# Upgrade to Lightroom 3 Now getting Metadata alert



## lnicole (Jul 13, 2011)

I just upgraded to Lightroom 3 yesterday from Lightroom 2. I'm getting an exclamation mark on certain photos. When I click it, it says 



> The metadata for this photo has been changed by both Lightroom and another application. Should Lightroom import settings from disk or overwrite disk settings with those from the catalog?



And it gives me an option to *Import Settings From Disc* or _*Overwrite Settings. 
*_
Why is it doing this and what should I do? 

Im on a Mac OS 10.6.8

Thank you.


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## Denis Pagé (Jul 13, 2011)

I can't say about the why as there are different possibilities. But what you should do is simple: If you never worked you images with another program than Lightroom since the upgrade, just overwrite settings as they should be the same. Altough, if you opened some images to geotag them (with another program) for example, you want this new information to be given to Lightroom so in this case, you import the settings.


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## Victoria Bampton (Jul 13, 2011)

Did you go to 3.0 and then upgrade to 3.4, or did you skip straight to 3.4?  There was a bug in 3.0 that caused this issue.


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## MarkNicholas (Jul 14, 2011)

I have had this from time to time with various versions. Just do a Ctr S of all affected photos and it will disappear. Try it with one first just to be sure.


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## lnicole (Jul 14, 2011)

I upgraded straight to 3.4. I haven't used any other software except Photoshop. I do use the export to Zenfolio plug-in and used to add keywords. I wonder if that's what's bother it. The Cmd (mac) S works - but wish I knew what it was doing. Just makes me a bit nervous.


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## Bruce J (Jul 14, 2011)

lnicole said:


> I upgraded straight to 3.4. I haven't used any other software except Photoshop. I do use the export to Zenfolio plug-in and used to add keywords. I wonder if that's what's bother it. The Cmd (mac) S works - but wish I knew what it was doing. Just makes me a bit nervous.



If you are adding keywords outside of LR (Zenfolio plug-in?), that's what causes the metadata flag to come up in LR.  The reason is that you now have metadata in the image file (or sidecar) that is not in the catalog.  If that is the case, you do not want to use Cmd S.  'Write metadata to file' (Cmd S) copies the metadata in the catalog to the file; you will loose any data that's in the file and not in the catalog.  In that case, what you want to do is 'Read metadata from file'.  That will copy the new metadata from the file to the catalog.  Both the file and the catalog will have the same data and the flag will go away.

If you know that you are going to add metadata to an image outside of LR, you should use this sequence:

1.  Select the image(s) in LR and use Cmd S to make sure all the metadata in the LR catalog is stored in the image file(s).
2.  Make your changes or additions outside of LR.
3.  Back in LR, select the image(s) again and 'Read metadata from file' to copy the new data back to the catalog.

If you don't do step 1 first, you stand a chance of losing some other metadata that's in the catalog, but not in the image file(s) when you do step 3.  Cheers,


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## lnicole (Jul 14, 2011)

Bruce, does this count if I am using dng format? I thought they didn't use sidecars? Actually come to think of it, I don't think the Zenfolio plug-in actually adds keywords to the image, just the exported files. So maybe that isn't it at all. I didn't see these exclamation marks in LR 2. I'm not sure what to think of this. I'm not sure why some images are having them and not others.


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## Bruce J (Jul 14, 2011)

lnicole said:


> Bruce, does this count if I am using dng format? I thought they didn't use sidecars? Actually come to think of it, I don't think the Zenfolio plug-in actually adds keywords to the image, just the exported files. So maybe that isn't it at all. I didn't see these exclamation marks in LR 2. I'm not sure what to think of this. I'm not sure why some images are having them and not others.



Yes, it's the same w/ dng format.  Dng files do not use sidecars; the metadata is stored in the image file itself.  That doesn't matter; if you make changes to the metadata outside of LR, you still need to read those changes back into LR to get them into the catalog.  

