GPS Metadata Randomly Disappearing from Photos in Lightroom Classic Catalog

Question

Hello,I’m experiencing a serious issue with missing GPS data in my main Lightroom Classic catalog.I have around 40,000 travel photos in my primary catalog, and I always try to fill in GPS coordinates for each image. At some point, I noticed that many photos had lost their GPS metadata. Unfortunately, I can’t determine exactly when this happened.My catalog contains various file types:DNG and HEIC files from iPhone, from which I usually copy coordinates to RAW files.DNG files from DJI drones, which originally contain GPS data.I discovered that:In some photos, the GPS data was completely erased from the files.In others, the GPS data still exists in the files, but Lightroom no longer displays it.When I use the “Read Metadata from File” command, the GPS data reappears — however, all tags and editing adjustments are lost as a result.Recently, I worked in a separate catalog where I filled in GPS data for a folder of images. Then I imported that catalog into my main one and continued editing and adding keywords. After some time, I noticed that several hundred photos again lost their GPS coordinates. I verified that in the original separate catalog, all GPS data is still present.It seems Lightroom either randomly removes GPS information from the catalog or overwrites existing GPS fields when metadata is saved or catalogs are merged.Could you please help me understand what might be causing this issue and how to prevent further GPS data loss?

dj_paige · Accepted Answer

My main issue is that Lightroom has lost GPS data from many photos in my catalog — across various file types (DNG, HEIC, JPEG, etc.). Now I’m trying to restore at least the GPS coordinates that are still embedded in the files themselves, but when I use “Read Metadata from File”, Lightroom erases other information such as edits and keywords. My question is: 👉 Is there any way to make Lightroom re-read or detect the embedded GPS coordinates without losing the existing edits, tags, and other metadata stored in the catalog?

Is there any way to make Lightroom re-read or detect the embedded GPS coordinates without losing the existing edits, tags, and other metadata stored in the catalog?

Not that I know of in Lightroom Classic. Perhaps the freeware program called ExifTool can do this.

johnrellis · Answer

I'm having problems following the details. But it could be that LR has corrupted the catalog's Helper.lrdata folder; try deleting it:

a) Do Catalog Settings > General > Show to open Finder / File Explorer on the current catalog folder.
b) Exit LR.
c) In that folder, delete the folder "<catalog> Helper.lrdata".
d) Restart LR, and it will rebuild the folder.

The Helper.lrdata folder caches information about metadata, keywords, folders, collections, and other things to speed the performance of LR and it can sometimes get corrupted. In recent versions, LR has used it more heavily to improve the speed of displaying metadata, and there have been a fair number of bugs with it.

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