Tag Deletion - Random Crashes or Beachball Freezes (DK 8.5 Mac)

[Maik Qualmann]

digiKam can write tags in HEIF images if you enable writing with ExifTool in 
the metadata settings.

The crashes when deleting tags have been fixed in digiKam-8.6.0, a pre-release 
version is available for download:

https://files.kde.org/digikam/

Maik

Am Dienstag, 14. Januar 2025, 08:04:51 Mitteleuropäische Normalzeit schrieb 
gz01 at iinet, gazola01 at iinet.net.au:
> Running Digikam 8.5.0 (debug version) on mac mini M2 pro, macOS 15.2, 16GB
> RAM, database on internal SSD, some collections on an external HDD.
> 
> Digikam is a wonderful, powerful program and I’m very grateful to Giles and
> everyone who works so hard to keep improving it while accommodating big
> tech’s OS/hardware changes.
> 
> Feeling more confident with DK 8.5 on a mac after my issues with DK 8.0 -
> 8.4 on macs (used it on ubuntu & windows during that period), I decided to
> again focus on tagging… As DK doesn’t seem to write tags/metadata to HEIF,
> and sidecar files do not fit my workflow, I batch-converted 3,600 HEIC
> images to JPG and corrected their created/modified dates (and changed my
> iPhone's photo setting to JPG for future pics). [used mac’s Finder
> ‘Convert' & windows app ‘File Date Corrector’].
> 
> Next step:  clean up the tag database by deleting ~3,500 tags from imported
> JPG's in batches using the Tag Manager… many hours of seemingly random
> crashes or freezes later, only 200 tags to go, but I’ve run out of
> enthusiasm.
> 
> FWIW, the crashes/freezes happen with various numbers of selected tags or
> even with just one individual tag selected. For example, this same
> individual tag might then either delete successfully after DK is
> re-launched, or DK will freeze on it again. Unpredictable.
> 
> According to
> https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/investigating-memory-access
> -crashes#Identify-the-type-of-memory-access-that-caused-the-issue, the
> problem may be an 'invalid memory fetch’ relating to 'CrBrowserMain' (have
> attached an Apple crash report plus a backtrace file for a beachball
> freeze).
> 
> Assuming this problem can be solved somehow(?), I have some feedback on the
> Tag Manager's deletion GUI:  I don’t think it’s practical or necessary to
> list ALL selected tags in the ‘Do you want to continue?’ dialog box. This
> dialog box expands vertically and can exceed the screen height so that its
> ‘Cancel'/‘Yes' buttons are not visible. Using keyboard shortcuts would be a
> workaround, not a fix. If there’s a hard limit on selection numbers or
> overall text length, a message could be displayed if needed.
> 
> Two files attached.
> 
> Thanks again for your efforts
> 
> Regards,
> Gary
> 
> 
>