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Catalogs Not finished writing metadata. . .

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yasky

New Member
Joined
Nov 25, 2017
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Lightroom Experience
Intermediate
Lightroom Version
Operating System: Mac
Exact Lightroom Version (Help menu > System Info): LR classic (subscription-based)

I have LR set to automatically write changes into XMP. Sometimes I've received the following message when closing LR. .: "Adobe Lightroom is not finished writing metadata changes into XMP, do you still want to quit? ..."

Question 1 - - If I opt not to click on "Quit", how long should I wait until I do so?
In the past, the problem has resolved itself as it should but I'd like to have a better understanding how to handle it and not just hit-or-miss on the timing.

Question 2 - - For the past few weeks, the above message appears EVERY single time I close the program. My concern is that although I've been adding lots of keywords and develop adjustments, the catalog size doesn't increase. Does this mean the catalog isn't "holding" the changes? By the way, these are JPGS not raw files ie adjustments should be written directly to the jpg file, correct?

Question 3 - - And when I view the image in Mac Finder or Preview, I see the original jpg with NO adjustments, as though I never did any develop adjustments in LR. Is that correct or should those adjustments be visible once they're written to the jpg file regardless of where/ how I view it? Note: If I export the image or bring a copy into PSD through "Edit In", the adjustments are visible.

The most important thing is I want to be sure the closed catalog is holding onto my image & metadata changes. Please help. Thanks!
 
1. I'm pretty sure that if you quit, LR will pick up where it left off when you come in again. To do otherwise would be a terrible design decision.
2. If the changes to an image don't disappear when you close LR and reopen it, then the changes are indeed in the catalogue. The recipe for the adjustments are written into the JPEG (if you write the metadata to the file), but the JPEG image data is not changed.
3. Yes, you won't see the changes to the files, because LR doesn't change the image data. You'll only see the changes in Finder if you create a derivative file from your image and look at that.

Like I said, if you see your edits after closing and opening LR, then it's holding onto the changes. LR always uses the data in the catalogue to display your edits, never the metadata that you asked to have written to the files.
 
Since about a week or so, I keep getting this message when I want to close LR.
Earlier this week, I chose "quit" and did the backup and optimize, but it still keeps popping up.

Yesterday afternoon, I forced LR to save metadata to file for all photos, and I kept my PC on whole night. This morning, the progress bar (for saving metadata to file) was gone, but the message still appears when I want to close.

Currently, there are 103887 photos in my catalog.
I'm running the latest update on Windows 10 PC.

Although I'm sure that LR will pick up where it left (at least, that's what the message says), there are two things I am "worried" about (or at least curious about what's going on):
1) I like to have my XMP files as complete as possible in my backups. (not talking about my catalog backups)
2) If it is working on writing changes in the background based on older sessions, I feel that it slows down my current operation. At the moment I'm working on a backlog of keywording and some parts feel really slow.

Wonder if this is a (known?) bug ...
 
I can see no benefit of having up to date XMP in the associated master image files or their sidecar XMP files. Writing to each image file after each develop or metadata update simple compounds the work load for LR. All of the metadata in these files is stored in the master catalog file. You want up to date backups of your catalog and if you have them, you don't need the XMP stored with the master image files. You need both catalog and original image files to recover from user mistakes and file corruption. This is the reason for system backups.

"Working on a backlog of keywording" creates metadata updates to the XMP stored with many master image files. This is an I/O problem and has nothing to do with LR. The reason Adobe Lightroom is not finished writing metadata changes into XMP is because there is too much unnecessary data for the OS to handle in the file I/O. This is not a LR bug.
 
I can see no benefit of having up to date XMP in the associated master image files or their sidecar XMP files. Writing to each image file after each develop or metadata update simple compounds the work load for LR. All of the metadata in these files is stored in the master catalog file. You want up to date backups of your catalog and if you have them, you don't need the XMP stored with the master image files. You need both catalog and original image files to recover from user mistakes and file corruption. This is the reason for system backups.

"Working on a backlog of keywording" creates metadata updates to the XMP stored with many master image files. This is an I/O problem and has nothing to do with LR. The reason Adobe Lightroom is not finished writing metadata changes into XMP is because there is too much unnecessary data for the OS to handle in the file I/O. This is not a LR bug.

I do create regular system backups AND backup my catalog at least once a day if I did major work on it.
The reason for having "automatically write changes to XMP" checked is to be able to access the changes if LR or the computer crashes before creating a backup.

The computer has been on for almost 24 hours now and LR has been running all the time and still when I want to close LR it says it is still writing to XMP.
This never used to take so long and makes me wonder (/worried) if other things in the background are not OK.

But you are right. Whenever I get a conflict where LR says the file seems to have been edited outside of LR, I choose to overwrite the settings with the LR settings.
So 99% of the time I use whatever is in the catalog, making writing to XMP kind of useless.

I think I will turn it off (for now?) and see if performance improves.
 
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