.XML files don't carry from version to version?

[snowtigga]

I'm on a Mac using Ventura 13.5.1

We recently went on a big trip so I thought I would dig my "real" camera out of the closet, dust it off, and take it with me.  Yay me!

/vent on

I've not used Bridge in several years, but I've always chosen to keep the versions updated. I cannot fathom ever possibly saying "no, don't keep my preferences" but it's the only thing I can possible imagine happening because I just opened Bridge 2024 and all the time I spent creating collections and keywords and building a true database to find images easily is just *GONE*.

I could (or should?) be angry with myself, I suppose, if I actually DID somehow choose to delete all the hard work I created, but the level of ire I currently possess toward Adobe is far, far greater.

Wouldn't it be better to assume people WANT to keep their preferences, their favorites, their collections, and everything else that was customized for a workflow? That, I don't know, the software is smart enough to create a backup of those files before upgrading? That maybe you go ahead and keep those preferences and then AFTER the update, I can decide whether to keep them?

I pay *way* too much money to Adobe on this leasing platform to have to deal with something like this.

Am I wrong? Was it me? Did I miss something? Is this just a case of too bad, so sad? 

/vent off

[gary_sc]

Hi, @snowtigga, it sounds like all of your .XML files of your images are missing? If so, I see no way that Bridge had anything to do with that. The .XML files are sidecar files created by Adobe Camera Raw to provide the adjustments you made to your raw images. These must be kept in the same folder as the images, and you must do this. There is one easy way around this, which is something that I've done from the beginning: I convert my images to DNG format. The DNG format is a container file; any XML files are contained within the DNG file itself. That way, they cannot be separated. But, for all of your raw images, you do need to find your XML files.

And one other dynamic here: if you drag files from one folder to another WITHIN Bridge, Bridge will carry the .XML sidecar files with the images. If you move the images in the Finder, the Finder will not do that.

By any chance, do you have Time Machine running on your Mac? Perhaps you can recover the XML files from that?

There is one small "bright side" to this (and I'm by no means trying to diminish the horror you're going through right now, really): The improvements in ACR and the new Masking have caused me to revisit earlier images I've taken over the years and update them with these new tools. My images went from good to wow with many of the dynamics I can take advantage of now.

[snowtigga]

Hi Gary,

Thanks for the quick response! I've had this Mac for a few years now and everything was moved from the old one to this one through Time Machine. There should be no reason why my keywords, collections, etc. should be gone.

I've tried Googling to figure out why they're gone and where they went, but have had no luck so far. Of course, this version of Bridge looks nothing like the one I'm used to and that may say something as to when I last used it.

I'm just incredibly annoyed that all that work is just GONE. I have no desire to try and do it all again, either. I kept thinking when I was doing it - so what happens if all this cataloging gets corrupted or deleted somehow? (Other than creating a backup which isn't as easy to find as it is in Windows).

Anyway, I appreciate your input. If nothing else, I at least got the images off my SD card quickly.