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excorp11
excorp11
Inspiring
September 10, 2018

P: "Some save metadata operations were not performed" error occurs when merging to HDR

  • September 10, 2018
  • 21 replies
  • 1666 views

This is a recent, intermittent issue (I've used LR for years, and only seen this recently).  I'm running Lightroom Classic CC release 7.5.  When merging photos to HDR, Lightroom will process the images and at the moment it creates the DNG it sometimes outputs an error "Some save metadata operations were not performed".  It then states "Photos have read only access (1)", and lists the new dng file that was just created.  This also happens occasionally when merging to Panorama.

To try to debug this, I made sure that the folder containing all my raw files had no read-only files in it (I did this in the properties pop-up for the folder, clearing the "read-only" attribute box and applying that setting to all files in the folder).  This was done BEFORE any HDR merges were performed.  If there's a read-only file involved, its something LR is creating temporarily during the merge.

I also checked the files in question after the error (both the raw images and the new dng):  none of them are read-only.

I can also state that this doesn't happen consistently.  I had 30 sets of bracketed images that I set to processing all at once in the background (using ctrl-shift-H on each set of 3).  The error popped up for only 2 of the 30 sets.

One other unfortunate side-effect of the problem is that it halts all background tasks until its acknowledged.  That's the big reason I'm logging it and not just ignoring it:  I routinely turn a large queue of background tasks loose, then leave and enjoy life elsewhere.  Coming back several hours later to find out nothing has happened is a drag.

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    21 replies

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    F
    FeedbackCommunityMember
    Inspiring
    October 16, 2019
    Yes, I just came across this post with the same issues. Works great when you stop the face detection and address lookup. That's the issue for me. How to turn off permanently I wonder?
      excorp11
      excorp11Author
      Inspiring
      February 12, 2019
      Hi Venkatesh,

      I'm not sure I understand your post.  The first paragraph says you didn't duplicate it, but the second implies that you did?

      As to your questions, I have about 12,000 images in my library, but they have all already been indexed for both faces and addresses.  This conflict crops up when LR merges images (via HDR or Pano), creating a NEW image.  At the moment that LR brings that new image into the library, LR attempts to index it (both face and address) while also continuing its merge operations.  I noted the exact sequence a few posts above.

      I can also add that I have "Auto Settings" checked when I do either a HDR or Pano merge. 
        V
        Adobe Employee
        Venkatesh Penjuri
        Adobe Employee
        February 12, 2019
        Hi Mike, I tried the above-mentioned steps with 30 sets of pano images and I have not hit this issue. I am trying out on a catalog which has 30,000 images.  How many images do you have in your catalog?  Are both Face recognition and address lookup running and updating the image count actively?

        And Yes, a single message is blocking the whole batch process to complete, this is an annoyance. We will look into this.

        Venkatesh PenjuriAdobe Lightroom Team
        excorp11
        excorp11Author
        Inspiring
        February 11, 2019
        Just to confirm, this problem still exists despite several updates in the past 5 months.  Now running the latest release (8.1, build 1200465) and its impossible to run multiple HDR/Panorama jobs while face recognition / address lookup are also running.
        F
        FeedbackCommunityMember
        Inspiring
        February 5, 2019
        I have the same problem as Mike described.
        In my case, it appears on almost every third DNG.
        I'll try to use Mike's solution 🙂
        excorp11
        excorp11Author
        Inspiring
        October 30, 2018
        This problem is still present after the latest update.  I don't know if there was an intention to fix it or not, but there's no improvement.
        excorp11
        excorp11Author
        Inspiring
        September 17, 2018
        Hi Satish,

        Great.  If this does get fixed, it would be nice if you could post something here.  Sometimes LR updates just say "numerous bug fixes", so there's no way to know if this particular issue was corrected, or is still lurking.

        - Mike
        S
        Adobe Employee
        SatishT13873224
        Adobe Employee
        September 17, 2018
        Hi Mike,

        Thanks for sharing your observations. We will try to reproduce this issue with the steps mentioned above and get back to you if need any other information.

        -Satish
        excorp11
        excorp11Author
        Inspiring
        September 16, 2018
        Hi Satish,

        I believe I've got this narrowed down for you.  It appears its related to "face detection" and/or "address lookup".  When these are active (so they're processing new DNGs as soon as they're created), this error occurs.  When they're paused, I haven't managed to recreate it yet.

        Here are some observations that led to this:  When a number of HDR merges are underway, clicking on the "xx operations in progress" message displays a list of all the operations, as well as their status messages.  For a "Creating HDR" operation, I observed the following status messages and timing:
        • Performing merge
        • Saving HDR
        • Importing
        • Applying Development Settings:  While this status is being displayed, face detection and address lookup both become active if they're enabled.  They can stay active throughout the remainder of the task.
        • Copying Metadata
        • Adding to Collections:  When this status message is displayed, a brand new task is added to the queue:  "Saving Metadata".  It is when this task is added that the error sometimes occurs, stating that the DNG in question is 'read-only'.  'Face detection' and 'address lookup' have still been active when this has occurred.
        • Task Completed.
        So I'm guessing that either 'Face detection' or 'Address lookup' is momentarily opening and locking the DNG file, and if the "Saving Metadata" task happens to access it during that window, problems ensue.

        After observing all this, I paused both of them and ran another 30 HDR merges without any failures.

        Let me know if you have any other questions.

        - Mike

          excorp11
          excorp11Author
          Inspiring
          September 14, 2018
          Hi Satish,

          I'm running Windows 10 Pro, 64 bit, Version 1803.

          All I can point to so far is:
          - It only happens in merge to HDR or panorama, and the new DNG file is the one identified as 'read-only'.  It hasn't happened for files created by photoshop (e.g., start in LR, further edit the image in photoshop creating a new TIF, and return to LR).
          - I've only noticed it when a bunch of merge's are occurring at the same time, so there's a queue of background processing occurring.
          - Since its random, one suspicion I have is that it might be a file conflict occurring, where one thread is creating the DNG and another thread tries to access it for a metadata operation, and sees it locked by the first thread.  But that's just a wild guess.

          The next time it happens, I'll see if it repeats for the same group of files.  I'll also look for other patterns.
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