Metadata style cannot be changed

[ehill]

Hello, I'm generating metadata in ArcGIS Pro 3.5.2 and cannot change the metadata style field from FGDC to ISO19115_3. 

It is seemingly already in ISO19115_3 format, as when I go to export the metadata the popup tells me that is the format the metadata is in. I don't have any issue creating ISO metadata when making a new file, so it may be related to that this is an old shapefile that has had data added to it prior to my organization switching to the ISO standard. Does anyone have an idea on how to fix this, or is this just an error with the metadata editor? 

Here's what I've tried:

• Metadata styles in ISO 19115 in the options popup have been selected
• Imported ISO 19115 blank metadata
• Deleted all information in the metadata and tried to import the blank metadata
• Imported fully filled out ISO 19115 metadata

Last year importing a blank metadata file and then filling it out worked fine, but now it seems to not completely work. I'm may resort to rolling back my pro version. I've attached a screenshot of the issue. Thanks. 

[ehill · Accepted solution]

I found a workaround for this:

Create a new, blank shapefile and then merge it with the layer you're using. This seems to work also to remove all metadata contained in a shapefile since the metadata editor does not have this capability.