P: AI Masks Require updating and/or disappear

[Shelemiah]

Hello,

I recently had a call with Adobe support with no luck. I have found some threads on this but nothing presents a solution and it seems hard to find what the actual issue is.

If I edit a client gallery and use any healing brush tool or AI masking tool, the mask or healing brush/generative AI will get a red dot underneath after going back to the start of the gallery, my AI edits are gone....

I also noticed this happens 100% of the time when I quite and reopen lightroom, I can fix the mask, update ai settings but it just resets each time I open lightroom.

We tested a new catalogue, we tested a bunch of things with no luck. 

We really need a fix on this Adobe it is killing workflow, not sure what broke this setting. I can't revert to an old version because I have lots of photos (I do 1 catalogue per year) and can't go back weeks of client work.

Also this catalogue was started at the begining of 2025 so there is no version 13 of this catalogue to revert to and test.

PLEASE HELP ADOBE!

[johnrellis]

LR 14.0 introduced a bug that caused it to think that previously applied masks need updating. Adobe just released LR 14.0.1 to fix that issue.  See in particular Rikk Flohr's second reply at the top of the thread:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-subject-mask-from-previous-versions-are-requ...

[JohanElzenga]

I find Rikk's second reply not very helpful, to be honest. It is advised to upgrade again, but "If you did a lot of work in 14.0, it isn't recommended to restore from the 13.x backup." So what is it? Is it really necessary to re-upgrade your catalog? In that case you'll need to find a way to not have to do all the work in version 14 again. Saving metadata to files (in the current catalog) and reimport the images that you imported after the re-upgrade would save most of that work. Exporting the work as a new catalog, and importing that catalog into the re-upgraded catalog is another option. Or is it 'kind of necessary' as long as it does not require too much re-work? What does that mean? What are the disadvantages of not re-upgrading?

[Jhp2012]

This does not work at all for me.  Absurd I need to update a single photo at a time.  This problem is enough to make me want to leave the Adobe platform after being a customer for 12 years.

[Jhp2012]

Agree, this is absurd.  I'm already looking into new photo editing options.  

[Sky Photography]

So originally, I got nowhere with this online or in this forum. I eventually got a solution (for the most part) with a support engineer remotely connected to my machine.

Here's what solved the issue I had with ai not 'saving' and got me working again. It's a corrupt .lr-cat-data file that holds all the ai edits. seems like it corrupts after major LrC updates!!!!

Before taking the following steps, read through them as it's not a complete fix, but it will get it all working again.

1. Close Lightroom

2. Go to the folder that contains your LR catalogue.
3. Rename .Ircat-data file OLD.Ircat-data.

4. reopen Lightroom, lightroom will create a new lrcat-data file. 

5. Ai etc will now work. However there is a big but (excuse me). All the previous ai edits you had made will all need updating. Personally, this wasn't a biggie for me as customer delivery was important. Old delivered files I can update when & if required.

NOTE

I had the issue reoccur this week when updating to LrC 14, and it seems Adobe hasn't fixed this issue.  

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

@Jhp2012  Please see: https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/p-subject-mask-from-previous-versions-a... 

[kristie71]

Thank you for this, I will give it a shot, this has been very frustrating. I wanted to deliver a gallery tonight and I'm not able to because I have to keep going back through the images and re-updating the masks and remove tool! Then when I do update it and it seems like everything is OK with that image, there's still a red dot underneath the mask icon even though they have been updated and there is no pop-up that saying I need to update...but the little red dot is still there, but only on some of the images, I'm so confused! I will try this trick tomorrow 

[goodomenphoto]

Thanks for your suggestion. I will give this a try. Adobe customer support is absolutely terrible. Many replies said the 14.0.1 update fixed this. It did not. I had a deadline yesterday and this issue has complicated things so much, it's taken me twice as long to finish a gallery. I'm going to look into CaptureOne. Getting real tired of Adobe. I already dropped Premiere. What a nightmare that app is.

[SCR76]

I gave this a try, and unfortunately the red dots persist. Some under the mask tool, others under the erase tool, or both.  I seem to be able to update individual photos. But when I try several in a batch, it gets about 5% of the way through then either hangs the program or says that AI updates could not be completed for (#) images. Ugh. What a mess this update has been. 

[JohanElzenga]

I did a lot of testing on this issue, and I have found two things:

1: The red dots signal the need for an update, but if you do update a photo then you'll see that there almost always is no visual change. So for now, just ignore these dots.

2: If you already have updated many photos, then uncheck the 'Optimize catalog' checkbox when you make a catalog backup. Optimizing the catalog will make the dots return.

[SCR76]

Good advice! Additionally I found:

1. when using generative remove, if you see ghosting where the removal looks semi-transparent, updating your masks fixes that.  
2. For the issue above, where the AI masks never errs to update, I found that creating a new catalog, then importing your old catalog into it solves that issue! This seems to implement the 14.0.1 fix better than a catalog update. 

[JohanElzenga]

Good advice! Additionally I found:

1. when using generative remove, if you see ghosting where the removal looks semi-transparent, updating your masks fixes that.  

