LR 5 trouble importing GPS metadata from files on disk

[Ian MacDonald]

Hello all,

I had posted this earlier but probably on the wrong section of the forum. So perhaps more folks will now see it.

Suddenly, not having had this issue before yesterday, when I import files (Canon raw) from my hard drive into a LR 5 Catalog, the GPS data is not being transferred, although the rest of the EXIF data is.  Files were initially added to my hard drive by Adobe Bridge, at which time a metadata template was applied. When I look at the files in Bridge, all the GPS data is there. During the import in the Library module, I am not applying any metadata preset. All the metadata visible in Bridge is visible in the LR metadata panel, EXCEPT the GPS data.

Is anyone else having this problem? Any thoughts would be welcome - I have spent hours trying to figure out what is happening. Following the import, I tried the option to "read metadata from file" but nothing seems to happen.

As I said above, this is new - I have previously imported thousands of images with GPS data, without any problem.

Since these are recent images they are still on my card, so as part of my investigation I created a new test catalog and imported the images directly from the card. In that case, all the GPS data was imported.

Ian MacDonald

[Chris Kern]

Suddenly, not having had this issue before yesterday, when I import files (Canon raw) from my hard drive into a LR 5 Catalog, the GPS data is not being transferred, although the rest of the EXIF data is.  Files were initially added to my hard drive by Adobe Bridge, at which time a metadata template was applied. When I look at the files in Bridge, all the GPS data is there. During the import in the Library module, I am not applying any metadata preset. All the metadata visible in Bridge is visible in the LR metadata panel, EXCEPT the GPS data.

One approach to figuring out what happened is to use a standalone metadata reader—I use Phil Harvey's ExifTool, but there are many others available—to compare the metadata in the stored raw files where the geotags are not being parsed by LR with those in the corresponding raw files for your test catalog, where they are.  If the GPS-related fields for each pair of files are identical, that would suggest a LR hiccup during the creation of the catalog.  If they're different, that would indicate a problem with the file import from the card by Bridge.

[Tony Jay]

Thanks for the feedback Ian.

Your experience does seem to suggest what I thought earlier.
Lightroom per se is not at fault.

There must be something in the way that the original import dialog was set up.

Tony Jay

[Ian MacDonald]

Hello again Tony,

Thanks Tony. Yes, quite bizarre - one of life's mysteries. I brought the images into bridge again into a new folder (from the SD cards) and then created a new catalog in LR 5 and imported the images into the new catalog from the new folder. Now all is well re GPS data being visible in LR.

So, I guess, end of the issue.

Ian