P: AI Masks Require updating and/or disappear

[Shelemiah]

Hello,

I recently had a call with Adobe support with no luck. I have found some threads on this but nothing presents a solution and it seems hard to find what the actual issue is.

If I edit a client gallery and use any healing brush tool or AI masking tool, the mask or healing brush/generative AI will get a red dot underneath after going back to the start of the gallery, my AI edits are gone....

I also noticed this happens 100% of the time when I quite and reopen lightroom, I can fix the mask, update ai settings but it just resets each time I open lightroom.

We tested a new catalogue, we tested a bunch of things with no luck. 

We really need a fix on this Adobe it is killing workflow, not sure what broke this setting. I can't revert to an old version because I have lots of photos (I do 1 catalogue per year) and can't go back weeks of client work.

Also this catalogue was started at the begining of 2025 so there is no version 13 of this catalogue to revert to and test.

PLEASE HELP ADOBE!

[johnrellis]

Moderators, @Rikk Flohr: Photography, please merge with the main thread:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/p-ai-masks-need-updating-constantly-eve...

[Brittany3137668948oi]

Hi! ok so I have been using the denoise button on some event photos with a high iso. I was super imperssed with the results and almost done with the edits when the denoise button stopped showing the rresults for all of them. I have no error messgae just the yellow ai button flahsing if i want to update. ive pressed it a few timess but to no avil. the photos are still grainy. am i missing something?

[johnrellis]

"I have no error message just the yellow ai button flashing"

Many have encountered this bug, not yet acknowledged by Adobe:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/p-ai-masks-require-updating-and-or-disa...

You could try rebuilding the .lrcat-data file, which helps some but not all:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/p-ai-masks-require-updating-and-or-disa...

[johnrellis]

Moderators, @Rikk Flohr: Photography, please merge with the primary thread for this issue:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/p-ai-masks-require-updating-and-or-disa...

[GeMoMo]

I use macOS 15.5 and LRC 14.4

I modified an image by means of the generative AI remove tool. The final result as generated I like to keep.

After doing some other masking and colour modifications on the same image, the AI-modification-status button highlights yellow indicating some modifications need to be updated. After confirming this the earlier made generative-AI-removal spontenaously changes in another output which I don't like and don't want.

Some advise please how to avoid this unpredictable AI behaviour.

[Aleke]

Hi @GeMoMo, welcome to the community!

When you have a moment, could you share a quick screen recording showing your workflow and where the issue comes up? That would really help us understand what’s going on and how best to assist.

Thanks so much!
Alek

[GeMoMo]

@Aleke Thx for yr reply. What I can do is share with you the history of my editing for that particular image. Would that help you? But pls advise is there an easy way I can copy the history of just this photo to avoid having to take multiple screenshots?

[Aleke]

Hi @GeMoMo! If you get a chance, it would be super helpful if you could send us your Catalog file (the file with the .lrcat extension) so we can do some further testing. You can share it with me via DM using a file-sharing service like Google Drive, WeTransfer, Dropbox, or whichever you prefer. Really appreciate your help with this!

Alek

[GeMoMo]

@Aleke My .Ircat file is almost 5GB and contains more than 100k photo's. While I'd like to help solve the problem, I'm hesitant to share my entire catalog due to the potential for misuse of my photos. The problem of spontaneous AI changes has only occurred with one of my photos. Isn't there another way I can isolate and send the history of that photo's edits, for example?

[Aleke]

Hi @GeMoMo! No need to send the photos, just the catalog file is perfect. When you share the catalog, we only get access to the metadata, your edit information, collections, and the history of changes. The actual image files stay completely separate and aren’t included.

Thanks so much!
Alek

[johnrellis]

@GeMoMo, many have encountered this bug, not yet acknowledged by Adobe:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/p-ai-masks-require-updating-and-or-disa...

You could try rebuilding the .lrcat-data file, which helps some but not all:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/p-ai-masks-require-updating-and-or-disa...

[johnrellis]

Moderators, @Rikk Flohr: Photography, please merge with the primary thread for this issue:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/p-ai-masks-require-updating-and-or-disa...

[ahron32253891yfdh]

In the latest updates, Adobe requires us to click the Update button to apply the mask settings from image to image, but the problem is that it slows down the work rate, because in the past there was no need to click Update and the software knew how to copy the settings from image to image, does anyone know how to solve this?
Because there is another problem, and that is, even when I click Update, it does not update the mask settings from one image to another

 

[johnrellis]

It sounds like you're tripping over this problem:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/p-ai-masks-require-updating-and-or-disa...

