Bug Report? ExifTool infinite loop with large number of files

Hi

I want to use the <ExifTool:FileTypeExtension> tag to rename any faulty extensions. I have created a replace method with <ext> to be replaced with <ExifTool:FileTypeExtension> applied to extension.

I tested with a smaller number of files and this method corrects erroneous extensions (2 corrections made, (jpg->gif and jpg->png). Then I added 2578 mostly (and probably) jpeg files to the rename files list and clicked on Test Batch. This never seems to return and I get a busy pointer on the Advanced Renamer gui.

I can see the temp file located in my temp directory (arenexiftool.tmp) with the list of files names (in 8.3 format) and some options to be passed to exiftool. I also see two exiftool processes in Process Hacker (a process monitoring tool). One is not using any processor and one is maxing out one of my processor cores. After some seconds the two processes die and two more exiftool processes start both pointing to arenexiftool.tmp. The file create date/time on arenexiftool.tmp also seems to increase which suggests that this file is also getting regenerated each time (failing and retrying?).

Actually many exiftool operations seem to get stuck with large numbers of files. I have successfully used it with around 600 file renames and failed with upwards of 1500 file renames.

I prefer ExifTool tags as I get more reliable exif info extraction than with the built in Image tags which seems to have problems with a small subset of files. Unfortunately I didn't look into this much after I found that ExifTool was producing better results so I don't have anything useful to report further.

Thanks for a very useful tool !

PS I have batch method saved which has a system for renaming picture files depending on what information is available. ExifTool as the main method with fall backs to other simpler methods depending on what information is available. If it is of interest I can share it.

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Reply to #1:

Some further info.

Adding 801 files returns in a reasonable time and 833 files doesn't seem to return in a reasonable amount of time. Also it seems to be stuck at Testing files.... (as seen in the bottom left of the status bar).

Thanks

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