Tag is not removed even though -x TagName is used

[tim-kos]

Hey there,

I have problem where exiftool does not exclude the "ThumbnailsSpreadsImage" tag from the output.

Operating system:
Linux Ubuntu 12 run over vagrant in OSX Mavericks

Exiftool version: 8.79

Command:
exiftool -x ThumbnailsSpreadsImages api2/test/fixture/file/failure.pdf > omg.txt

Output:
Please see both failure.pdf and omg.txt attached.

omg.txt still contains the tag, which is not expected and causes Exiftool to fail when one sets a max buffer for it when you execute it over NodeJS's childProcess API.

Thank you in advance for your time.

[tim-kos]

Here are the files:

omg.txt: http://s3.transloadit.com.s3.amazonaws.com/7v0245c7401f453b99040492490144aa/8e/c48380a92e11e3a8ebdd8b5615f837/omg.txt.zip

failure.pdf: http://s3.transloadit.com.s3.amazonaws.com/7v0245c7401f453b99040492490144aa/11/f2aac0a92f11e389bf17a6980b1b46/failure.pdf.zip

[Phil Harvey]

I can't check the sample files right now, but it is likely you just don't have the tag name correct.  Extract with the -s option to see the tag name.  If you exclude that exact name, it should work.

- Phil

[tim-kos]

Hey Phil,

thanks for your reply.

When I use the -s option it outputs a ton of data, because the value for this tag name is huge. Anyways, I used the tag name from the output already (as seen in omg.txt) and made triple-double-extra-sure it's correct. So I doubt that this is the problem.

I'd be very thankful if you checked this out.

Kind regards

[Phil Harvey]

Right.  The ThumbnailsSpreadsImage and PreviewsSpreadsBase64_data tags have very large values.  This command avoids extracting these:

exiftool -x ThumbnailsSpreadsImage -x PreviewsSpreadsBase64_data failure.pdf

- Phil

[tim-kos]

Hey Phil,

I figured it out. It was actually a problem in NodeJS' childProcess.execFile() not parsing the argument correctly. I switched to childProcess.exec() now and there exiftool works as advertised.

Sorry for wasting your time.

Kind regards,
Tim