[digiKam-users] Cannot browse by tags on images recovered from an accidentally formated hard disk - exif data is present on recoevered images

[Ramnarayan.K Digikam]

Hi

Some, many, months ago I accidentally formatted my image hard disk.  More than a TB's worth.

It took many days of running testdisk / photorec to recover the images.

The recovered images all lost their original names and are now in multiple (100's) of folders named by testdisk / photorec

Since then I have pointed digikam to the recovered images (On a new Hard disk) and am also placing my new images in the same section.

Digikam has picked up the tags that were / are in the recovered images, it has also organized them by date (from exif data).

However while I can browse by date I cannot browse by Tags.

I have used the "read tags " from images - and this also took a tonne load of time but it generated all the tags (seemingly) but it shows no images in any tag category.

Kindly advice.

My images are on external USB portable drive. And I open digikam only after attaching the drive

Current OS and Digikam Specs are

Linux Mint 20 (Ulyana)

Digikam Version 6.4.0

Look forward to you advice

thanks

Ram

[Maik Qualmann]

Hmm, date display works and tags don't. At the moment I have no idea. Activate
debug and the output in the terminal could help (https://www.digikam.org/
contribute/). The photorec and testdisk programs write their files with root
access. This may be the problem, but that would also affect the date view.

Maik

Am Donnerstag, 26. November 2020, 10:54:49 CET schrieb Ramnarayan.K Digikam:

> Hi
>
> Some, many, months ago I accidentally formatted my image hard disk.  More
> than a TB's worth.
>
> It took many days of running testdisk / photorec to recover the images.
>
> The recovered images all lost their original names and are now in multiple
> (100's) of folders named by testdisk / photorec
>
> Since then I have pointed digikam to the recovered images (On a new Hard
> disk) and am also placing my new images in the same section.
>
> Digikam has picked up the tags that were / are in the recovered images, it
> has also organized them by date (from exif data).
>
> *However while I can browse by date I cannot browse by Tags. *
>
> I have used the "read tags " from images - and this also took a tonne load
> of time but it generated all the tags (seemingly) but it shows no images in
> any tag category.
>
> Kindly advice.
>
> My images are on external USB portable drive. And I open digikam only after
> attaching the drive
>
> Current OS and Digikam Specs are
> Linux Mint 20 (Ulyana)
> Digikam Version 6.4.0
>
> Look forward to you advice
>
> thanks
> Ram

[Dougie Nisbet]

I've just recovered a friends photos using testdisk / photoroc. It's amazing. 120GB of images from a USB drive that the computer shop said was unrecoverable. She doesn't use tags but I copied a few into my image directory and assigned a couple using exiftool and digikam picked them up ok. I tried changing ownership to root too.

I wonder if it's worth using exiftool on a few of your images (it may already be installed on Linux Mint) to see how the tags are stored. Something like

exiftool -r * | grep Tags

or just exiftool <filename> | less

might give a picture of whether the tags are stored in strange fields.

Dougie

On 26/11/2020 09:54, Ramnarayan.K Digikam wrote:

Hi

Some, many, months ago I accidentally formatted my image hard disk.  More than a TB's worth.

It took many days of running testdisk / photorec to recover the images.

The recovered images all lost their original names and are now in multiple (100's) of folders named by testdisk / photorec

Since then I have pointed digikam to the recovered images (On a new Hard disk) and am also placing my new images in the same section.

Digikam has picked up the tags that were / are in the recovered images, it has also organized them by date (from exif data).

However while I can browse by date I cannot browse by Tags.

I have used the "read tags " from images - and this also took a tonne load of time but it generated all the tags (seemingly) but it shows no images in any tag category.

Kindly advice.

My images are on external USB portable drive. And I open digikam only after attaching the drive

Current OS and Digikam Specs are

Linux Mint 20 (Ulyana)

Digikam Version 6.4.0

Look forward to you advice

thanks

Ram

[Ramnarayan.K Digikam]

Thank you

More below

On Fri 27 Nov, 2020, 00:02 Dougie Nisbet, <[hidden email]> wrote:

I've just recovered a friends photos using testdisk / photoroc. It's amazing. 120GB of images from a USB drive that the computer shop said was unrecoverable.

I agree it's a totally awesome software and have helped a few friends recover important pictures too.

She doesn't use tags but I copied a few into my image directory and assigned a couple using exiftool and digikam picked them up ok. I tried changing ownership to root too.

I wonder if it's worth using exiftool on a few of your images (it may already be installed on Linux Mint) to see how the tags are stored. Something like

exiftool -r * | grep Tags

or just exiftool <filename> | less

might give a picture of whether the tags are stored in strange fields.

I will try this and let you know.

Ram

Dougie

On 26/11/2020 09:54, Ramnarayan.K Digikam wrote:

Hi

Some, many, months ago I accidentally formatted my image hard disk.  More than a TB's worth.

It took many days of running testdisk / photorec to recover the images.

The recovered images all lost their original names and are now in multiple (100's) of folders named by testdisk / photorec

Since then I have pointed digikam to the recovered images (On a new Hard disk) and am also placing my new images in the same section.

Digikam has picked up the tags that were / are in the recovered images, it has also organized them by date (from exif data).

However while I can browse by date I cannot browse by Tags.

I have used the "read tags " from images - and this also took a tonne load of time but it generated all the tags (seemingly) but it shows no images in any tag category.

Kindly advice.

My images are on external USB portable drive. And I open digikam only after attaching the drive

Current OS and Digikam Specs are

Linux Mint 20 (Ulyana)

Digikam Version 6.4.0

Look forward to you advice

thanks

Ram

[Ramnarayan.K Digikam]

Hi

On Thu 26 Nov, 2020, 23:03 Maik Qualmann, <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hmm, date display works and tags don't. At the moment I have no idea. Activate
debug and the output in the terminal could help (https://www.digikam.org/
contribute/). The photorec and testdisk programs write their files with root
access. This may be the problem, but that would also affect the date view.

So yes the images were root access after recovery and so i ran chmod with the appropriate changes to enable them to be normally read

Maik

Am Donnerstag, 26. November 2020, 10:54:49 CET schrieb Ramnarayan.K Digikam:
> Hi
>
> Some, many, months ago I accidentally formatted my image hard disk.  More
> than a TB's worth.
>
> It took many days of running testdisk / photorec to recover the images.
>
> The recovered images all lost their original names and are now in multiple
> (100's) of folders named by testdisk / photorec
>
> Since then I have pointed digikam to the recovered images (On a new Hard
> disk) and am also placing my new images in the same section.
>
> Digikam has picked up the tags that were / are in the recovered images, it
> has also organized them by date (from exif data).
>
> *However while I can browse by date I cannot browse by Tags. *
>
> I have used the "read tags " from images - and this also took a tonne load
> of time but it generated all the tags (seemingly) but it shows no images in
> any tag category.
>
> Kindly advice.
>
> My images are on external USB portable drive. And I open digikam only after
> attaching the drive
>
> Current OS and Digikam Specs are
> Linux Mint 20 (Ulyana)
> Digikam Version 6.4.0
>
> Look forward to you advice
>
> thanks
> Ram