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Question

Lightroom Classic automatically restores all changes done on "develop" module

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
July 15, 2024
7 replies
3818 views

Hi everyone,

I just encountered an issue that is blocking my workflow on Lightroom Classic.

After updating it on 13.4 I open Lightroom Classic and every time i click on a photo the program resets all edits I did on develop module. Fortunately the "history" is unchanged and I can go back to the last settings. Anyway it is completely impossible to work properly, because if i need to export a lot of images I need to manually restore the history for every single photo.

OS version: Windows 10 on AMD Ryzen

LR: 13.4
Camera RAW: 16.4

(of course i just restarted both Lightroom and PC but the issue is not solved)

Hope I was able to properly explain my issue, I didn't find a direct adobe contact to report an issue other than security issues, please tell me if there is a way to do it. Thanks to everyone.

Windows

This topic has been closed for replies.

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Federico928Author

Participating Frequently

Update after conversation with richardplondon in 13/09/2024:

During my analysis I discovered an interesting behaviour I didn't notice before, I will describe step by step because it's even stranger then expected and it's difficult to explain using only words.

1) I select an old folder (remind: I don't face this issue with new imported folders) from library and I start randomly select photos into that folder.

If I select an image without any edit on it this happens:

fig.1 (the edits mark appears)

it becomes marked as if it has edits, of course if I go into develop module there are no edits in history, then I can manually select the "import" step and the mark disappears:

fig.2 (the unselected import step in develop module)

fig.3 (the mark disappeared after selecting the import step)

2) Now it starts to be really really strange so I hope I'm able to let you understand me, if not please tell me and I'll try again:

If I select a second photo (i.e. the number 217) the "edit" mark appears on the 217, but the preview still shows the image n°219:

fig.5 (select a second image (217) and the mark "edit" appears)

3) Now to properly select the image n°217 I have to manually select another photo and then go back to 217:

fig.5 (select the image n°214, the preview still shows the n°219)

fig.6 (selected the n°217 again, now the preview shows the correct one)

Now I can view its history and select the "import" stage, the mark now disappears:

fig. 7 (select the correct image)

4) If I perform this operation on ALL images in a directory its still impossible to export that directory as a catalog.
5) You can verify that the expected behaviour is that the "import" step is selected when opening a photo in develop module.

6) When I had my second video chat with an adobe agent I still didn't noticed this behaviour since we focused on the edited photos. Anyway he told me that in his opinion this was some kind of metadata corruption and not an ircat corruption. (the first agent was talking about a catalog corruption).

P.S. the situation remains unchanged if I perform this step in remaining in "develop" module or switching from "develop" and "library" modules

Anyway the result is still a "corrupted" catalog when I'm stuck in exporting photos as catalog and I can't use backups because I don't know when the "corruptions" started.

It's two months since I noticed this behaviour and still don't have a solution or a possible workaround. I'm scared to contact support again because I'm really tired of talking with a new agent and start again EVERY test I just performed.

As always thanks to everyone who will help me and who helped me before.

Federico

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richardplondon

Community Expert

If you take one of these problem images, write metadata out to file just as it is, then take that directly into Photoshop (not via LrC: start PS separately and then use its own Open function, browsing to the relevant file on disk) - do you see that image showing your latest edits?

If so, this suggests the "nuclear option" of re-importing files to which latest edits have been written, to an entirely fresh Catalog. This method notably does not preserve every aspect of your work even if you have written latest edits.

The missing aspects are most importantly IMO: Virtual Copies [these could be included into the externally written metadata of the master version for that photo, by having made a Snapshot from each VC beforehand, and then later recalling that Snapshot and generating a corresponding new VC showing the same edits]; Collection membership [this can be written to each image in the form of special keywords and then these keywords can be later used to re-create the relevant Collections].

Not what you want to hear, but for very important images you do have some options.

Another option to test with one or two images, again for information gathering, may be exporting copies with file type set to 'Original'. Then seeing how those test images open into PS directly, or else how they import into a fresh Catalog. This option will work for Virtual Copies (physically duplicating the source file) but - again - you would need to have first marked Collection membership as a direct attribute of each image (via a keyword, say). Collections otherwise come only from the relevant Catalog.

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Federico928Author

Participating Frequently

Hi Richard, a brief update about it: I talked with Adobe support again on september 16, they liked this thread as an organized history of this issue, they escalated internally.

During the call we performed the test you suggested too. The result is that if I export an "affected" image there are no edits in the metadata file.

One week later (yesterday) they asked again to send them my catalog and other informations like where I store my catalog and its backups. I tried to ask again where I could find log informations but they didn't answer.

