places tags and replace them with newly created keyword tags (or category/sub-category of tags).

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Community Beginner ,
Oct 08, 2019 Oct 08, 2019

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Thanks Greg. I have adopted your approach for the time being. Thanks for your help in this.

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Community Beginner ,
Oct 16, 2019 Oct 16, 2019

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I have created 3 cases about this issue.  They keep closing them.  this is their response "The photo tagging you have made created in the older version will not be able to work in Version 2019 because the api of Google Maps has been changed . You will not be even able to merge the tags . The only solution for this is to create brand new tags in the latest version ."

They HAVE the ability to fix this.  They know the database structure of both the older catalog and the newer catalog.  They could easily create a routine to to merge the two, but they don't care.  if i have to re-tag my >5000 photos, then i need to find an application that is actually supported.

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Community Beginner ,
Oct 16, 2019 Oct 16, 2019

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Hi Gene. They did and said the same thing to me also. They forced me to upgrade to the 2019 version due the change in mapping software and they FAILED to support users who contact them with clearly related problems afterwards. And I agree it should be an easy fix from a data perspective. They do not care. I certainly won't be upgrading from 2019 to any further new versions. Feeling well ripped off.

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Community Expert ,
Oct 16, 2019 Oct 16, 2019

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"They HAVE the ability to fix this. They know the database structure of both the older catalog and the newer catalog. They could easily create a routine to to merge the two, but they don't care. if i have to re-tag my >5000 photos, then i need to find an application that is actually supported."

Seriously?

It's not a matter of database format, it's a matter of database content.

Adobe does not own the database of the old or the new provider content.

 

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Community Beginner ,
Oct 23, 2019 Oct 23, 2019

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I find your reply rather dissapointing. Gene is absolutely right. They can fix this but choose not to probably because PSE2020 is now released.

And to correct you further: It has everything to do with the file format. Their program controls the allowable content within the database. Their program allows the user to input duplicate Location Tags - Fact! It has absolutely nothing to do with the User Content and everything to do with Program Design. There is a saying in the Database Management System (DBMS) world:

 

"The Software needs to be smarter than the Smartest User"

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Community Beginner ,
Oct 27, 2019 Oct 27, 2019

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Adobe DOES own the database structure of their catalog AND they control what it contains.
With just a little investigating I determined that the PSE version 2019 catalog is just a SQLLite database. Since I stopped writing computer code some years ago, I didn't have the tools I needed so I found a freeware SQL database browser on-line.
My PSE Organizer catalog consists of 22 tables and 30 indexes.  One of the tables is named TAG_TABLE.  It looked like a good place to start.  Seems that each item has an "ID", but most important they also have a "PARENT_ID".  The PARENT_ID is used to place the item under the correct upper level or parent.  Town/City tags list a State ID as their PARENT_ID tag,
I am not suggesting that anyone edit their catalog.  I am just explaining what I did.  Before doing anything, I backed up the catalog and made copies of the catalog.
I realized that the "United States" ID tag was the PARENT_ID tag for the states listed under it on the tree.  So, I found the "United States of America" tag ID and replaced the states PARENT_ID tag with the ID tag of the "United States of America".  It gets a little more complicated if there are duplicate states or locations in both the "United States" and the "United States of America" trees.  After saving the changes I opened with PSE Organizer and immediately performed a database repair and re-index.  I am not sure if the free browser maintained the indexes so I used PSE to re-index.  Everything seems to work just fine.  I was able to properly recall previously added photos/locations and when I added a new location, it appeared in the correct tree branch.
I didn't try this but I think it would work.  When you add a new location and PSE creates the "United States of America" tree, STOP.  Delete that whole "United States of America" tree.  Rename the existing "Unites States" tree to "United States of America" and then add the photos/location again. PSE Organizer should recognize the "United States of America" tree can correctly position the new location.  Again, I didn't test this but it might work.  If not, the other method seems to work.
Only try this if you understand what I did.  You can destroy your catalog very easily so BE CAREFUL.  I am not suggesting that anyone try this, I am just explaining what I did to fix a problem that Adobe said was not fixable.  If I can figure this out, they already know the fix.  If enough people complain about this, maybe we can shame Adobe into publishing the proper way to fix this issue. 
AGAIN, Only do this if you understand what you're doing!  I do not recommend that anyone try this.  I am only explaining what I did.

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Advocate ,
Oct 27, 2019 Oct 27, 2019

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What if Adobe bundled a separate cataloging app with flagship products like Photoshop, and in this case PSE, instead of intigrating it.  Maybe it's already separate, I don't know much about PSE's catalog - I don't use it - but see that it's available from within the app.  For example, some years ago PSCS3 shipped with an app called Bridge that could be used for the same purposes among other things.  Out of curiosity I toyed with Bridge in the beginning but didn't come to rely on it, preferring instead to archive files manually using my own time consuming, primitive, assailable methods  It presented well and seemed very useful otherwise.

Back to my question, if PSE's catalog feature is basically a database on steroids, wouldn't it be easier to build and maintain as a stand alone as it was with Bridge?  Then maybe there's a generic catalog app out there that will outperform Adobe's?

 

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Community Expert ,
Oct 27, 2019 Oct 27, 2019

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My answer to Gene5235:

"Adobe DOES own the database structure of their catalog AND they control what it contains.
With just a little investigating I determined that the PSE version 2019 catalog is just a SQLLite database. Since I stopped writing computer code some years ago, I didn't have the tools I needed so I found a freeware SQL database browser on-line."

Sorry to use only the first blue link to answer, that is to ensure that any answer will be displayed by date and not drowned in the hierarchical structure of the new forum.

I do appreciate that you are proposing positive tracks to manage the change of maps database structure.

To be precise, the database structure you are discovering in the catalog is managed by Adobe, the content you have added 'duplicated' is YOURS, and Adobe does not own the databases and map tools from Google or their successors. It's copyrighted material. When you use the map plugin, Adobe uses the API provided by the supplier to fetch the information linked to the coordinates in your metadata, that is the hierarchy of places each supplier has chosen to use. The API is also used to fetch the data necessary to draw maps from the copyrighted database of the supplier. Adobe does not store a copy of those proprietary information, they only retrieve the tags corresponding to each place level to incorporate those tags in the catalog main database structure. As a matter of fact, the catalog uses several sqlite databases, for instance to store thumbnails.

So, you proposal to create a program to translate the Google structure into the new one may seem logical and a common programming task. The issue is that Adobe does not store both structures and their proprietary contents and they don't want to go against copyright laws.

On the other hand, the translation at the user level will only require a tiny part of the proprietary contents which covers any small place in the world.

If you try to create your own translation tables for your catalog, I believe that is theoretically possible, but is it worth the trouble? Even if that works, will that help any other user? I think you should rather think about the way Greg_S suggests to handle the matter in the first posts of the present discussion. That does not need programming skill and can be translated into standard 'media' tags instead of places tags.

 

 

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