bulk keywording does not actually add keywords, needs to be touched individually

denisegoldberg

It appears that there is a big problem with keywording. I did find an old thread related to entering keywords on individual photos and while it's possible this is the same problem I think this deserves another look. Note that the other thread was started in May of 2011, has been acknowledged as a problem and still is not fixed.

Here's what I did:

• I loaded a gallery.
• I went into the caption / keyword tool and entered captions and keywords for every photo. The captions were visible immediately; the keywords were not.
• I waited for two hours to give the keywording a chance to work.
• I checked the keyword page on my site looking for the new keywords. They weren't there.
• I opened the gallery.
• I looked at photos in the gallery. When I clicked Edit for keywords on an individual gallery I could see that there should be keywords there - but there were no keywords shown under the photo.

To fix the problem I worked page by page in a smugmug-style gallery:

• open each individual photo, finding that there were no keywords showing
• edit keywords
• verify that the keywords I wanted had been entered
• save keywords
• at the end of each page, refresh the browser
• Open each individual photo to verify that keywords were showing. For some photos I needed to edit keywords and save again.

I had to touch each photo in the gallery 2 or 3 times - something that should never need to be done given that the keywords were entered in the bulk tool.

This needs to be fixed, and soon.

--- Denise

dpc2112

I'm having the same problem! Very frustrating to spend an hour bulk keywording only to have to go back and do it individually anyway. Somebody please fix this!

56Kruiser

Same problem here.

sittingstill

I am having the same problem. Very frustrating!

cman

- "Sorry about that. It is a known issue and our programmers are looking into it. I cannot give you a time estimate but it is on our list to be fixed." © SmugMug Support, JUL 2012.

- "When partners can't agree. Their dealings come to naught. And trouble is their labor's only fruit." © I. A. Krylov

denisegoldberg

I understand you are frustrated cman; I am too. But that's really not a helpful response cman, particularly to users who might think you speak for smug.

Can we get a response from smug here please?

--- Denise

David_S85

It does take an hour or more for keywords to finish indexing, but the bulk feature has worked flawlessly for me every single time. In fact, the images were searchable from those bulk keywords a day later. To check, I just looked into a galley I bulk captioned and key worded a week ago, I opened individual pic keyword edit and it showed every key word exactly as intended.

So while it might not work for some, it isn't broken for all.

denisegoldberg

David_S85 wrote: »

So while it might not work for some, it isn't broken for all.

I'd love to know the factors that make it work or not. It had been working for me forever but it did not work for the gallery I loaded last week.

--- Denise

David_S85

The gallery had been loaded with pics for over a month. I had not gotten around to captioning or key wording yet. A week ago I just went in there and did the whole group all at once. I don't think I did anything special. I use Safari and Mac OSX.

denisegoldberg

David_S85 wrote: »

The gallery had been loaded with pics for over a month. I had not gotten around to captioning or key wording yet. A week ago I just went in there and did the whole group all at once. I don't think I did anything special. I use Safari and Mac OSX.

I used Windows 8 and the latest version of Firefox. Hmm... the previous gallery I keyworded was when I was using Windows 7 - but I really doubt the operating system made a difference. There have been enough problem experiencing a problem with keywording that I think there is something off here. As is often the case it does not seem to be consistent.

Anyone from SmugMug - have you been able to reproduce this problem?

--- Denise

David_S85

Just something I remembered with key wording. If you have a multi-word key word, such as "key word," those need to be entered in quotes, or SM may strip out that key word, or might delete the entire set. This has happened to be with bulk when I forgot to use the quotes. Single words don't need quotes. Here's an example of what works:

"Joe Shmoe Photography", "Washington D.C.", Capital, "Line of buses", dog, bird, Smugmug, "Dgrin is great", IMG_0980

Gallery key wording, strangely, does not need quotes.

denisegoldberg

David_S85 wrote: »

Just something I remembered with key wording. If you have a multi-word key word, such as "key word," those need to be entered in quotes, or SM may strip out that key word, or might delete the entire set. This has happened to be with bulk when I forgot to use the quotes. Single words don't need quotes.

Thanks David. The multi-word keywords that I entered were entered as quoted strings.

--- Denise

Allen

Another trick, keywords with quotes. Single quote at least. They also sort first in the keyword list, so if you need one at the top.

"'keyword xx'"

David_S85

Allen wrote: »

Another trick, keywords with quotes. Single quote at least. They also first first first in the keyword list, so if you need one at the top.

"'keyword xx'"

First, first first? Allen, what does that trick do different than regular quotes?

Allen

I edited that. Nothing other then sort to the top so I can find any special ones. And visitors see them quickly.

denisegoldberg

interesting. I just keyworded another gallery with the bulk tool and this time the keywords were viewable on the photos within minutes.

I'd still like to know why the gallery I keyworded over the weekend did not actually work until I touched the keywords for each photo individually. Given that there are more than one of us who have experienced this problem I still believe there is an issue here somewhere.

--- Denise

rainforest1155

Keyword indexing can take 24 hours so it's not unusual that after just 2 hours, not all was done. There's no need for you to manually save keywords individually and it was very likely pure coincidence that after you made some individual changes that the keywords updated just then.

EDIT: I just tried the caption/keyword tool on some photos and the keywords that I entered via the tool indexed fine.

And it's a known issue if there are no keywords on a photo yet and you add some to it, that after using the tool there's no indication of the keywords indexing. That doesn't mean the indexing isn't happening It's just a display issue. The keywords will index regardless if there's "indexing" showing or not.
Using the add / edit button for individual photos and saving the keywords is not needed and likely will not speed up the process, but actually may delay it in some cases.