All Tags are Invalid in CLI Tagging Attempts #779

tedstark · 2025-07-26T02:12:56Z

tedstark
Jul 26, 2025

Hey, I've pulled just about every hair out of my head, trying to figure this out, to no avail. I've reread the CLI Guide a couple dozen times now and searched the open discussions for any useful tidbit. Gotta ask for help at this point, cause it makes no sense why my tagging attempts aren't working. Here's what the current tag list for the single cbz I'm testing with:

ZIP archive ( 38 pages)  tags:[ Comic Rack Comic Info XML ]
--------- Comic Rack tags ---------
series:      DC vs. Vampires: World War V
issue:       11
issue_count: 11
publisher:   DC Comics
year:        2025
month:       9
day:         1
volume:      2024

Here's my attempted CLI in Windows command window:
comictagger -s -t cix -m "manga=no" *.cbz -g

And here's the result:

2025-07-25T20:57:42 | comictaggerlib.ctsettings.types | ERROR   | Unable to read metadata from the commandline '{manga=no}'
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "comictaggerlib\ctsettings\types.py", line 241, in parse_metadata_from_string
argparse.ArgumentTypeError: 'manga=no' is not a valid tag name
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "comictaggerlib\ctsettings\types.py", line 241, in parse_metadata_from_string
argparse.ArgumentTypeError: 'manga=no' is not a valid tag name

The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "comictaggerlib\__main__.py", line 5, in <module>
  File "comictaggerlib\main.py", line 318, in main
  File "comictaggerlib\main.py", line 126, in run
  File "comictaggerlib\main.py", line 228, in parse_settings
  File "comictaggerlib\ctsettings\__init__.py", line 85, in parse_config
  File "settngs\__init__.py", line 762, in parse_cmdline
  File "argparse.py", line 1825, in parse_args
  File "argparse.py", line 1858, in parse_known_args
  File "argparse.py", line 2067, in _parse_known_args
  File "argparse.py", line 2007, in consume_optional
  File "argparse.py", line 1919, in take_action
  File "argparse.py", line 2450, in _get_values
  File "argparse.py", line 2483, in _get_value
  File "comictaggerlib\ctsettings\types.py", line 245, in parse_metadata_from_string
Exception: Unable to read metadata from the commandline
[PYI-78428:ERROR] Failed to execute script '__main__' due to unhandled exception!

using the Metadata field doesn't seem complicated, so what am I doing wrong here? It doesn't seem to matter what tag field I use: manga, language, volume, format, etc. I've tried using the "key:value" format instead of using "=" but same error result. It's like the parser doesn't recognize the key=value pair. Has the verbiage changed for MetaData and the docs not been updated? Any help is greatly appreciated.

Answered by tedstark

Jul 27, 2025

Figured out the issue and documenting here for anyone else's information:

The User Guide page in the Wiki as of this writing does not have the latest Metadata syntax.

The current in-app Help (-help, --help) information has the following as the correct/working syntax:

                        Explicitly define some metadata to be used in YAML syntax.  Use @file.yaml to read from a file.  e.g.:
                        "series: Plastic Man, publisher: Quality Comics, year: "
                        "series: 'Kickers, Inc.', issue: '1', year: 1986"
                        If you want to erase a tag leave the value blank.
                        Some names that can be used: series, issue, issue…

View full answer

tedstark · 2025-07-27T02:37:42Z

tedstark
Jul 27, 2025
Author

Figured out the issue and documenting here for anyone else's information:

The User Guide page in the Wiki as of this writing does not have the latest Metadata syntax.

The current in-app Help (-help, --help) information has the following as the correct/working syntax:

                        Explicitly define some metadata to be used in YAML syntax.  Use @file.yaml to read from a file.  e.g.:
                        "series: Plastic Man, publisher: Quality Comics, year: "
                        "series: 'Kickers, Inc.', issue: '1', year: 1986"
                        If you want to erase a tag leave the value blank.
                        Some names that can be used: series, issue, issue_count, year, publisher, title

Once I started using the correct syntax, my commands worked just fine. I used the GUI to build an initial ComicInfo.xml with those fields that I want to write en-masse so I'd have the correct key names.

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tedstark Jul 27, 2025 Author

tedstark
Jul 26, 2025

tedstark
Jul 27, 2025
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