P: Save Metadata To File doesn't change metadata status, Read Metadata From File doesn't always work

[andyptak]

Ever since upgrading to the latest version I've had Metadata conflicts - little exclamation mark in Grid view. I even deleted my catalog of more than 200k images and started again to no avail.  I also synched all of my folders and no difference.

When I click on the exclamation mark I get the message that says that metadata has been changed by another program and Lightroom, even when I have only used Lightroom. When I click to upate the metadata the exclamtion dissapears but comes back very quickly. I made a Quick Collection of all metadata conflict shots - over 6000 - and syched them. The number dropped by a third but then came back to the original total within minutes.

I have lost all of the displayed colored flags in Grid View but can still select various colors in the Metadata panel at the top and get the appropriate shots. When clicking on an individial cell in Grid View I get a thin colored line around the shot which then dissapears when I click on another shot. I get the correct color but no flag.

I have auto save xmp on. I'm also at my wits end. anyone have any ideas? Thanks

[johnrellis]

Why conversations get merged: 

https://feedback.photoshop.com/conversations/lightroom-classic/lightroom-auto-import-to-folders-orga... 

[Schmidtze]

I have the same problem since LR 10.0, occuring on my local harddisk. But, I mapped the folder with my images to a network drive and used this always in LR. This makes it easier for me to switch between 2 different computers. I'm doing this for a long time now, without any problems, until LR 10. Since LR 10 I had the problem with wrong update status and tried now to not use the real folder instead of the mapped network drive. And it seems to work now...

Best regards

Friedemann

[Schmidtze]

NO! Please excuse me, the problem still exists... As mentioned on the local harddrive, without a mapped network drive....

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

Are you on 10.1 now @friedemann_schmidt , or still on 10.0?

[ouiouiphoto]

I have see type of conflict several time with the XMP writing on because of a small difference between the time stored in the lightroom Catalog and the xmp file time. This can happen with some NAS because of writing cache processes. If you have one photo with the exclamation mark check the last modified time in Lightroom and then open the  explorer (finder) and check the time of the xmp file to see if there is a difference

[andyptak]

Thanks. I was pretty excited when I read your answer because I have also just migrated my work to a NAS from a DAS based unit and your answer made sense. Alas, this isn't the issue because I just created a catalog on my local hard drive with a few thousand images to test this out and I still have the same problems. Hmmmm.

It was a good thought you had but unfortunately I'm still at square one here. It is so frustrating.

[andyptak]

@Andyptak 

Bump. Anyone else have an idea?

[ouiouiphoto]

have you check the time recorded in the catalog and the time of the xmp ? 

[hjz04]

After editing a picture in Lightroom Classic 10.1 (on Windows 10), I clicked on the button next to "Metadata Status" to save the metadata. However, the status immediately changed back to "Has been changed" and the icon with the text and down arrow that indicates unsaved metadata continued to appear in the upper right corner of the thumbnail, even after repeated clicking on it.

This seems to happen only with pictures that are treated as black and white. I am seeing this with raw files (Nikon .NEF) and with TIFF files but not with JPG files from an iPhone. It probably started happening when I upgraded to Lightroom Classic 10.1.

When I change the treatment of the picture from "Black and white" to "Color" and save the metadata, the save is successful and the "Metadata file needs to be updated" icon disappears.

[johnrellis]

Why conversations get merged: 

https://feedback.photoshop.com/conversations/lightroom-classic/lightroom-auto-import-to-folders-orga... 

[Paul Tansley]

On 10.1 here - have same issue. Metadata status icon does not change regardless of saving it. OS 10.15.7

[Paul Tansley]

As someone else mentioned - this appears to be an issue that only affects BW images. 

I'm on 10.1 on a Mac running OS 10.15.7  - colour images I can save the metadata with Cmd + S, but BW images, it won't save (or at least the metadata status icon will not change to show it's been saved). 

[Paul Tansley]

Interestingly - I just turned on Auto Write to XMP - and the icon disappears.....

Most of us have this turned off, as it used to slow down processing in Develop Mode. I wonder if it still does?

[johnrellis]

"it used to slow down processing in Develop Mode."

Since LR 3 was released, I haven't seen any reports on these forums that Automatically Write Changes Into XMP slows down LR in any noticeable way. I've always had it enabled and I've recommended to others to enable it.

[johnrellis]

"this appears to be an issue that only affects BW images."

It also affects raws with non-zero crop angles. See the first reply above.

[KathyEyster]

I have a smart collection in Lightroom Classic v10 (Windows 10) to gather images I've made changes to but have not saved (I do not auto write changes to XMP). When I'm ready, I open this collection, select all the photos and do Ctrl-S to save metadata to file. Usually this works fine.

Sometimes the save happens but LRC still tells me the metadata has been changed in LR but not saved. So I select again and choose Metadata>Read metadata from file. Often this works and the images clear the collection.

However, sometimes I have "stubborn" files that no matter how many times I repeat the above steps the metadata remains unsaved. And this can be pictures that I have not changed in my recent session, just opened the folder where those files reside.

Even after quitting LRC and shutting down the computer overnight, the "unsaved" images remain. This has continued with various photos through multiple LR upgrades.