I would really like to find out what tells lightroom the "step" to apply to every photo to force every image to reach the last history step.

Thanks again. As always I would love to know if anyone has any new ideas.

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Federico928Author

Participating Frequently

A little update about it: I did 3 agent chats and 2 video calls with adobe support sharing my screen and escalating. Let me say that (except for a chat agent that was clearly try to fool me) they were really kind and patient and dedicated to me a lot of time. Anyway:
1) The first agent asked me to do the same things we tried in this thread, then idendified the issue in a catalog corruption and made me send my catalog to them to fix it and they sent back "fixed". The issue was exactly the same. Anyway this agent told me that in his opinion I should start to use a new catalog (but I have to find an easy way to bring every photo and edit in it).
2) Then they tried to unable the graphic processor and start lightroom deleting preferences.
2) Every agent asked me if I tried with previous versions of lightroom, I explained that due to the catalog update in 13.4 I didn't try previous versions because the catalog wouldn't be compatible.

3) After internal escalation they just sent me an adobe cleaning tool to delete every file of lightroom classic and an installer of version 13.0. They told me to try with that version.
4) I performed a backup of every important file following Adobe guides, used the cleaning tool, restarted pc and installed Ligthroom classic 13.0 following all their requests.
5) Opened the catalog: the catalog is not backward compatible.

Now I think support will require a long time because they are not identifying the issue or trying to find a workaround. They only make me try standard procedures.

The frustration is really really hard. I'm starting to think about alternative solutions. Do you think there is a way to find (or write) some kind of tool that brings the "edit history" of every images to the last history step? Then I could use the function "Export as catalog" and then import to a new created catalog. Does this makes sense to you?

Thanks to anyone who helped me and who will help me.
Federico

R

richardplondon

Community Expert

Have you tried exporting (a few selected) images "as Catalog", just to see what happens with those?

Also - for an image that shows the undesired behaviour: if you write metadata out to file, and then open that file into Photoshop directly (not via Lightroom Classic) does the image that you then see inside PS include the effect of latest editing, or not? There is a fallback method available there (though not a very appealing one, in that it strips off the detailed intermediate History steps, ignores virtual copies, and fails to preserve Collection membership and some other stuff).

[the above tests are for information gathering, and not describing actual steps to fix]

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Federico928Author

Participating Frequently

Thanks for suggesting it, now I discovered that I can't export group of images too, it seems impossible to export not a single directory:

The most akward thing is that the backup that I took weekly for years cannot be restored too. It is a really incredible security issue, backups are the only important thing. An application can have bugs and everything, that's why we take backups.

I think my specific problem is secondary now, Adobe has a really huge issue about backup handling.

We could think about a "system corruption" or something like that, but I repeat that I perform this test from 2 different systems, a windows 10 and a windows 11 systems, so it is really unlikely that 2 different pc's with 2 different os versions are experimenting the same os-related issue.

Anyway thanks for telling me to try it, I didn't though that a single export like that could fail.

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Federico928Author

Participating Frequently

I'm still going crazy about it, now Lightroom does't check anymore the images I edited, so if I previously edited a photo I can't notice it unless I click on the photo, go to the develop module and open the history, it is very frustrating.

When I look out to contact Adobe support about technical issues the website send me here in forum. Is there some service we can contact?

Thanks

DdeGannes

Community Expert

@Federico928 , there have been a couple of updates to LrC since July.

Have you downloaded the latest LrC version 13.5.1?

Regards, Denis: iMac 27” mid-2015, macOS 11.7.10 Big Sur; 2TB SSD, 24 GB Ram, GPU 2 GB; LrC 12.5,; Lr 6.5, PS 24.7,; ACR 15.5,; (also Laptop Win 11, ver 24H2, LrC 15.0.1, PS 27.0; ) Camera Oly OM-D E-M1.

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Federico928Author

Participating Frequently

Hi, of course I downloaded last version and still facing the same issues. To be precise if now I add a new photo in lightroom and edit it everything is ok. Anyway it's like there was a moment where the History of all edited images was reset to the starting point for some reason.

To be clear for people are reading this post now: the history is still there, but I see the photo as it was at its starting point; I have to manually click on the last step in history and I correctly see the edited photo.

GoldingD

Legend

Something in the back of my head thinks their may be an issue with one of the files LrC creates and maintains while you run it, while you work on a catalog.