By @SCR76

That is nothing new and has no bearing on this bug. It also happens with the normal remove tools and has been present since the introduction of AI masks. The explanation is simple. Let's take removing a kite from the sky as an example. When Lightroom created the sky mask, it left a gap in that mask where the kite was, because the kite is not part of the sky. If you remove the kite, that gap remains and so so you will see no sky adjustments in that place. If your sky mask darkens the sky, you will see a faint white ghost in the shape of the gap. The solution is to update the mask. For this reason Adobe suggest to remove things first if possible, and create AI masks later.

[SCR76]

Well Johan, I disagree a bit with you, as I felt it may be helpful to the discussion in this thread, especially if you read the original post.  The second comment I made, directly relates to the bug. 
Regarding the need to manually update AI masks after modifying another AI mask such as remove, that should be automatic. Otherwise the process is not very artificially intelligent is it? As it's implemented here, there are entirely too many interactions required for a process that should be fairly hands off. 
But anyway, thanks for providing a new summary of the issue being discussed. 

[SCR76]

Apologies, in advance. I didn't mean for that to sound snarky. 🙂

[JohanElzenga]

You can argue that the AI mask update should be automatic after you use any of the remove tools, and I tend to agree with that, but it sure has nothing to do with the bug that is discussed in this thread. Like I said, this has been like that from the moment the first AI masking was introduced in Lightroom. And no, the original post is not referring to that. It talks about "Some Remove settings need to be updated", so that is definitely something else. That refers to the new AI remove, not AI masks.

Anyway, as this is off topic I am not going to further discuss this with you. 

[SCR76]

" I am not going to further discuss this with you."

Thanks! No need to shut down a discussion like that Johan, especially when you don't have a solution. 
Anyway, it seems that creating a brand new catalog in the latest LrC version, then importing everything from your original catalog fixes the red dots and the "Some Remove settings need to be updated" bug the OP is asking about. I found this thread looking for a solution to the same thing and it worked for me, and I really hope it works for someone else, too!

[kaylak31433663]

I was having this issue and getting super frustrated, but selecting all the images in the catalog, going to file and selecting optimize catalog fixed it!

[kaylak31433663]

I thought this fixed it but it didnt, i ended uo having to close the old catalog and start over 

[SCR76]

Ugh! I feel your pain, that didnt work for me either. Try putting your current catalog in a safe place, create an all new catalog, then import your old one into the new one using  menu item FILE -> "Import From Another Catalog". All your masks and edits will still be there, but you'll just have to re generate previews. If it works, nothing else to do. If not, you still have your old catalog safely tucked away, and you can just put it back. Hope you can get it working again!

[peachatlga]

Every single time I open LRC to work on my clients wedding photos!!!!!  It is EXHAUSTING!!  I find this  inexcusable on ADOBE's part.  We pay $60/m for this?????  Get the bugs out or i'll be canceling and owning my own software editor from another company!

When does it happen?  every instance of opening LRC from a closed state.

What do i experience? all masks, Remove, heal, clone,blur, Denoise, crop edits that I make from the previous session are needing to be updated.... not just a one button update, but I have to click on every mask created find the subject/object/preset used and update it.  Also if I update the masks first, then go to the Blur and update that, next I have to RE-update the masks, crop, remove/heal/clone, etc... all over again!  

What needs to be fixed?  If I need to update, it needs to analyse and know the sequence of priority for a one button push update on all!   I really should not have to do the update if it would just save to the catalouge properly.  I have LRC set to ask me to save the cat file every time prior to exit.  

This bug is a big time waster and is costing me time and money!  Fix it Adobe! or I'm gone!

Lightroom Classic version: 14.0.1 [ 202410161356-30922cfc ]

License: Creative Cloud

Language setting: en

Operating system: Windows 11 - Home Premium Edition

Version: 11.0.22631

Application architecture: x64

System architecture: x64

Logical processor count: 20

Processor speed: 2.1GHz

SqLite Version: 3.36.0

CPU Utilisation: 3.0%

Power Source: Plugged In

Built-in memory: 65251.0 MB

Dedicated GPU memory used by Lightroom: 14529.3MB / 12115.0MB (119%)

Real memory available to Lightroom: 65251.0 MB

Real memory used by Lightroom: 18163.0 MB (27.8%)

Virtual memory used by Lightroom: 34862.4 MB

GDI objects count: 1167

USER objects count: 4702

Process handles count: 4958

Memory cache size: 779.4MB

Internal Camera Raw version: 17.0 [ 2043 ]

Maximum thread count used by Camera Raw: 5

Camera Raw SIMD optimization: SSE2,AVX,AVX2

Camera Raw virtual memory: 4765MB / 32625MB (14%)

Camera Raw real memory: -133994MB / 65251MB (-205%)

[Joel32689053anap]

I created a new catalog and it is empty. how do you do this and get all the original edits?

[john beardsworth]

Start a new thread with your issue.

Add information about why you created a new catalogue, and have you imported images into it? If it was really necessary to create a new catalogue, have you not used File > Import from Another Catalog to add images and bring in the edits? But start your own thread.

[Joel32689053anap]

not working for me....

[Joel32689053anap]

Im having the same issue and tried what was said to be the solution and it didnt work. 

[Joel32689053anap]

If they are synced is that what could be causing the ai masks to have to be updated all the time?