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Question

Writing Metatdata Changes into XMP on exit takes forever with new version

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
October 11, 2023
9 replies
8757 views

My Lightroom Classic just updated to the latest version (13.0). When I exit, rather than the option of delaying writing XMP, it now says I should wait until it completes.

The first time, I let it complete in case the delay was due to the update. I didn't time it, but it took several minutes. I went back in, and made minor edits to two images and then exited. It's been over 5 minutes, and it's only up to 14%.

Why has the message changed to say you should wait? Why is it taking so long?

macOS

jmvdigital

Known Participant

This is still an issue in LR Classic 14.5.1. Try to open PSD files from LR to PS and it just constantly hangs tryign to export metadata while my harddrive goes absolutely crazy. Minutes and minutes go by trying to open a single file. I manually quit the process in the top left of LR and then open the file again and it opens immediately. So dumb bugs like this aren't fixed after multiple years.

R

RBrogen

Known Participant

I have this problem also ... Why the hell was it changed from just auto writing the changes to the XMP in the background to now having to wait after you are done and ready to finish. What the hell happens if the system crashes? This is a huge annoyance and I have yet to see a real answer as to why this is the case.

Randy Brogen, M.Photog.M.Artists.Cr., CPP

DdeGannes

Community Expert

@RBrogen , you stated " just auto writing the changes to the XMP in the background to now having to wait after you are done and ready to finish."

LrC reads an writes all your changes to the Catalog file immediately this is a priority and default function, auto writing changes to XMP is an option and secondary function and happens in the background during idle time.
If you have a long and busy editing session there may be lots of info left to complete writing to XMP, so if you decide to immediately close LrC you will see the warning. The warning indicates you can wait for it to complete or you can choose to proceed and the process will complete when you next boot LrC.

I you wish to test how long it takes to write to XMP do the following when you have a large batch of images to edit, turn off the option "Automatically write metadata to XMP" and after you have completed select the full batch of images and use the option "Save metadata to Files".

It is a function that takes time.

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.

C.Cella

Inspiring

LrC auto saves into XMP instanlty in Library.

In Develop module the auto saves no longer happens instanlty after every history step is recorded but happens when:

1. User changes Active photo.

2. User syncs settings with other photos.

3. Chaning module and going form Develop to any other module also triggers the instant Auto Save.

LrC (or rather Camera Raw) writes/saves into XMP at around 5Mb/s.

Even if you have an SSD that's as fast as it can go.

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Unfortunately

stephens700684

Participant

I have exactly the same issue on the auto upgrade to LR 13.

Today just turned on LR, it has been idle in the background as I had office work to do, did no work in LR and have that message that is taking forever to write the metadata changes to XMP, even though I haven't done anything to any of the images.

Must be a bug??

M

mike.scheerer

Participating Frequently

It is now 5 months since the last update on this thread and I am currently running Version 13.2 of Ligthroom Classic and I have been suffering with the extremely slow XMP qriting speed for some time now.

Mine always appears to reach 29% and then does not progress any further and I have to cancel it. I have left it all night and in the morning it is still sat at 29% and I have now taken to just cancelling it.

I have not tried resetting my preferences or doing a full re-install of Lightroom CC and would be interested to know if this solutions has actually helped anyone with resolving this issue?

I am considering binning off using Lightroom Classic in favour of Bridge and Camera Raw, but I do like the cataloguing features of Lightroom Classic and find the manual navigation of folders using Bridge to be a little tedious, but at the end of the day it is a consistent Post Processing workflow that is the most important factor to me.

DdeGannes

Community Expert

@mike.scheerer , I would try resetting your Lightroom Classic preferences.

This is just a "hunch", if you do not wish to resset your preferences. Have a look at the screenshot below. If you have unwittingly selected the box "Do not show again" this could be a reason for your problem and LrC may be stuck waiting for a response before proceeding. To fix go to Lightroom preferences General Tab and select Reset all warning Dialogs.

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.

DdeGannes

Community Expert

My thought would be to deselect "Automatically write Metadata to XMP" and utilize the manual menu option Metadata > Save Matadata to File, when you have completed your work session.

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.

C.Cella

Inspiring

@DdeGannes I find wasteful to save manually when LrC already knows what files need to be saved and does it for us automatically without having to select them.

Suppose you work for 5 hours on hundreds of images, assign metadata, edit them, etc...

IF you don't want the XMP to be written too many times (you might be concerned about performance and storage lifespan) you can simply pause XMP at the beginning and play/resume at the end of the work session.

2 clicks and LrC does it all for you.

That was the envisioned workflow with visible buttons.

It is clear to me that the current design makes it harder for the user to discover and use buttons.

The fact that we must right click Status activity AND enable the text adds to the complexity.

That text is very useful, it is actually the ONLY reliable indication of files that needs to be saved because metadata smart collections are bugged.

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DdeGannes

Community Expert

@C.Cella , As I indicated in an earlier post Lightroom priority function is to write metadata and edits to the Lightroom Catalog file, on the other hand "Automatically write metadata to XMP is not a priority function and while you are busy working with Lightroom that function is not taking place and will only take place during idle time. If you abruptly stop editing and decide to exit Lightroom there may have a large backlog to data to be written and could hamper your backup.

At some stage it will have to complete that operation.

Its up to you how you manage that process.

The reason I suggested using the manual menu option "Metadata > Write Metadata to File" is that it appears to be a bug in the "Automatically write Metadata to XMP" process at this time.