Have you ever used the third-party Imagen AI service with this catalog?  If you did at some point in the recent past, that would have created these symptoms. It appears that Imagen AI has corrected their bug, so they won't corrupt catalogs moving forward (knock on wood).  There may be other causes, though no one has pipointed any. 

First, do the LR menu command Help > System Info to verify you're running LR 14.5.   Assuming you are, see here for the only known workaround:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/p-ai-masks-require-updating-and-or-disa...

[johnrellis]

Moderators, @Rikk Flohr: Photography, please merge with this thread:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/p-ai-masks-require-updating-and-or-disa...

[Impressive_neighbor5C37]

I am at a complete loss about what to do over this. I've tried everything... removing the LRcat to desktop... removing lock from permissions. nothing is working. I've gone through a gallery of 1700 photos TWICE to remove only to find that nothing saved and I can't deliver the gallery to my client. How has this been an issue for 6+ months with no fix??? Going to spend the rest of the afternoon researching new editing software because researching this issue isn't fixing anything.

[brendardzphoto]

Hello Everyone,

I´m currently having issues with my Lightroom Classic.

I´m using the generative AI to edit out backgrounds and other details in my wedding photographs. However, when I use the develop tab, and edit several hundreds of pictures at a time, I sometimes go back to a picture to check it out. Turns out a lot of my edits are not being saved for some reason. I´ve seen this happen when going back to pictures or when trying to export them through the Pic-Time plugin to save them in a gallery at Pictime. 

The generative AI keeps asking me to update the changes made, but why is it just not saving what it already did?? "Some Remove settings need to be updated" keeps showing up in many of the pictures I did and the experience is just not consistent throughout all the editing. I´m wondering maybe i have some kind of setting not set up properly but this is annoying and I need to rework many pictures. 

Another thing I´ve noticed is if I export them 1 by 1 the settings tend to save, but when I´m doing hundreds of pictures, or export them several at a time, the edits are not saved and the "Remove Settings needing to be updated" shows up again.

Any help is appreciated!  I´m using a MacBookPro 2.6 i7 amd radeon pro 5300M 16gb mhz ddr4 sonoma14.5

[brendardzphoto]

 As you can see here, I updated 7 (SEVEN!!) times, I just wanted to remove a waiter that was in the background. While seeing the picture, I could see the waiter removed every single time, but the changes would not save. Is there some kind of setting I need to check to make sure those changes are saved properly? I would imagine not, since if they´re being shown in the history, it means that the changes ARE occurring and are being registered properly within the application and system and into the picture. Any ideas on how to fix this?  

Also, when editing pictures and using the app, some pictures may show signs of being ´corrupted´, like light streaks of cyan, yellow, red, white. If I close and reopen the application, the picture where i saw this is completely fine again. It´s weird, I´m wondering if I´m doing something wrong within the app. Thanks!

[JohanElzenga]

AI masks (and I assume also AI remove) is saved in 'Catalogname.lrcat-data', an extra file next to the catalog file. We have seen reports where AI masks could not be saved because 'Catalogname.lrcat-data' was locked for some unknown reason. There is a long thread in this forum about this problem. Perhaps this is the same issue. What you could try is remove 'Catalogname.lrcat-data' from the catalog folder, so Lightroom will rebuild it. It does mean you will have to update the Remove Settings once again, but hopefully then this will 'stick'.

[lucaGhedini]

I have the same problem. 
30+ hours of works wasted. the idea to remove the file does not work. it seems the the problem aris also if you simply wait enough. i.e. leave LCR open -> go to lunch -> all work is gone! 
even worse: if you just "update " as suggested in the ai panel the results produced are not the same...
The same promlem on operation with the mask. 
 (i'm using the last version of LRC on m2 Mac with osx 14.x)

[lucaGhedini]

just an experiment (on mac)

1. close LCR
2. select Catalogname.lrcat-data
3. show packge content
4. remove "LOCK"

now seems it's work

[lucaGhedini]

i have the sme problems. 

just an experiment (on mac)

1. close LCR
2. select Catalogname.lrcat-data
3. show packge content
4. remove "LOCK"

now seems it's work... 

[WG Photo]

Thank you for this!  I just started editing wedding photos and was 80 photos in when I decided to update Lightroom Classic to the latest version of 14.  This was the first time I had this issue and what you suggested fixed this issue for me.  

HUGE THANK YOU!!!!! ^_^

[feitenphotography]

I am having the same issue but when I find Catalogname.lrcat-data I can not figure out how to show package content! Do you have any tips on finding the package contebt?

[Jaclyn5E3A]

I found it...but following all of this didn't fix it...