P: Filter presets are not always correctly restored when toggling Enable Filters

[johnrellis]

If you select a Library Filter bar preset, toggle off filtering with Cmd L, and toggle it back on, sometimes the previous state of the filter bar set by the preset is not properly restored. The conditions that trigger this are very obscure but highly reproducible.  To the average user, it looks entirely mysterious.

To avoid this bug, use these precise steps:

- Select any Library Filter bar preset (don't skip this step).

- Select the preset Filters Off.

- Define the preset.

Tested on a virgin installation of LR 14.1.1 on a virgin installation of Mac OS 15 (a virtual machine) -- screen recording attached. Follow these precise steps:

1. Import a JPEG.

2. In the Library Filter bar, click the preset popup and select the Camera Info preset.

3. In the Metadata browser, change the first column to File Type and select JPEG. Delete the other columns. Save as the preset "JPEG - Camera Info".

4. In the Library Filter bar preset popup, select Filters Off.

5. In the Library Filter bar, click the Metadata button.

6. In the Metadata browser, change the first column to File Type and select JPEG. Delete the other columns. Save as the preset "JPEG - Metadata".

7. In the Library Filter bar preset popup, select Filters Off.

8. Select the filter preset JPEG - Camera Info.

9. Type Cmd L (filters off) and again Cmd L (filters on).  Observe that the Library Filter bar's Attribute bar is now showing, with >= 1 star selected, and the name in the preset popup is Rated. This is incorrect:

10. Repeat steps 7 - 9, but with the preset JPEG - Metadata. Observe the the Library Filter bar's Attribute bar is not showing, and the preset popup shows JPEG - Metadata. This is correct.

It's completely mysterious to the typical user why these two versions of the preset behave differently when you disable and enable filters.  There are three related causes of this bug:

- Saving a preset with the Attribute button deselected nevertheless saves in the preset the hidden previous star rating. In particular, the preset JPEG - Camera Info was saved with these two lines in the .lrtemplate:

filtersActive = false,
minRating = 1,

The second line should have been:

minRating = "<nil>",

- When "minRating" is something other than "<nil>", the command FIle > Library Filters > Enable Filters (Cmd L) always sets "filterActive" to true, even if the previous state was false.

- The built-in preset Camera Info also contains these two lines:

filtersActive = false,
minRating = 1,

probably because the original developer had saved it after saving the Rating preset.

[evan.sante]

This started happening a few months ago, and I’m not sure why the behavior has changed or what I did to change the behavior?

When you were culling images and you have a custom filter applied, if you remove the custom filter (cmd / ctl + L) and then reapply the filter (cmd / ctl + L)  instead of going back to the previous custom filter preset that you were working with it goes to a blank custom filter.

How do you get it to go back to the previous filter preset that you were using? This has been the way that it has worked from almost the beginning of time and I’m not exactly sure what I did to screw it up.

Thanks in advance – CES

[GoldingD]

In the third screenshot, I notice that both Attribute and Metadata are apparently selected/highlighted

[evan.sante]

It' just what LR applies when you try to reapply the filter... It doesn't go back to the previous filter that was used which was the way it use to be. At some point the behavior changed.

[johnrellis]

Infrequently, LR screws up its internal representation of filter settings. Sometimes these steps will fix it:

1. Click on the custom filter popup menu and do Restore Default Presets.  You won't lose any presets you've defined.

2. If that doesn't help, try resetting LR's preferences:
https://www.lightroomqueen.com/articles-page/how-do-i-reset-lightrooms-preferences/

LR sometimes soils its preferences file, and resetting it can fix all sorts of wonky behavior. That article explains how to restore the old preferences if resetting doesn't help.

[evan.sante]

Unfortunately I've already tried both restoring "Defaults Presets" and "Resetting LR Preferences" and neither helped. But thanks for your suggestion - CES

[johnrellis]

To narrow down the problem, try making a test catalog with a few photos in it. Does the problem occur with the test catalog?

[evan.sante]

It seems that somehow all of my filter got corrupted at some point. Should have dun this from the start but…

I went in to the Lightroom Settings / Filter Presets folder and deleted the xxx.lrtemplate files and then just recreated the filters… That worked.

Just as an FYI changing one of the columns and then Update Preset “XXX” didn’t work. I had to delete it first and then  re-create the filter in order to restore the correct behavior. Thanks for the help - CES

[johnrellis]

If you still have one of the old misbehavior .lrtemplate files in your trash, could you please open it in a text editor and copy/paste its contents here?  I'd like to understand more about how those .lrtemplate files went bad.

[evan.sante]

Here is the file:

s = {
id = "CEAA6BB6-0A67-4172-8E28-3454DEA9A87B",
internalName = "__ Temp (Culling - Working)",
title = "__ Temp (Culling - Working)",
type = "LibraryFilter",
value = {
columnBrowserActive = true,
columnBrowserDesc = {
{
criteria = "dateHierarchy",
},
{
criteria = "pick",
selections = {
0,
},
},
{
criteria = "rating",
selections = {
3,
},
},
{
criteria = "label",
},
notify = true,
},
customLabel = false,
edit = "<nil>",
export = "<nil>",
filtersActive = true,
gpsLocation = false,
gpsLocationNELatitude = 40.749894159704,
gpsLocationNELongitude = -74.003664060592,
gpsLocationSWLatitude = 40.748921864107,
gpsLocationSWLongitude = -74.005483939408,
label1 = false,
label2 = false,
label3 = false,
label4 = false,
label5 = false,
labelOp = "any",
minRating = "<nil>",
noLabel = false,
pick = "<nil>",
ratingOp = ">=",
searchOp = "all",
searchString = "",
searchStringActive = false,
searchTarget = "all",
usage = "<nil>",
whichCopies = "<nil>",
},
version = 0,
}

[evan.sante]

Just as an FYI if you remove the 

criteria = "label",

from the file the filter works... however the Attribute header in the filter interface is highlighted but whin you click on the option it does nothing.  

[johnrellis]

Interesting. When I save that preset as a .lrtemplate in my LR, it works fine as is, without the symptoms you've observed.

But I've observed strange behavior in general with File > Library > Enable Filters and presets.  I'm investigating and will file a bug report (and notify here).

[johnrellis]

Here's the bug report:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/filter-presets-are-not-always-correctly-restor...

See the second paragraph for how to avoid the bug while defining a preset.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Thanks for the details, @johnrellis. I've sent a ticket to the LrC Team.