If the Zenfolio plug-in doesn't make changes to the original files, then that's not the source of the changed metadata.  I don't know why some of your images would have changed metadata either.  Are you quite sure you haven't opened any images in any other program?

If you are quite sure that there haven't been any changes to the images outside of LR, then I would go ahead and write metadata from the catalog to the images (Cmd S) to get rid of the annoying exclamation marks.  If you have trouble finding the images w/ the exclamation marks, you can just select all of the images in your catalog and hit Cmd S.  LR will only update the images where it finds a difference and all of your exclamation marks should go away.  Good Luck,


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## Kiwigeoff (Jul 14, 2011)

I seem to recall some issue with old/upgraded catalogs a bit like this.
The remedy if I recall was to save out the metadata using cmd/ctrl-s and then read back the metatdata using the menu command.


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## lnicole (Jul 15, 2011)

Bruce J said:


> Are you quite sure you haven't opened any images in any other program?
> 
> If you are quite sure that there haven't been any changes to the images outside of LR, then I would go ahead and write metadata from the catalog to the images (Cmd S) to get rid of the annoying exclamation marks.  If you have trouble finding the images w/ the exclamation marks, you can just select all of the images in your catalog and hit Cmd S.  LR will only update the images where it finds a difference and all of your exclamation marks should go away.



Aside from opening in Photoshop - no, I haven't. I did at one point add some file info information in Photoshop to a few images before I realized I could do it in Lightroom - but this is happening on recently imported photos as well, so I'm quite sure that isn't the problem. It's even happening in RAW files. I'll just hit Command/Save as I can't imagine what this other metadata is. I think it must be  an upgrade bug.


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## Bruce J (Jul 15, 2011)

lnicole said:


> Aside from opening in Photoshop - no, I haven't. I did at one point add some file info information in Photoshop to a few images before I realized I could do it in Lightroom - but this is happening on recently imported photos as well, so I'm quite sure that isn't the problem. It's even happening in RAW files. I'll just hit Command/Save as I can't imagine what this other metadata is. I think it must be  an upgrade bug.



Could be.  As Geoff reminded us (thanks Geoff), there was an upgrade bug that sometimes caused a similar problem, but I can't remember which upgrade it was.  My suggestion is do the Cmd S for all images in your catalog and then watch carefully to see if the problem occurs again.  Good Luck,


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## ceroni (Jul 17, 2011)

I think the bad old metadata bug is still around in the latest version.
Have a look at these threads:
http://www.lightroomqueen.com/community/showthread.php?9851-The-nasty-metadata-bug-is-back-in-3.2
http://www.lightroomqueen.com/commu...up-to-date-quot-to-quot-has-been-changed-quot
http://www.lightroomqueen.com/community/showthread.php?8359-Metadata-Status-continually-changing
http://www.lightroomqueen.com/commu...tadata-was-changed-externally-by-what-stumped
http://www.lightroomqueen.com/commu...etadata-fields-need-to-be-updated-quot-symbol
http://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/catalog_metadata_loss


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## Bruce J (Jul 17, 2011)

ceroni said:


> I think the bad old metadata bug is still around in the latest version.
> Have a look at these threads:
> http://www.lightroomqueen.com/community/showthread.php?9851-The-nasty-metadata-bug-is-back-in-3.2
> http://www.lightroomqueen.com/commu...up-to-date-quot-to-quot-has-been-changed-quot
> ...



Could be, I suppose, although most of your threads refer to previous versions of LR.  We should continue to be alert to occurrences w/ 3.4.1 that can be documented.  Thanks for bringing these old occurrences to light again.


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## lnicole (Sep 5, 2011)

OK, so I'm back - EVERY time I open a file in Photoshop CS5 through Lightroom 3 when I close it and go back to Lightroom I have that alert on the file. Never happened in LR2. It's very annoying!


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## Victoria Bampton (Sep 5, 2011)

Did you try Geoff's earlier suggestion - write everything out to metadata and read it back in?  If it's the same bug we think it is, that's the best (and possibly only) way to fix it.  But then I've never heard of it coming back after that, which is less annoying!


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