csv Read and Write Functions no longer working

[schmekis]

I have used the exiftool write function using a csv to write meta data to files multiple times over the last several weeks with no issues. Now all of a sudden, I'm seeing this issue ---

video - https://www.loom.com/share/c79600b6339b409b95b6994e1c132e30?sid=46b50ffa-89a9-4448-bebf-4f5229b19002

exiftool -csv="out-all.csv" -ignoreminorerrors -overwrite_original

At wits end

[schmekis]

Title says read and write --- it is just the write function that is giving me grief

[StarGeek]

I'm not sure what is wrong, but it's very difficult to try and trouble shoot a video, as I can't copy/paste and look closely at what the actual text is, in addition to my poor eyesight.

The error indicates that for some reason, exiftool can't match the actual file path with an entry in the "SourceFile" column.  I'd suggest copy/pasting a few of the files into a new directory, preferably one not in the drop box, and recreating the CSV file there.  Then test the command in the new location.

Make sure the characters are what they seem to be.  Programs like Excel sometimes "Help" by converting regular hyphens in n-dash/m-dash characters (among other "smart" conversions).

[schmekis]

Thank you StarGeek for your response.

Your response helped me take a new approach.

I exported to a new csv... then added the column of metadata i edited in out-all.csv into the newly exported csv, and it worked.

the out-all.csv file had some headers with special characters --- I though exif would just ignore any headers that were irrelevant.  All I can guess is that it didn't ignore the made up headers I created, and that tripped it up.

That's my best guess.

[StarGeek]

I'm pretty sure I've used non-tag names as headers and exiftool has ignored them.  Any chance you can copy/paste the header row + 1 or 2 other rows here?

[Phil Harvey]

Yes, ExifTool should ignore headers with unrecognized names, but it will stop reading headers at the first one that contains an invalid character (ie. not A-Z, a-z, 0-9, -, _, : or #).

- Phil