P: Constantly "saving xmp for xx photos" slowing down my Lightroom Classic!

[Junction10Photo]

Did a job yesterday and got home to edit the photos.. 
Immediately after importing the images (.CR2 Raw files from Canon 5DS) Lightroom started struggling to perform ANY action..  even going to the next frame in the film strip took several seconds, with a few short appearances of the spinning beach ball.. Editing was practically impossible - trying to crop an image and move the crop rectangle was taking about 15 seconds to update the frame position..

I looked what 'activity' was happening behind the identity plate at the top left and it was "saving xmp for xx photos" (xx was a number between 25-80 something)..  but then if I moved to the next frame, it repeated - "saving xmp for xx photos"...

Everytime I perform ANY action, it's saving XMP to multiple photos - even though I only have one photo selected in the strip. If I switch from library to develop, it again saves XMP to multiple photos - without me changing ANYTHING...

Why is Lightroom constantly writing XMP to multiple photos that haven't changed?? It's hogging my system resources!

Here's a video - the only action I'm performing is pressing the right cursor key to go to the next frame in the folder.. ALL files have already had current metadata saved to them, so there is NOTHING to save XMP for!

Was working in Lightroom Classic 13.5.1 - first job in that, so reverted back to 13.5 but it continued to keep saving XMP info for multiple files.

 

[John R Ellis]

After years of working well, saving metadata to XMP has some serious bugs in LR 13.  There have been lots of complaints, many of which have been hard to reproduce and report to Adobe. But there are two open bug reports that might be related to the behavior you're seeing:

In some situations, LR constantly re-saves the metadata:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-constantly-quot-saving-xmp-for-xx-photos-quo...

LR doesn't always mark a photo's metadata status as up-to-date:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-save-metadata-to-file-doesn-t-always-set-met...

[DdeGannes]

I guess a good option at this stage is to "deselect Automatically write Metadata to XMP" and use the manual option to write metadata to the file after you have completed your editing session prior to shutting down the LrC application.

[sej671693]

except in my case shutting off automatic xmp writing and trying to write manually left 2600 jpegs that kept reverting to "changed" though they hadn't, and RE-enabling automatic fixed it. Odd behavior for sure.

[daleducatte]

This is what I see happening also, similar to what you described in your posts. 

With "Automatically write changes to XMP" set to off, I was using the Smart Collection "Metadata not up to date" to determine which photos needed their XMPs updated. In that Smart Collection, I'd select them all, right-click on the filmstrip and select Metadata/Save Metadata to File. As the XMPs got updated, they'd correctly disappear from the Smart Collection; but then about half of them would come back, then disappear, then about half of those would come back, etc. -- and it would never completely finish, leaving some behind that would not update. 

So: I can't leave "Automatically write changes to XMP" set on because metadata writing loops as described in this thread and negatively impacts LrC's performance; but writing metadata manually doesn't work either, since it too loops and never finishes.

Here's what seems to work for me, though:

- I leave "Automatically write changes to XMP" in Catalog settings turned off while I'm editing.

- Later: I go to the Smart Collection "Metadata not up to date" -- just so I can watch what happens next.

- I turn "Automatically write changes to XMP" on.

- LrC updates the XMPs, they disappear from the Smart Collection, and don't come back.

- I turn "Automatically write changes to XMP" back off. 

Awkward! But at least I can get them updated, don't have any stragglers, and don't get the message about unfinished metadata writing on exit. 

[henningmet]

This is really quite an annoying problem that has occurred with Lightroom 13 (13.3). Although this has been mentioned several times here in the forum in various forms (e.g. here https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-save-metadata-to-file-doesn-t-always-set-met...), unfortunately nothing has changed. I therefore leave “automatically write changes ...” switched off by default until I read in a new version of Lightroom that this bug has been fixed.

[DdeGannes]

@henningmet , may be a good choice to deselect the option "Automatically write Metadata to XMP" and await a resolution to the bugs.

I have used Lightroom from inception in 2007 and made the decision to not adopt this option. I rely entirely on my Lightroom Catalog for the storage of metadata and edits.

If I ever decide to switch to storing the info with the files / sidecars I will utilize Bridge / Adobe Camera Raw instead of Lightroom Classic.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Greetings all, 

A new update for Adobe Photography Products has been released.  The October (MAX) update contains an update for this issue. 

If you do not see the update in your Creative Cloud Application, you can refresh it by hitting [Ctrl/Cmd]+[Alt/Opt]+[ R ].

Note: It may take up to 24 hours for your update to be available in your Creative Cloud app.

Thank you for being so patient.

[Junction10Photo]

Thanks for the update Rikk - I look forward to trying it out.

J.

Jason Sheldon
jason@junction10.net

[Junction10Photo]

@Rikk Flohr: Photography Rikk - Just want to say thanks to everyone for fixing this particular bug, but also - I don't know what else you've done under the hood, but Lightroom Classic is running really smoothly and editing has become much much smoother now - it's much faster than it has been for many MANY months!

Thanks.

J.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

@Junction10Photo  Glad things are working better for you. 

[John R Ellis]

I confirmed that the bug recipes no longer misbehave in LR 14.0.1:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-constantly-quot-saving-xmp-for-xx-photos-quo... 

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-constantly-quot-saving-xmp-for-xx-photos-quo... 

[henningmet]

Unfortunately, I still experience that bug. I have two larger catalogues and one still shows that behaviour. Have upgraded both catalogues and running Lightroom 14.0.1.
Have to keep the option "Automatically write Metadata to XMP" deselected until I find a solution ... 😒