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.

DdeGannes

Community Expert

@andrewm99048561 , I am a Lightroom user since Feb 2007 when Lightroom version one was released and I participated as a beta user prior to its release from July 2006. I am sympathetic to your present predicament with respect to delays you exprence with the writing metadata to XMP.

From inception I adopted the default prefrences of Lightroom which includes the storage of metadata and edits in the Lightroom Catalog file.

This means that I have not selected the option to Automatically write Metadata to XMP.

Nor do I utililize the manual option to write Metadata to the file except when I wish to share that info with a friend or family.

I acknowledge that many users utilize those options in their workflow.

Just a few thoughts,

Lightroom writes metadata and edits to the Catalog file in real time.

Writing to XMP is a secondary function and may get delayed if you are doing lots of work editing including, syncing/ copy / paste etc, so at the end of your editing session there is a lots of data to be written to the files.

Exiting Lightroom immediately will provide warnings.

I can remember I did a copy of a copyright to several thousand images and it took quite a while before Lightroom shut down.

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.

C.Cella

Inspiring

@andrewm99048561

Writing into XMP is now 2x faster than before actually.

If it is taking long time to write into XMP then it can be that you didn't save it for long time for many images.

So while you might have edited 2 images recently as you activate auto save into XMP LrC is picking up ALL the images that had to be saved, never had been saved, and it is doing it now.

What you can do is:

Pause Save into XMP.

Create a Smart Collection "Metadata Status - Is - Has been Changed." OR filer for "Metadata Status"

Check how many images LrC picks up that needs to saved.

EDIT

The "Saving XMP For" text should also give you an idea of how many images need to be saved BUT you might want to pause that because some photos might be stuck in an endless save loop.

.

A

andrewm99048561Author

Known Participant

> If it is taking long time to write into XMP then it can be that you didn't save it for long time for many images.

I've changed nothing except to (automatically) upgrade to 13.0. If it wasn't saving to XMP before, then that must have been a bug in 12.5, but as far as I can tell, it was saving fine.

I still have the question unanswered about why the message on exit has changed; why does it now say you must wait when before you could exit and have the xmp files saved later?

C.Cella

Inspiring

@andrewm99048561 You can exit and the save will be completed the next time.

How many images according to the "Saving XMP for" text must be saved ?

.

G

Gleeful_mind5C4F

Participating Frequently

I'm having the same issue on two different machines, so it's not just you and it would seem weird if the prefs were corrupted on two different machines "all of the sudden".

Rikk Flohr_Photography

Community Manager

You hadn't mentioned 'two different' machines before but that may not be significant as I cannot reproduce on two different machines. A common "interfering" component/software may exist on both.

Without more detailed instructions for reproduction, I do not have better advice than to ensure your preference and install are clean.

Rikk Flohr: Adobe Photography Org

A

andrewm99048561Author

Known Participant

That makes 3 different machines since 75CentralPhotography is a different person from me.

In my case, I'm not sure what information I need to tell you. To reproduce the problem, I simply start LR 13, edit one file, and then exit.

Rikk Flohr_Photography

Community Manager

I just performed a test on 50 images, and the result was less than 2 seconds.
I suspect you have a different issue. My recommendation is to reset preferences and, if that doesn't work, a clean reinstall of Lightroom is probably warranted.

This procedure works for both Lightroom Classic and Lightroom Desktop.

If you are using Lightroom Desktop, it can change your local storage location. Please review this setting after resetting preferences.

Reset Procedure:

1. Close Lightroom.

2. Hold down [Alt/Opt]+[Shift] while restarting Lightroom.

3. Overwrite the Preferences when prompted by the dialog.

4. Close Lightroom.

5. Restart Lightroom.

Clean Lightroom Install Procedure

Close Lightroom

Restart the computer

Use the Adobe Creative Cloud App to uninstall Lightroom

Restart the computer

Install Lightroom via the Creative Cloud App without launching any other programs.

Restart the computer

Launch Lightroom

Wait 5 minutes

Rikk Flohr: Adobe Photography Org

David Ayars

Participating Frequently

I can confirm that I absolutely had OP's same issue only and immediately after the upgrade from v12 to v13. Rikk's suggestion to do a Reset Procedure fixed it for me. One caution: when you do a Reset, your Catalog Settings and LrC Preferences go back to default, so before resetting, it would be helpful to review those and take notes on the settings you will want to restore after the Reset.

David Ayars

Participating Frequently

@David Ayars right click the Status and Activity panel where you can pause/play the auto save into XMP.

"Status and Activity Panel" wasn't helping me locate the setting you were asking about, but I figured it out. For anyone lurking later who is unsure where this setting is, in the upper left corner of LrC, just above "Navigator" with the left panel open, a down arrow becomes visible when I hover over what displays as my name; other users may see something more generic under "Adobe Lightroom Classic" there, Click that down arrow and there is a setting for "Saving XMP." Toggle that on (so it doesn't say "Paused").

Now with that toggled back on, and after having done Rikk's Reset Procedure, when I close LrC, as it's backing up the catalog, I may or may not briefly see a window about saving to XMP, as I did before in v12, but it's working correctly. It doesn't get stuck writing to XMP, and it's very quick with no delay in backing up the catalog or closing LrC.

A

andrewm99048561Author

Known Participant

Over 20 minutes now, and up to 44%. This is for changes to two images.

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