P: Limit of 52 reorderings in custom-ordered collections and folders

[adrian_cleave]

[I've verified this bug still exists in LR 10.0. See this post. -- John Ellis] 

After a while of custom sorting the order of photos and stacks within a collection (using Grid View), Lightroom starts to unpredictably refuse to sort photos. Some will get positioned where I drop them, others won't move at all and yet others will get positioned somewhere close by (eg. 4 or 5 photos before or after).

After digging into the catalog file I've come across what I think is the problem, but don't know how to fix it. In the attached file you'll see a screenshot of the database table for the collection, you'll see I've hilited the images that are part of the same collection, but their positionId is identical (which should never happen I'm assuming), probably due to the field size reaching it's maximum length. This is what I believe is causing the problem. Tested this on both Lightroom 5.7 and CC 2015.8.

This is a major bug and effectively stops user sorting from being functional, as well as now having potentially lost weeks of work. Any suggestions?



Thanks,

Adrian

[StormyTheCat]

Trying to confirm, from the bug fix list, it appears this issue is NOT fixed in the 8.2 2/12/2019 update?

[johnrellis]

Unfortunately, as you've observed, this issue isn't in the fixed-bug list for 8.2. I just verified that the bug still exists in 8.2.

[Sunil_Bhaskaran]

That's right, John.
We are investigating the same.

Thanks,
Sunil

[StormyTheCat]

I can't pin down a specific set of repeatable circumstances but I'm currently back on version 8.0 and I see images moving from the location where I put them.

[ericw79554200]

When (oh-when-oh-when-oh-when!) are Adobe going to sort the old, old bug where after manually re-ordering (drag & drop) perhaps 20-30 photos in a folder or a collection this stops working, delivers an error message and the program has to be closed / re-opened in order to continue. I thought I'd seen the last of this when I upgraded from v6. No such luck!

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Firstly this is a massive problem for me and I'm wasting hours fixing what really should be the most simple of fixes.

Basically soon after introducing virtual copies into a collection the virtual copy will randomly jump to a different spot in the order, usually between 5-15 places away. This will happen with every virtual copy. Often I provide a lot of images with a black and white alternative, so my order will often be Photo1, Photo1B&W, Photo2, Photo2B&W etc. No however they are all over the place and I'll have Photo32, Photo17B&W, Photo33, Photo24B&W etc. So far it appears to only be happening in collections with 100+ images but seriously 100 is not a lot of images to try to keep ordered, and I'm not sure if that is simply coincidence or if there is a common theme.

Not only does it slow down the workflow when going through images, it means before I export I'm re-ordering 100s of photos, and sometimes it makes adjustments before I re-order them all and so it's just becoming impossible to maintain a custom order.

It is a similar issue to what is occurring here https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/lightroom-major-bug-with-custom-sort-order

Unfortunately this issue is big enough that I would actually genuinely consider jumping platforms and for Adobe to not fix such a basic task is unbelievable.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Lightroom Classic 8.3 was released today and contained a fix for this issue. Please update to 8.3 and verify that you are no longer seeing the issue. Thank you!

[ericw79554200]

Rikk, dear man, with due gratitude and without wishing to be excessively combative, but given the (decades?) duration of this bug - repeatedly reported - about b****y time too!

[johnrellis]

LR 8.3 improves the situation -- the recipe above now works correctly. 

Unfortunately, I don't think LR's numbering algorithm is completely correct, and it could fail when inserting larger number of photos into a collection.  Here's a recipe:

1. Make a new catalog with 1025 photos.
2. Create a collection with all 1025 photos.
3. Select the collection and do View > Sort > Custom Order.
4. Select all 1025 photos and deselect the first and second, leaving the last 1023 selected.
5. Drag the 1023 selected photos between the first and second photos.
6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 six more times.

The values in the table column AgLibraryCollectionImage.positionInCollection specify the positions of the photos within the collection, and they should all be unique (since each photo has a different position). But after step 6, most of the values in the column are identical:



That means LR has lost track of the custom ordering.

[ericw79554200]

Unhappily, the problem is not - repeat NOT - properly resolved. I am in Classic 8.3 on a Windows 10 PC, fully updated. I still find I can make no more than a around 40 - 50 image moves in 'Custom Order' before the process hangs.

[ericw79554200]

In response to an e-mail just circulated by Rikk Flohr - who appears neither to have read nor understood the accumulated e-correspondence - I further confirm that from my standpoint this bug is definitely still active in a fully updated Win 10 installation.

[Sunil_Bhaskaran]

Eric,
I am sending you an e-mail off-list to get some more details.

Thanks,
Sunil

[christinef58502318]

Ditto.  This has happened to me repeatedly over the last few days and I blamed my computer until I searched in this forum today.  Extremely frustrating.

[ryanc32235336]

I too am considering jumping platforms. This is my exact issue as well. Editing batches of photos is time consuming enough without having to deal with a simple bug fix like this. So frustrated.

[ryanc32235336]

I just thought I was going crazy. I can’t believe this isn’t fixed yet.

[Sunil_Bhaskaran]

Ryan & Chris,
What exactly the issue you face?
Not able to move the images in a folder after repeating a certain amount of time? Does this persist after a system restart? 

Thanks,
Sunil

[JBedfordPhoto]

Sunil, how much more info do you need? Everything has been described at nauseam in this thread (dating back over 3 years).

Has your team even started work on this issue yet?

[Bob Somrak]

I think John Ellis and a couple others have provided enough info for Adobe to be able to fix this. They have apparently "partially" fixed it so they should be able to finish the fix.

[ryanc32235336]

Sunil the images are rearranging themselves! I’ll be done with arranging an entire batch of photos on the timeline and if I make one false move with a virtual copy, most images get scrambled.

[JBedfordPhoto]

What's going on with this bug?? It still persists over THREE years after being first brought to the attention of this forum. Honestly, do you guys have no clue how to fix this? It's really annoying that it appears to be a back-burner issue when your users are demanding it to be resolved. Please update us as to what is being done to resolve this major bug.

As to what Ryan (above) mentioned, the virtual copies getting scrambled, this has to be the most frustrating part of this experience. Even after exiting LR, reopening, and going back to my collection, I still can't move around the pictures that are now out of order. Thanks a lot.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Just chiming in that I'm fully updated and having this bullshit problem. This is SO frustrating. It's getting easier and easier to consider leaving behind the Adobe programs...

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Bob, how many images does it take to break this after the 8.3 fix?

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Greetings all,

The Lightroom Classic team marked this issue as fixed in 8.3 based upon the confirmation of the original reporter of the issue. It appears now that the issue was fixed with regard to the 52 image threshold but is still encountered at higher numbers of images. 

I've reopened the bug and am looking for more information regarding how many images it takes to break the reordering. Can you provide me with solid numbers of how many images it takes to break?

[Bob Somrak]

Rikk,

Sorry Rikk, I don't know.  I don't have this issue as I never have reordered more than 52 images and use custom reorder rarely.  I was just replying to Sunil that John Ellis has submitted some detailed info about the number in an above post.  According to John it seems to be a LARGE number in 8.4.  

[johnrellis]

I retested the recipe I tested in LR 8.3 with 1025 photos:
https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/lightroom-major-bug-with-custom-sort-order?to...

and it still fails the same way. I tried with significantly fewer photos and couldn't observe any problems. But this test surely points at some problems with the current renumbering algorithm.