# "Metadata Changed" warning icon one Filmstrip images



## neilvonhof (Jul 2, 2013)

Somewhat mysterious alert icon with 3 short horizontal lines stacked vertically on the left and a big exclamation sign on the right - located upper right corner of image in film strip. When clicked a small window comes up titled "Confirm" and the text says: "The metadata for this photo has been changed by both Lightroom and another application. Should Lightroom import the settings from disk or overwrite disk settings with those from catalog?"
3 Buttons below the text say "Import Settings from Disk"  -  "Overwrite Settings"  -  "Cancel"
I have a feeling that, because in my workflow (see my other post called "Filmstrip sorting or re-ordering") I create .psd files in Photoshop, the "another application" referred to in the alert is Photoshop and that I have to adjust settings to make it compatible with LR and then no longer see those little alert icons.
Windows 7, LR5.
Thanks for all the great help on this Forum!


----------



## Katherine Mann (Jul 3, 2013)

I don't understand those little arrows either.


----------



## Mark Sirota (Jul 3, 2013)

Three lines with a down arrow: Lightroom's metadata is newer than the metadata in the file.

Three lines with an up arrow: The metadata in the file is newer than Lightroom's metadata.

Three lines with an exclamation point: Metadata is different; there's something in the file that's not in Lightroom's catalog.


----------



## Replytoken (Jul 3, 2013)

Mark Sirota said:


> Three lines with a down arrow: Lightroom's metadata is newer than the metadata in the file.
> 
> Three lines with an up arrow: The metadata in the file is newer than Lightroom's metadata.
> 
> Three lines with an exclamation point: Metadata is different; there's something in the file that's not in Lightroom's catalog.



Mark,

Is there any easy way to compare metadata between the file and LR?

--Ken


----------



## Mark Sirota (Jul 3, 2013)

Not within Lightroom, unfortunately... I routinely use exiftool.


----------



## Replytoken (Jul 3, 2013)

Mark Sirota said:


> Not within Lightroom, unfortunately... I routinely use exiftool.



I have used exiftool to modify dates in files, but did not think tho use it for data comparison.  If it's not too complicated to explain, can you tell me how you are using exiftool to compare the data?

Thanks,

--Ken


----------



## Mark Sirota (Jul 3, 2013)

Something like:

exiftool -G -s file1 > /tmp/file1.exif 
exiftool -G -s file2 > /tmp/file2.exif
diff /tmp/file1.exif /tmp/file2.exif


----------



## EatVisuals (Jul 7, 2013)

So which is the best option to choose out of the three, for most cases?


----------



## Replytoken (Jul 7, 2013)

Mark Sirota said:


> Something like:
> 
> exiftool -G -s file1 > /tmp/file1.exif
> exiftool -G -s file2 > /tmp/file2.exif
> diff /tmp/file1.exif /tmp/file2.exif



Thank you, Mark.  Not wanting to seem stupid, but I am assuming that one of the files is the picture's exif data.  What would be the source of the second file that is being compared?  Is this data extracted directly from LR?  Or, is a file being exported from LR and then having its data extracted for comparison?

--Ken


----------



## Mark Sirota (Jul 8, 2013)

Replytoken said:


> Not wanting to seem stupid, but I am assuming that one of the files is the picture's exif data.  What would be the source of the second file that is being compared?  Is this data extracted directly from LR?  Or, is a file being exported from LR and then having its data extracted for comparison?



No, sorry I wasn't clear.  "file1" and "file2" are your original files on disk (e.g. NEF, DNG, JPEG, etc.). You create two temporary files containing text representations of their Exif data, then compare the two temporary files.


----------



## Replytoken (Jul 8, 2013)

Mark Sirota said:


> No, sorry I wasn't clear.  "file1" and "file2" are your original files on disk (e.g. NEF, DNG, JPEG, etc.). You create two temporary files containing text representations of their Exif data, then compare the two temporary files.



Hi Mark,

I know that you have been busy answering a large number of posts lately, so I am sorry to keep asking for additional clarification, but I am still not clear how the LR metadata fits into this analysis.  The comparison that I want to perform is between the metadata in LR and the original file.  If I am understanding your post correctly, you are comparing two files, but not any LR metadata.  Am I missing something?

Thanks,

--Ken


----------



## Mark Sirota (Jul 8, 2013)

Oh, sorry Ken, I misunderstood.  RIght, this case doesn't help at all with LR's metadata -- you'd have to write it out to XMP, then compare the exif by hand to that.  Seems like something perhaps a plug-in could do, but I'm not aware of one.


