P: Sorting problem when syncing from Lr Classic to Lr mobile and then creating a web gallery

[TommyTT]

The problem is created when syncing the pictures from Lr Classig to Lr Mobile. During that process they will get an "upload time / create time", but as Lr mobile sort them according to the capture date you will not see this problem until you create a web gallery. There they are presented in the same order as they were uploaded to Lr Mobile!

The work around is to update the sort order in the web gallery to capture date. 

As soon as the support representative and I understood the reason for the problem she said that this will be corrected soon!.

This item is reported as Adobe Case ADB-19651987-L9V5

[Jim Wilde]

I've tried to reproduce the problem that you describe, but without success. I'm also not sure what you mean when you say that when syncing from Classic to the cloud the images "will get an upload time / create time"....where are you seeing that?

It is entirely possible that the web album will show a different order to that which you see in Classic or LrMobile if those two apps are using the Capture Time sort order. That's because the Web album always displays the images in Custom Order, if a custom order has been set. If no custom order has been set, then the album should display in capture time order. It's also possible to inadvertently set a custom order somewhere in the system (all the cloud apps and Classic now support custom ordering) and any changes to the custom order do sync across the entire system. So perhaps the different order you were seeing in the Web album was due to a custom order having been set at some point in the past? Difficult to now check, as resetting the custom order to capture time in the LrWeb app will have synced to all the other apps, including Classic. But certainly worth checking if you run into the same issue again (i.e. if  the web album displays in a different order to what you expect, open the collection in Classic and switch the Sort Order to Custom Order to see if that is the same order as the Web album).

[TommyTT]

Dear Jim,

Thank you for looking into my problem!

I will try to answer the Qs in your post:

1. Reproducing the problem
   Reply: It does not always occur.
2. ...syncing from Classic
   Reply: I mean the "time stamp" when they are uploaded to Lr Mobile. Occording to the Adobe support representative this is the reason for the problem! I'm not sure what Exif property that is affected though.
3. upload time / create time"....where are you seeing that?
   Reply: This can not be seen in Lr, but if I go and try to change the sorting order and pres the custom button, then the images appear in the order they later will have in the web view i I share them.
4. ... if a custom order has been set...
   Reply: I have not set a custom order!
5. ...  due to a custom order having been set at some point in the past ...
   Reply: No, I always use capture time.
6. ... open the collection in Classic and switch the Sort Order to Custom Order to see if that is the same order as the Web album
   Reply: I did so and the order was the same as in the web album!!! I really wonder how that order is created! I have seen that when I import the pictures to LR, they are not imported in capture time order. Can that be the reason for the problem?

[TommyTT]

Dear Jim,

I was a bit unclear in item 6 above: 
The sort order in my Lr Classic folder is not changed if I press the sort order customize, but the collection is! And that means that the Adobe support representative is close to finding the root cause of the problem.

[Jim Wilde]

A couple of things you need to know about Custom Order:

1. It's local to folder or collection, i.e. you can have a collection with a custom order set, whilst a folder that may contain all the same images as the collection might not have a custom order set (or a different custom order set).

2. You do not have to have the Custom Order sort order selected in order to create a custom order. Starting with, say, Capture Time as the selected sort order, you can start to rearrange the order of the images in the active source (folder or collection). That will silently switch the sort order to "Custom Order", and will sync that set custom order to the cloud and thus to all the other apps, including LrWeb. You can switch the sort order back to Capture Time, but that will not reset the custom order....that will stay set until it's changed or reset.

I suspect that you might have inadvertently set a custom order at some point, and that is then what is used by the album sharing system. It's probably good working practice to always check if there's a custom order set BEFORE sharing an album.

[TommyTT]

My comments to the list above:

1. Yes, i know.
2. I understand, but as I always use capture time the custom order is not used by me. To veryfy my assumptions I have created a collection based on a folder (always in capture time order). I have verified that the order does not change when I sort in custom order in the folder, but when I go to the collection the order is changing. I have made screen shots for all those use cases.

[Jim Wilde]

When you "create a collection based on a folder" are you manually creating the new collection then copying the photos to that new collection, or are you using the right-click option on the folder to "Create Collection ........." which automatically creates a collection with the same name as the folder and adds all the images in the folder to the collection? Hopefully you are using the latter option, from a quick test it looks as though doing it that way does create a custom order which it shouldn't do as it's different to the capture time order of the folder. That's almost certainly a bug. This happens even before syncing the collection, so it would be unrelated to the sync upload. However, as a custom order does sync to the cloud when you sync the collection, and the web album defaults to any existing custom order, that would certainly explain the issue that you are encountering. 

Creating the collection using the older method doesn't appear to have the same problem.

[TommyTT]

My reply: Yes, I use the right click option, but only clicked on custom order to check if that changed the order or not and it didn't. The collection then created has a different order when I click on custom.

Let me make it clearer: I don't want to have a custom order and only select this to verify the bug and the "custom order" is different in a collection compared to a folder where it was correct according to capture time.

This item is reported as Adobe Case ADB-19651987-L9V5

[Jim Wilde]

Yes, I understand you don't want a custom order. I can't imagine any user would want an arbitrary custom order set "under the covers" the way that it appears to be happening using that right-click>Create Collection option. As I said, I think it's a bug.

[TommyTT]

I think that you are right 😉 and am looking forward to the time when it is solved! I have been struggling with this problem for several years, but the response from Adobe has not been what I had expected until now.

Thank you!

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

It would be great if one of you (Jim or Tommyt) could write out a quick step by step for reproducing the process. Is that possible?

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Thanks

[TommyTT]

1. Create an album in Lr classic and verify that selecting custom order does not change the order
2. Right-click and create a collection
3. Check the order when selecting custom order, in most cases it is different to the capture time order.
4. Create a web album and check what order it got by default. It will be similar to the custom order in 3 above.

A guess is that the new order (disorder) is created when creating a collection and based on the time when the image is created in the collection.

Please come back to me if anything is unclear!

[Jim Wilde]

1. Select an existing sub-folder in LrC containing, say, minimum 20 images (it would probably work with less, but the more image the easier to see the problem).

2. Ensure sort order is Capture Time, and that no existing Custom Order is set (by switching to Custom Order and confirm the capture time order does not change). Revert back to Capture Time.

3. Right-click on the sub-folder and select "Create Collection".

4. Select the collection, and verify that the Capture Order is correct.

5. Then change to "Custom Order" and you should observe that the displayed order changes, i.e. a custom order has been created by the Create Collection process.

6. Optionally sync and share the collection, it will subsequently appear in the arbitrarily set (and thus synced) custom order.

Rikk, happy to put in a bug report with screenshots if that would help.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Go ahead Jim. Let me know the bug number and I will link it back here. 

[Jim Wilde]

Rikk, it's LRD-4206568.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Thanks Jim, I've cross-referenced them. 

[TommyTT]

I am aware of this, but I never use custom order.