Tags are not updated or saved

There are typically four reasons that tags may not be written or updated when files are saved:

Saving tags has not been enabled in the configuration settings

Confirm that the “Options ‣ Save tags” setting has been enabled. See Action Options for more information.

Tags are being set in the file naming script

Tags created or updated in the file naming script will not be written to the output files. This script is only used for developing the file name and directory structure for the output. If you want to set or update a tag value in a script, it must be in a tagging script. Please see the Scripts section for more information about the different types of scripts.

The tags begin with an underscore

Tags whose names begin with an underscore, regardless of how they are created, will not be written to the output files. These are considered variables for use within Picard rather than tags. Please see the Tags & Variables section for more information regarding the difference between tags and variables.

The file type does not support writing tags

Confirm that the file type that you are writing actually supports the tags that are to be written. Not all file types support all the tags Picard supports.

Please see the Appendix B: Tag Mapping section for details about the tags supported by various file formats.