P: Copy/Sync Crop and Spot Removal wrong results at portrait photos

Version 10.1.1 Camera `3.1 Build 202101041610-8c69aa4e works correctly.

Before sync. 

If you roll back, @JWacher  please confirm here that the behavior is different in the previous version. 

"Is there a way to roll back to a previous release?"

See https://www.lightroomqueen.com/roll-back-update-previous-classic/ 

Just did portrait to portrait.  Is fine except when the portrait was originally a landscape. Sample first is after 2nd before.

That works except in one or two cases that I will have to isolate as for reason.  Problem is, I have been doing this for several years and have never had to isolate orientation when synching the aspect ratio.  Is there a way to roll back to a previous release?

The workflow is normally to:

1. Select all
2. Apply Aspect
3. Tweak Crops as necessary

In your case, you've pre-cropped without Aspect Ratio so it is a manual process to fix them all now. 

What happens if you sync portrait only to portrait and landscapes only to landscapes?

The green images are what I started with and the red is after quick develop. The aspect ratio is now 16:9, 

but the original crop is gone.

You change it in QD Panel in the top section (You may have to expand the disclosure triangle).  There is a 16x9 option in the Crop Ratio pulldown.

LR Classic  10.2 Release Build 202103041821-226a1211

Camera Raw 13.2

As for the previous version Creative Cloud updates my apps automatically so I would not know. Guess I should start keeping track of the versions and dates .

I can find nothing in quick develop to change the aspect ratio of the photos from (2x3/4x6) to (16x9). 

The only thing Sync screws up that I am aware of is changing from 2x3/4x6 to 16x9 when the orientation of the photo was changed from the original and is different from the base photo used in the sync operation.

Yesterday I took a set of photos and selected all the 4x6 landscape photos and using sync converted them to 16x9 using a landscape shot as the base. Then I selected all the portrait photos and did the same using a portrait shot as the base..  Very few of the photos required anything other then the normal minor adjustments to height and width.

Is there any way I can tell what release I was on before and return to it?

"Why does Lightroom write metadata to the JPG when I have explicitly disabled it in the catalog settings? As you can see in the video, the JPG is modified and after deleting the images in Lightroom and re-importing, the last rotation is loaded."

LR doesn't consider rotation and flipping to be "develop settings".  They aren't copied by Copy Settings/Sync, they can't be set by presets, and they don't show up in the History panel. (But they do get copied by Develop Auto Sync -- go figure.)

Thus, since rotation and flipping aren't "develop settings" in LR's eyes, they get saved to the EXIF:Orientation field regardless of the setting of Catalog Settings > Metadata > Including Develop Settings.