I appreciate any thoughts/suggestions.

Thanks!

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Are the 'stubborn' files stored on a NAS?

[johnrellis]

Why conversations get merged:

https://feedback.photoshop.com/conversations/lightroom-classic/lightroom-auto-import-to-folders-orga... 

[andyptak]

RIKK - does NAS storage make a difference in this? I'm having similar issues with unresolved changes and have recently moved to a NAS.

[johnrellis]

Andy, when you select a photo whose metadata-status badge indicates a conflict or that the catalog data needs saving to disk and do Metadata > Save Metadata To File, does the status badge go away, or does it often come back?

[andyptak]

Hi John. It goes away but usuallycomesback again. Sometimes all it takes is to go in to Develop mode - do nothing - and come back to Library and that makes it come back. 

Today I went to close LR after it sitting idle for about 4-5 hours and got a message that said changes hadn't finished writing to .xmp yet. I had done very little work today and it had sat for hours. What did it still have to change for Pete's sake? Should have finished hours before. 

All of these metadata conflicts and issues just started very recently 

[johnrellis]

Thanks for the details.

[Goreb]

Since the update to Lightroom Classic Version 10 reading crop metadata from .XMP sidecar files for .NEF RAW files fails reproducably. 

My workflow is as follows: 

I ingest all my .NEF files with Photo Mechanic which writes .XMP sidecar files to the .NEF RAW files. It adds IPTC metadata information on a usual level like description, headline, keywords, event, location etc. Nothing unusual here.

After ingesting I still use Photo Mechanic for image culling where I assign the star rating (1 up to 5) and do some cropping which is faster than in Lightroom Classic. Afterwards I switch to Lightroom Classic and synchronize the folder by right clicking on the folder in the Library module. I let Lightroom search for new pictures and changes in the metadata. After that it shows metadata conflicts for the photos where I did metadata changes in Photo Mechanic.

The following step was working for many years in Lightroom Classic: I let Lightroom read all metadata for the conflicted files from the .XMP sidecar files (clicking "Read Metadata from File"). These hold star rating and crop information. This data was always updating in Lightroom perfectly well without any issues. Now since Version 10 Lightroom updates only the star rating. All crop information or color codes are not updated in Lightroom catalog at all on "Read Metadata from File". This is a bit annoying as it was working perfectly fine for years prior to V10.

What works instead ? If I remove that folder which holds the photos with changed crop metadata from Lightroom catalog and let this folder be imported again into Lightroom it imports all metadata perfectly fine again. Not only star rating but also color labels and the expected crop information shows up correctly in the lightroom catalog. All that is quite time consuming as Lightroom is creating the preview and smart preview data again.

I additionally checked Adobe Bridge here as well. It is working perfectly fine. When I access photos with .XMP sidecar files with crop information it shows that even in its previews correctly. So everything is fine with Adobe Bridge.

Just as a side note here: The behaviour of Lightroom was exactly the same for photos stored on local hard drives or NAS drives.

There were only .NEF and .XMP and no JPG files in these folders.

Versions currently used here:
Lightroom: Version 10.1.1
CameraRaw: Version 13.1
Adobe Bridge: Version 11.0.1.109

It seems that Lightroom does not respect the following crs: XML tags when the metadata is intentionally read back from the .XML files: These tags are added by Photo Mechanic. The crs: tags are common and look reasonable in the .XML as the following site suggests: https://www.adobe.io/open/standards/xmp.html#!adobe/xmp-docs/master/XMPNamespaces/crs.md

   crs:HasSettings="False"
   crs:AlreadyApplied="False"
   crs:HasCrop="True"
   crs:CropLeft="0.049250"
   crs:CropTop="0.049164"
   crs:CropRight="1.000000"
   crs:CropBottom="1.000000"
   crs:CropAngle="0.00"
   crs:CropUnit="3"
   crs:CropWidth="3.000000"
   crs:CropHeight="2.000000"
   crs:CropConstrainToWarp="0"

When a photo is not cropped by Photo Mechanic it does not have these crs: tags in it.

Thanks for some comments if someone else can reproduce this. In my case this behaviour persist since V10 and is  reproducable each time. It is definitely not related to Photo Mechanic as this was not updated for a longer while and reading the crop data works if photos are freshly imported in Lightroom. Only reading metadata from files fails for crop metadata.

I feel this is a bug in Lightroom and I do hope someone can chase it down and if approved create a bug entry for Lightroom classic V10.

I can provide some example and sidecar files for that issue if needed.

Thanks a lot,Heiko

[tmickow]

Could be related to this one - 

Lightroom Classic: Save Metadata To File doesn't change metadata status, Read Metadata From File doe...

[Goreb]

@TomM Yes somehow, however I have seen that thread previous to my post and concluded that the described issue is more on the loss of metadata when writing metadata changes out to disk when files are located on NAS drives which afterwards results in inconsistent indication whether metadata is up to date or not. Possibly both issues might be having similar/same root cause.

To me it looks that handling (reading and possibly writing) metadata from sidecar files seems to be somehow broken since V10.

What I forgot to mention: I'm running Lightroom Classic on Windows 10.