ExifTool Forum

ExifTool => Bug Reports / Feature Requests => Topic started by: cm_dheighton on December 08, 2022, 01:13:49 PM

Title: Can't Find Root Object Error
Post by: cm_dheighton on December 08, 2022, 01:13:49 PM
System: Windows Server, and Windows 10 Pro
Version: 12.52
Command Line:
exiftool.exe -all:all= "November 2022.pdf"

Output Error:
Error: Can't find Root object - November 2022.pdf
    0 image files updated
    1 files weren't updated due to errors


PDF File:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MtiQ2MPhUr7ubbf2Jzhwdkm91oTrs5OI/view?usp=sharing

Would appreciate any insight into this. PDF opens works fine in browser, Adobe, etc. We just want to strip out the metadata.
Title: Re: Can't Find Root Object Error
Post by: Phil Harvey on December 09, 2022, 07:01:18 AM
I'm heading out on a 1-week vacation today but I'll look at this when I return.

- Phil
Title: Re: Can't Find Root Object Error
Post by: cm_dheighton on December 09, 2022, 03:28:34 PM
Thanks Phil. We appreciate it.
Title: Re: Can't Find Root Object Error
Post by: Phil Harvey on December 21, 2022, 08:30:36 AM
The problem with this file is that the Info dictionary points to the same object as the Root dictionary, so ExifTool ignores the Root to avoid double-processing the same object because it was already processed as Info.  This seems to be a problem with whatever software wrote the PDF.

But if you are looking for ExifTool to strip metadata from a PDF, it can't do that by itself.  Even after running -exiftool -all= on a PDF, the metadata is not erased.  See point 2 in the ExifTool PDF tags documentation (https://exiftool.org/TagNames/PDF.html).

- Phil