I wanted to change the name of my album (I only have one album in the Gallery with hundreds of pictures in it) and didn't see a way to do that in the Admin backend, so I created a new album and moved the image files into it via FTP. My very lengthy descriptions got lost, so i moved them back to the original folder (didn't delete anything) and now all my descriptions and tags are gone. I hope there is a way to fix this at it represents weeks of work. I looked at my database with PhpMyAdmin, and the descriptions still appear in the table. Help!

If you are running any reasonably modern version of Zenphoto there is an album rename option on the album's tab, so I guess you either are pretty behind or did not look so well.

The method you chose to use--creating new versions of the images by copying them--did, of course, not replicate any database information of the old images. (How would Zenphoto know your intent....)

If the database still seems intact, a "refresh database" or "refresh metadata" might straighten things out. Not sure.

Have you a backup of your Zenphoto installation? (I do not remember when the backup/restore utility was launched, so maybe your install is prior to that.) If you do, use the restore function to restore the DB as it was.

BTW, it is just for this kind of situation that I personally store all information about my images--descriptions, tags, etc. as part of the image metadata. Then for sure it travels with the image no matter where it goes.

Thanks for the reply. I'm running latest version of Zenphoto, and yes i saw where i could rename the Album, but I wanted to rename the folder it was stored in. I couldn't find how to do that, so i made a new album and folder and *attempted* to copy the files into it from the original album folder using Filezilla. Turns out a Ctrl-drag (even though it shows a "+" on the cursor) moves the files, not copies. Still i don't see why what would make a difference as i simply moved them back to the original folder and all the tags and descriptions are gone. I'm assuming it has something to do with the ID number. The data is still there in my database table, it's just kinda unhinged and i was hoping someone could tell me how to fix it. Of course i tried the Refesh Database and Metadata, etc. I've embedded Descriptions and tags into the image file before and i may go back to doing that.

OK, i see the Rename Album thing now....i missed it.

All those actions "change" the dates on the files. In addition, if you did anything with ZP when the files were moved, It would have discovered them gone.

All i did was make a new folder in the Albums folder and *accidentally* move (intended to copy) the files from one album folder to the new one i made. When i saw the descriptions and tags gone from the images in the "new" album, i moved them back to the original folder. Now all the descriptions and tags are gone. I'm trying to determine if they are actually lost from the database or not. I have been running a copy of the site locally using XAMPP for testing my Theme, but i don't know if i'll be able to use that database to recover. I really don't want to overwrite until i'm sure my original database is borked. There are a LOT of descriptions and tags, it would be days of typing even if i have a backup. To recreate the descriptions....i don't even want to contemplate...

No, all my "desc" fields in my image table are now "NULL". Moving the files out of the Album folder and then back in again seams to have stripped the data out of the database. This is something that should be strongly warned against. My most recent backup is five months ago. Fortunately I still have the pictures, but the typing of Descriptions and tagging is VERY time-consuming. Plus, since i had the site set up for dynamic albums using Search, it's basically useless till i retype all the information. I'm pretty discouraged with Zp at this point.

I am sorry for your inconvenice but you need to understand that for the convenience of FTP upload Zenphoto is file system based. It recognizes images in folders as albums with images on discovery. That means if you either visit the albums on the backend or the front end.

If you meanwhile moved an album or images and someone visits the site, Zenphoto will "clear" it literally as it is not there anymore. If you rename an album via FTP Zenphoto will recognize it as a new album.

Note also that the album title and the folder name are completly independent. A title might be "album1" while the folder is named "album2" of course.

If you have stored your image info in the image meta data (EXIF) it will travel with the image (you have to do that before uploading, Zenphoto can't add meta data to images). On a metadata refresh they should re-appear. Of course the album data itself will be lost as there is no album metadata of course.

I guess we need a proper troubleshooting entry for this.

Hi, sorry for my panicked post. I learned two lessons: never move files around via FTP, and always backup my database after every edit. Fortunately, my awesome webhost (BlueHost) had a weekly backup so I only lost a little bit of work. Whew!