Single named colored tag gets restored as named colored tag + generic tag with color name

[porg]

Reproduction

1. At ~/path/ file 2.txt has a tag "•Done" in red color
2. osxmetadata --backup ~/path/*
3. Removing Finder tags and comments from all files in the test directory.
4. osxmetadata --restore ~/path/*

• Expected: File 2.txt with tag "•Done" in red color
• Actual: File 2.txt with tag "•Done" in red color + generic tag "Red" in red color

Environment

• osxmetadata 0.99.37 (installed via pipx, which itself got installed via brew)
• macOS 11.6.6
• Same bug occurs on a local APFS and on a SMB mounted Share from a linux NAS

[RhetTbull]

I just tried to reproduce this and was not able to. In my case, the .Done tag was re-created with the color but the generic color tag was not added. I'm running 10.15.7 though. I'll take a look and see if I can figure out what's going on.

[porg]

Ok and thanks for looking into this.

[RhetTbull]

This last two commits were really for #57 -- still working on reproducing this one.

[RhetTbull]

@all-contributors please add @porg for bugs, ideas

[allcontributors]

@RhetTbull

I've put up a pull request to add @porg! 🎉

[jkscx]

@porg, idk if it helps, but I had a similar issue while manually adding/removing Finder tags via a python script. In my case the issue was that I had a stale "com.apple.FinderInfo" xattr which stored the color info in addition to the regular Finder tag ("com.apple.metadata:_kMDItemUserTags" xattr). So when I removed the Finder tag (which had color) I got the standalone/generic color tag (from "com.apple.FinderInfo"). Removing the stale "com.apple.FinderInfo" xattr solved the issue in my case.

[porg]

@jkscx Not yet conducted any practical tests but from theory it sounds very plausible that the storage of the very same attribute at different metadata positions which needs syncing at each transaction can result in out of sync states if something is done improperly.

[jkscx]

Btw, a simple GUI tool which helped me inspect the xattrs of the file and find the issue in my setup is xattred from the macOS guru eclecticlight, in case you're interested. Simpler than viewing the xattrs via the command line and automatically decodes the binary plist of the Finder tags xattr.

[porg]

Still the bug as in the description above is valid.

• Whether the cause is on osxmetadata or upstream (python, file system, macOS) I dunno.
• We leave that open. Should I get a newer Mac/macOS, I will try again and report.

[RhetTbull]

@porg thanks for the update. I just tried to replicate this using your steps with macOS 13.1 and python 3.11.2 but could not replicate it. Will keep open as you're still seeing it. I did find another bug in the backup code while testing this that could cause backups to be corrupted on Ventura so I recommend upgrading to 1.3.0