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Known Participant
May 2, 2015

P: Invalid XMP metadata written to exported JPEGs, tripping up reading software

  • May 2, 2015
  • 46 replies
  • 2046 views

Lightroom 6 often writes invalid XMP metadata in exported JPEGs, including for photos containing lots of brush strokes made with the adjustment brush. This trips up Google Photos, preventing it from showing any of the EXIF metadata. It may well trip up other software.

To reproduce:

1. Start with any image.

2. Use a small adjustment brush with Exposure = 100.

3. Make lots and lots of brush strokes (see the example pic below).

4. Export the image as a JPEG, including all metadata.

5. Load the image to Google Photos and observe that it doesn't show any EXIF metadata.

6. Delete all of the XMP develop settings with:

exiftool -xmp-crs:all= file.jpg

7. Upload that modified file to Google Photos and observe that it now shows the EXIF metadata.

Here's an example pic exported from step 4:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2...

If you extract the XMP metadata with:

exiftool -a -m -b -xmp file.jpg

you'll see that LR has recorded all of the develop settings twice, including all the brush strokes.

Worse, if you examine the file layout with:

exiftool -m -htmldump file.jpg > file.htm

you'll see that the APP1 Extended XMP segments recording the second copy of the develop settings have incorrect segment offsets, with the first segment of the duplicate settings having offset 0, and the following segments with offsets based on that. That's not allowed by the XMP standard, which requires all the segments to have linearly increasing offsets with no gaps. It's easy to imagine how this might trip up a program trying to read the metadata.

This topic has been closed for replies.

46 replies

Participating Frequently
May 8, 2015
Came across this issue when Picasa would not see some of the EXIF metadata stored in files (photo location and exposure details among others).

Crazy thing to see such an important aspect of the software goofed up. Hoping for a point release sometime soon!
Known Participant
May 7, 2015
Same problem here (among many others)! Culling my photos with Photo Mechanic and having set most metadata there when I import them to LR6 metadata are invalid for jpgs.
Participating Frequently
May 7, 2015
I'm having the same problem with my Phorganizer Android app. It says it can't find any EXIF data with JPGs exported with LR6. But it can find the EXIF data with JPGs exported with LR5.7 Also with JPGs exported with LR6, the Gallary Android app slideshow function doesn't display the photos in shot date order anymore. It displays the photos in file "date modified" order.

Hope Adobe fixes this soon!
Known Participant
May 2, 2015
I'm one if the users affected by this issue in the thread referenced by John.

This is causing me a bug problem and I hope it gets fixed quickly; a DAM application generating invalid XMP metadata is unacceptable.
Known Participant
May 2, 2015
A workaround is to use the Metadata Wrangler plugin on your exports: http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-good...

Choose the option to remove the XMP "crs" block (which contains the develop settings).
Known Participant
May 2, 2015
See this thread for users encountering this problem: https://forums.adobe.com/message/7502...