Use Windows File Explorer to look at the folder your catalog is in, here is an example:

I cannot prove it just yet, something about that helper file , rights and privileges (may relate to a different problem)

Community page discussions like the following may be asking about that:

Ohhh, this one:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/lightroom-classic-not-returning-to-last-edited-image-after-restart/m-p/14333357

You might simply try deleting the helper file (with LrC closed), Then when LrC restarts, it should be recreated.

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Federico928Author

Participating Frequently

Hi, thank you so much for all your advices. I tried to:

- Delete the helper file

- Delete all the previous catalog files that were in the same directory of the 13-4 ircat (as in https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/lightroom-classic-not-returning-to-last-edited-image-after-restart/m-p/14333357 )
- Connect my ssd (which contains also catalog files) to a windows 11 pc with lightroom 13.4 but it has the exact same issue, so it must be something corrupted in catalog!
Anyway the issue is exactly the same if i select photos that have not a virtual copy.

I also noticed that if I open lightroom again and select a photo that experimented that issues days ago, Lightroom doesn't rolls-back again on that photo.

Please tell me if you have some other idea, anyway really thank you for your help!!

GoldingD

Legend

I have nothing, other than contact Adobe

GoldingD

Legend

/Followup/Edit/ Skip this reply (at least for now) and see the one following it, perhaps the helper.lrdata file is at issue.

If you import a new photo, does this odd behavior continue for the new photo?
And, if you look at a already imported photo, already edited. BUT NOT A VIRTUAL COPY, does this odd behavior apply as well?

And a favorite ever since Adobe added AI:

If in preferences, you turn OFF the use of the GPU, does this odd behavior continue.

GoldingD

Legend

So, in the History panel, you see a step (apparently at the top) where LrC has Reset the image?

Could actually state Reset Settings like the following:

could be something else like the following:

Do you have a screenshot?

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Federico928Author

Participating Frequently

Hi,

the first screenshot shows what I actually see when I click on a photo (the history you see is the most recent):

This second screenshot shows what I expect to see (and I actually see it when I click on the most recent step in history):

The really weird thing is that I see the image correctly edited in the thumbnails below when I open ligthtroom, but once I click on it I see the raw version (without any edit). It is frustrating expecially because if I select a bunch of images and I export I actually export the raw version. I had to export several images and this thing is slowing me down.

Thanks anyway for you help, if you have any other idea please tell me.

GoldingD

Legend

In those two History panels, the one with the issue does not show a step as selected, In the case of the image that is working, the top (last) step is shown as selected.

In the first image, the one with the issue. In the history panel, no History step is shown as selected:

In the second one, where I assume you clicked on the history step, the last one (top one) it is shown as selected:

~~In the first image, before you click on that history step, if you scroll down (do not click on a step, just scroll down) does an earlier (perhaps first) step show up as selected?~~

Oh, and I see in the problem screenshot that all history steps are shown, the first one being to create the virtual copy.

So LrC is not selecting the previous last history step.

And you attempted a preference file reset.

Califdan2

Inspiring

Very Odd.

Two things come to mind.

1) Once we enter the realm of "Well, that's really weird", the 'go to' suggestion is to reset your preferences file.

Also see: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/how-do-i-reset-lightrooms-preferences/

To do so, hold down Alt and Shift (Windows) / Opt and Shift (Mac) while opening Lightroom and it’ll ask whether to reset the preferences. The timing is crucial—hold them down while clicking/double-clicking on the app/shortcut.

Note - this will put all your preferences back to the Adobe Defualt settings so you'll have to reset them to your desired values afterward, The preferences file includes last used settings, view options, FTP settings for uploading web galleries, some plug-in settings, etc. In case it doesn't fix your problem, you may want to make a copy of your preferences file first, so you can put it back and not have to re enter your desired changes.

Alternatively, you can reset the preferences manually. Moving or renaming the preferences file, rather than deleting it, means that you can put it back if it doesn’t solve the problem, to save you manually recreating your preferences again. See link provided above

2) You may have a stuck key on your keyboard. Make sure that all the key are not stuck in their pressed postion or try a different keyboard if you have one. You can also go into a text editor and verify that all the keys are working properly although verifying the Alt, Cmd, and Ctrl keys may be tricky.

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Federico928Author

Participating Frequently

Hi,

thank you,
1) I deleted preferences manually (taking previously a backup) but nothing changed, then I restored them.

2) I run the windows utility on keyboard but I didn't see anything. I also tried a simple but usefull online utility to test my keyboard to check if there are any issue (https://en.key-test.ru). Anyway I don't have any evidence for stucked keys when using other applications.
Thanks anyway, if you have any other ideas I'll try.

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