----------



## Replytoken (Jul 8, 2013)

Thanks for the clarification, Mark!

--Ken


----------



## neilvonhof (Jul 9, 2013)

What I really want to know is how to avoid these little alerts. I would imagine that if one set up the parameters in LR and PS correctly, there would be no conflicts. Anybody know what's really going on under the hood that causes these mismatches? What's causing the metadata to be changed by "both LR and another application"?


----------



## Norfolk Lad (Jul 10, 2013)

> What I really want to know is how to avoid these little alerts. I would imagine that if one set up the parameters in LR and PS correctly, there would be no conflicts. Anybody know what's really going on under the hood that causes these mismatches? What's causing the metadata to be changed by "both LR and another application"?​



Yes, Mark and Ken have embarked on their own sidetrack while your question remains unanswered!

See Mark's comments above for an explanation of the different symbols, 


> Three lines with a down arrow: Lightroom's metadata is newer than the metadata in the file.
> 
> Three lines with an up arrow: The metadata in the file is newer than Lightroom's metadata.
> 
> Three lines with an exclamation point: Metadata is different; there's something in the file that's not in Lightroom's catalog.​


You say you have the three lines with the exclamation mark. 
I understand:
1. If you have altered the image by editing in Photoshop and you want to save the Photoshop changes permanently, select "Import Settings from Disk";
2. If you want to restore the original LR image without the Photoshop edits, select "Overwrite";
3. If you can't make up your mind, select "Cancel" and the mismatch will continue to show.
4. If you want to save both versions in LR, you will have to give the edited version a slightly different name such as adding "Edit" at the end and then import that one into LR separately.


----------



## Replytoken (Jul 10, 2013)

Norfolk Lad said:


> Yes, Mark and Ken have embarked on their own sidetrack while your question remains unanswered!
> 
> See Mark's comments above for an explanation of the different symbols,
> 
> ...



I do not believe the question remained unanswered because no question was actually posed by the OP until the post prior to your response.  As you have indicated, Mark explained the different symbols, and our follow-up discussion was related to how one could determine the differences that could possibly cause LR to to generate such a warning.  The choices that you have presented to the OP assume that PS is what is causing LR to generate the warning.  Given that there has been an erratic and persistent metadata bug in the last few versions of LR, I thought that the OP might want to actually determine that PS was the actual cause of the warning.

--Ken


----------



## neilvonhof (Jul 11, 2013)

Apologies regarding my lack of truly asking a question, you are right-on about that Ken. And thanks to Jeremy for answering the question I finally asked. I can see no reason to to NOT save the altered PS images permanently so, from now on I will go with "Import". I come to this conclusion assuming that my RAW files (.CR2) are never degraded, altered, destroyed by any action I take on PS or LR. 
Humm, now, because with my limited knowledge on this subject leading to only being able to assume the aforementioned, I would like to ask the question: Is my assumption correct regarding .CR2's?
Thanks again for all the help.
-Neil


----------



## Replytoken (Jul 11, 2013)

neilvonhof said:


> Apologies regarding my lack of truly asking a question, you are right-on about that Ken. And thanks to Jeremy for answering the question I finally asked. I can see no reason to to NOT save the altered PS images permanently so, from now on I will go with "Import". I come to this conclusion assuming that my RAW files (.CR2) are never degraded, altered, destroyed by any action I take on PS or LR.
> Humm, now, because with my limited knowledge on this subject leading to only being able to assume the aforementioned, I would like to ask the question: Is my assumption correct regarding .CR2's?
> Thanks again for all the help.
> -Neil



No worries and no apologies necessary.  Both Mark and Jeremy kindly answered what I see as the presumed question.  But, as folks post to the forum for all different levels of support, it is good to clarify what information you, as the OP, are seeking.  As I have been dealing with a similar metadata bug in LR for the past year, I am always interested in finding a way to determine if this is indeed a LR bug, or if another program has somehow "touched" my files (which should not be happening as they should only be read by LR).  This was the reason that I pressed Mark to talk a bit more about using exiftool to analyze files and compare their metadata with what LR has in its catalog.  Now having said that, I am still not able to say if any assumptions that we make about this metadata conflict issue are indeed correct, as I have not been able to find a way to easily compare what LR has in its catalog, and what the file contains.  So, for the time being, I have chosen to ignore the warnings because I am not sure which action would be "correct".

Good luck,

--Ken


----------

