Strange Problem with XMP

[John R Smith]

Folks

I recently upgraded to LR 2.7 from 2.6. Now I have encountered a very odd problem with my Hasselblad 3FR raw files, which I process using XMP sidecar files. It seems that LR 2.7 is not writing new develop changes back into the XMP file, where that image has already been edited in 2.6. Whereas images which have never been edited in 2.6 but have been started from scratch in 2.7 do get their changes written back into the XMP.

I noticed this because I am also running the trial version of LR 3. And when importing the raw files into 3, some of the editing snapshots are missing from the 2.6/2.7 files. This is because those particular edits have not been written back into the XMPs by LR 2.7. and so 3 cannot see them.

This is driving me crazy. Has anyone else encountered a problem like this?

John

[dchew]

In catalog settings - Metadata, "Automatically write changes to XMP"

Sounds like that is unchecked, so the changes are in LR's database, not written to the XMP file.  I leave mine unchecked because LR is faster that way.  However, you need to save the changes manually (CMD/CTR S) for other applications to see them.

Dave

[John R Smith]

Dave

The option to automatically save changes to XMP is checked, and always has been. And this is working perfectly OK, as I said, for files which have been solely edited in 2.7. The problem is with files that were previously started off in Develop mode in 2.6, then further edited in 2.7. They are simply refusing to write the changes back to the XMP file.

John

[John R Smith]

OK, so now I have found I can force LR 2.7 to write the changes to the XMP file when I am in the develop module using Ctrl/S (Win 7). When I do this, I get a message saying the file has been changed by an external application, and do I wish to overwrite it?

This is strange, because I have no external application which would write to the XMP. I only have PS Elements, and I never use ACR. Still. at least I have been able to update the XMP manually.

John

[John R Smith]

An update.

Further investigation and testing reveals that my first conclusion was wrong (as usual). This does not seem to be a conflict between LR 2.6 and 2.7, but something to do with LR3. It would seem that files which I have simply looked at with LR3 (not edited or altered, mind) have somehow been locked for XMP updates by 2.7. By using ctrl/S in 2.7 I can get them back again.

I am still getting random crashes with LR3 (usually when loading the app), and frankly only the perspective correction would be of real benefit to me. Although I have to say the new NR is very good indeed, but I never do high ISO shots. So I have uninstalled the trial version and shall stick with 2.7.

I might have another look at LR3 when 3.1 or 3.2 is released and some of the remaining bugs have been chased down.

John