Inexplicable error when writing custom tag

[remarkableearth]

I've customized a bunch of tags and successfully written them to thousands of files of various types as indicated in my recent questions to this forum on other issues. This time, using a variation of exiftool -testtag=testvalue a.jpg to write a single value or exiftool -r -testtag=testvalue . to write the value to all files within a directory tree, I get an error. When I run the command above over a.JPG with progressive forms of -v I get this:

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Rewriting a.jpg...
  Error = Error creating file: a.jpg_exiftool_tmp
Error: Error creating file: a.jpg_exiftool_tmp - a.jpg
    0 image files updated
    1 files weren't updated due to errors

I can't decipher this.

Anyone have a way to determine what the error really is? Because only by knowing what it is will I be able to figure out how to fix it.

[StarGeek]

Did you check to see if the file "a.jpg_exiftool_tmp" exists?  That's the temp file created when exiftool is writing a new file.  If it is interrupted for some reason while writing, the temp file might be left behind.

If it does exists, just delete it and retry your command.

[remarkableearth]

I looked for a.jpg_exiftool_tmp file in the directory but do not see it. If the process of writing it was interrupted and left behind as you say, was it even created? Is there a way of creating or restoring it?

[StarGeek]

If you don't see it, then that's not the problem.  And now that I think about it the error message for that is something like temp file  already exists.

Only other things I can think of is if you have write permission for that directory, disk full, or some other disk problem.

[remarkableearth]

Thanks, StarGeek. I attempted the same command over files I had previously successfully run it and got this error:

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Error: Error creating file: ./file.JPG_exiftool_tmp - ./file.JPGBasically the same as above. So I think you may be on to something but I just don't know what. It's puzzling.

[remarkableearth]

StarGeek,

Your suggestion that the disk could be full was right on. I made some room and can now write tags.

Thank you.

Now I have a problem writing more than one custom tag at a time which I've described in another question on this forum. Any ideas?