Bridge CS5: Images added to collection get removed from collection

Question

This is the first time I used non-smart collections. But, I'm sure that I'm quite sure that I'm not doing anything wrong.
I simply dragged thumbnails into the collection from various folders and the collection shows all 20 images. Then, I close out Bridge and open it later, only to find that there are only 4 images in that collection. There may have been 4 images to start with, but every image I've added does not get remembered. This has happened twice and it's very unnerving because the images I am adding are coming from folders that are all over the place and it's very hard to look up all the pictures again.
What's up with this?
Thanks,
   Mike

Answer 1

I've just noticed this problem, by chance, whilst moving data to a new computer.
We found that files that were in collections were randomly missing from Bridge CS5's display, and sure enough, as described earlier, as soon as a file in the collection with a quote/spostrophe was read, that file and the rest of the collection were missing from Bridge CS5's display.
(This was using Bridge 4.0.3.9. Adobe Application Manager tells me my software is uptodate)
Because we had some backed up copies of Collections from both Bridge CS4 and Bridge CS5, I've been able to work a few things out, which I hope might help someone at Adobe get the problem fixed - and might help a few frustrated users too...
Background
The following entirely applies to Windows 7 (and presumably Windows Vista too):
In Bridge CS4, collections files are stored in:
C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Bridge CS4\Collections
In Bridge CS5, collections files are stored in:
C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Bridge CS5\Collections
Both CS4 and CS5 store their Collections in files called <collection name>.filelist
Both are XML files, where file paths are surrounded by apostrophes:
For example:
<file uri='bridge:fs:file:///D:/Shared%20Images/Flowers/RHS/DSC_0788.jpg'>
Both Bridge CS4 and CS5 convert any spaces in file paths to %20 - so /Shared%20Images/ above is actually /Shared Images/ on disk.
The cause of the bug
Crucially, however, in Bridge CS4, any apostrophes (i.e. single quotes) in file paths get converted to %27
But this conversion does not happen in Bridge CS5. And then when filelists get read back in, the data is truncated.
As a developer, I'm surprised at this sort of regression in behaviour, in such expensive software from such a large company.
Workarounds
None of these should be required to be done by a user, I feel, but I have found that they do work, and they could be scripted (e.g. in Python) if someone were sufficiently desparate:
Edit your .filelist files that were created by Bridge CS5, and convert all ' in file paths to %27 - oh yes, and remember to do that every time you add any new files to any existing or new Collections
Edit your .filelist files and change the single quotes at the start and end of each <file uri line to double quotes
I don't regard "remove quotes from your file names" as an acceptable workaround, however. We've got nearly 400GB of files, going back more than 10 years, and various of these are referred to from other locations, e.g. InDesign publications: if we were to rename locations for the benefit of Bridge, we'd break other stuff on the PC.
Clare