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bedgarqat
bedgarqat
Participant
October 4, 2023
Question

Sidecar files disassociated from image files

  • October 4, 2023
  • 1 reply
  • 221 views

A few weeks ago, Lr crashed: the app just froze while editing images in a catalog, haven't had that happen more than a few times since the Beta version many years ago. I waited about 30 minutes hoping it would recover, but eventually used Task Manager to close Lr. Note that all other open apps, and my system, seemed to be working correctly. I rebooted to ensure no odd things were running then relaunched Lr. Now, all my previous edits in sidecar files are not being applied; I save sidecar files by default because I work on a Surface when I'm remote and need to have the edits applied in both directions at times (to the Surface from my desktop, and from the Surface to my desktop). The XMP files are the same name as the image files (different file extension of course) and they are all in the same folders they were before the crash, but none of the edits are being applied. However, in my History panel, all the edits are showing (images attached for reference). I understand that edits are saved to the Catalog file normally, but the edits in my XMP files had been in place in the image folder and properly associated in Lr in some cases for over a year. I want them to re-associate so I don't need to re-edit hundreds of images. System is Windows 11, Intel i9 10-core 3.7GHz, 128GB RAM, 1 TB NVMe boot drive, 2TB NVMe scratch drive, and a pair of 14TB 7,200 rpm storage drives.

  



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    1 reply

    dj_paige
    dj_paige
    Legend
    October 4, 2023

    LrC always uses the edits in its database. If the sidecar files contain different edits, these are not used by LrC. If you want the sidecar edits to be used, you need to select a photo(s) and then Metadata->Read Metadata from Files. As long as the sidecar files are same name and folder as the photo files, this should work, but CAUTION: this overwrites all the edits and metadata (like keywords, captions plus edits) in the database, if you really want to maintain what is in the database when it is different from what is in the XMP file, you'd probably need to create virtual copies and read the xmp into the virtual copies.

    bedgarqat
    bedgarqatAuthor
    Participant
    October 4, 2023

    Maybe I'm misunderstanding something. Most of the files in question were edited on my Surface while I was out of the country. When I returned, I imported all the files I'd edited on the road along with the XMP files and all my edits came along with them as they should. Suddenly these year-old plus images no longer have the edits that were in the XMP files associated with them. I did no additional edits to these images. Does that mean I should perhaps move the entire file set out of the Lr folder, then reimport them so that the XMP edits will apply again, and after that point all edits will only be in the catalog? And are you sayin that upon import with associated XMP files, that the information is written to the catalog and the XMP files are no longer of any value? All that could make sense, but why does my edit history show the edits that I applied and were imported via the XMP files, but do not show in the actual images any longer?

    I have tried the Read Metadata from Files, but it provides no dialog to access the XMPs where the information lies. I just want all the edits I did and successfully imported with the images originally that could only have been carried over in those XMP files. The data must still be in those XMP files since I've done no further edits and until my Lr crash, were all properly applied to those images.

    dj_paige
    dj_paige
    Legend
    October 4, 2023

    I have tried the Read Metadata from Files, but it provides no dialog to access the XMPs where the information lies.

     

    That's correct. It just does the read of metadata, no dialog boxes at all. It assumes the .xmp files are in the same folder as the image file.

     

    The data must still be in those XMP files since I've done no further edits and until my Lr crash, were all properly applied to those images.

     

    Unless the XMP files have been changed somehow accidentally. Maybe you should look at the date modified for these photos. But you can look at the .xmp files with your own eyes, just open them in any text editor, and you can see what the change to each slider is (it's plain text), and then see if that's what LrC shows.

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