"Error writing metadata" on some images

Question

Recently, on opening one of my Lightroom catalogues, I noticed that some (though not all) of the images (in Library view) were displaying an exclamation mark, and on hovering over that the message was "Error writing metadata". In spite of this, I was able to work with the images as normal. I am not using Smart Previews, and many of the images are offline (i.e. downloaded from a local NAS on demand), but this does not seem to be correlated with the problem: for example, in one folder of four images, one has been downloaded and three have not, yet none displays this warning. What is perhaps the strangest is that in another folder, I have a file (xxx.CR2) that displays the warning, and a virtual copy (xxx.CR2 Copy 1) that does not.

I have another catalogue where, so far as I can tell as I only checked a subset, none of the images have this warning.

JohanElzenga · Answer

> What is perhaps the strangest is that in another folder, I have a file (xxx.CR2) that displays the warning, and a virtual copy (xxx.CR2 Copy 1) that does not.

Actually, that is the most logical thing, not the strangest. Virtual copies are extra sets of metadata, belonging to the same original. They are never written to files or to XMP, because if they were, then you would overwrite the metadata belonging to the original copy.

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