P: After install LR 4.2 metadata can't be saved

If you *know* (and usually you *dont* know) that the metadata save worked, and Lr is just being funny, then reading metadata to clear the flag is OK, if it makes ya feel better, but the problem is:

* Sometimes the metadata is not saved, and such failure is indistinguishable from a valid save that just didn't clear the flag, in which case reading the metadata may overwrite good catalog data with bad file data.

This is yet another reason I beg Adobe to assure all failures are vocal (not silent) - if it fails, I want to know about it, no matter what it is (not just saving metadata, but missing camera and/or lens profiles too, etc...).

Note: if file is read-only, then the failure *is* vocal, which is good, but if the save aborts due to wonky metadata, there is no indication of such problem, the file does not change, the failure is not reported to the user...

Rob

If some photos repeatedly change to 'has been changed', you could try one trick. Write the metadata to the files (Ctrl-S) and then Metadata menu > Read Metadata from Files on those problem photos. That usually does the trick without resorting to removing and reimporting.

Just this evening, I had a single photo whose Metadata Status would change back to "Has been changed" just a few seconds after doing Save Metadata To File. It was a .RW2 from a Panasonic DMC-LX5, and it had no title or caption, so this wasn't a problem with special characters in metadata field.

I removed the photo from the catalog and reimported it, and the problem has gone away (knock on wood).

Lightroom 4.2, Windows 7 64-bit.

As far as I'm concerned, this *is* (still) a problem. - I've yet to be able to bring metadata "up to date" on the jpegs that I've been working on, despite no apparent file corruption.

Geez... I have merged these two topics, but this very one was supposed to be the "authoritative topic".

Apart from other merges, it contained useful replies:

John R. Ellis:
LR 3 had some problems with falsely reporting that the metadata had changed. At least one cause, captions with newlines, was fixed in LR 4 (at least it was fixed for my catalog).

SM Wellinga:
my caption appeared to contain an unintentional tab, and removing it solved my problem!

"Metadata needs to be saved" flag is persisting, despite seemingly successful saving of metadata.

e.g. pressing Ctrl-S saves metadata, but the down arrow is not extinguished.

Note: Metadata status remains "Has been changed", and Metadata Date is bumped to current date/time, each time metadata is saved.

I just recently noticed this phenomenon, since I previously had the indicator turned off, so I really don't have a large set of data points for the curve, just yet, but I've been working on jpegs, and the behavior is presently consistent. The jpegs do not appear to be corrupt (metadata is saved, and exiftool can still read/write tags...).

Quick-check: raws w/xmp sidecars do not have the same problem.

In order to keep track of metadata changes, I created a Smart collection based on a filter rule (Status metadata - is - has changed). When selecting all pictures inside this Smart collection by means of Ctrl-A, and hitting Ctrl-S in order to save metadata changes, I see the pictures within the collection disappear one by one, untill all changes have been saved and it says 'No pictures selected in Smart collection'. Nice, and exactly as intended. However, I wouldn't be writing this if there weren't a problem. Within seconds after the last picture has gone from the Smart collection, I see part of them automatically and persistently return to the collection, this despite the fact that they haven't been touched again and hence their metadata not changed. Whatever I try, it is always the same set of pictures (51 JPG-files which all have the same title and caption) that reappears in the Smart collection after following the above procedure, and keeps automatically getting back the status 'Medata changed'.

Is this a known bug, that will be solved in a future update? And for the time being, is there a work-around, that enables me to reliably keep track of metadata changes?

FYI, I am using Lightroom 4.2 (Dutch localisation) for Mac, operating under OS X Lion 10.7.4.

Looking forward to any replies,

Simon M. Wellinga
Heerenveen, The Netherlands

Thanks - I guess it's being chalked up as a "glitch"... - Cheers, Rob.

I`m very brave 😉 I don't think though that it was a user ́s fault. The strange thing is that this problem occurred only with some 30 photos imported in one folder that was created after the RC 2 update. In existing folders, created before the update, I could add or delete some tags and save them with cmd+S without any problems.
I also have a smart collection showing the photos with metadata that haven't been actualized yet. This collection showed this 30 pictures from the last import, I marked them, pressed cmd+S, the collection showed for a moment 0 photos and seconds later, they all appeared again in this smart collection. Anyhow, it's now working fine. I will let auto-write to xmp activated. As I understand then the metadata can be read by other programs like PSE as well.

Great. Do you know what was the cause of the original problem? operator error? (be brave - we all make mistakes, even "stupid" ones ;-}), or...?