# Metadata conflict query



## dave.marina2 (Jan 14, 2020)

I'm relatively new to Lightroom Classic having just upgraded from Photoshop Elements. I imported my entire collection of 24,000 photos into Lightroom from Elements a few days ago. The catalog is on my hard disk, the photos are on a QNAP NAS. I'm running Windows 10 on my desktop. Everything seemed fine initially and I am working my way through the Lightroom Classic Quick Start book but not actually doing anything with the program.
Today I get an error message after connecting my camera for the first time to upload recent photos .. I have no idea what this means and no idea what to do about it. I haven't done anything with the photos other than import them into Lightroom Classic ... any suggestions gratefully appreciated !

Dave 
Perth, Western Australia


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## dave.marina2 (Jan 14, 2020)

Incidentally I should add that this error message seems to be on every photo in my library !
Dave
Perth, Western Australia


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## Johan Elzenga (Jan 14, 2020)

This is an error that comes up regularly. It means that Lightroom thinks that another application has changed the metadata of your photos on disk, even though that is usually not the case. If you know that you haven't done anything to the photos in another application, then choose 'Overwrite Settings'.


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## dave.marina2 (Jan 15, 2020)

Thanks very much Johan - that makes sense ! 
Do you know if I have to do that individually for every single photo in my library or is there a way to do it for all the photos ?


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## johnrellis (Jan 15, 2020)

In the Library Filter bar's Metadata browser, add the Metadata Status column and select Conflict Detected and Has Been Changed:




Select all of the displayed photos and do the menu command Metadata > Save Metadata To File.


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## dave.marina2 (Jan 15, 2020)

Thanks very much John, that works - and again to Johan
Think it is all fixed now.

Back to learning how to use the program ...

Cheers

Dave


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## DrBarryS (Jan 15, 2020)

I have defintely seen an uptick in this detection over the last year.  And I do not edit my photos externally.  There must be some change behind the scenes.  I see lots of people asking about it on various boads as well.


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## johnrellis (Jan 15, 2020)

There's been a steady stream of reports about spurious metadata conflicts since at least LR 3.  There are many bug reports about this on the official Adobe feedback forum; for example, see this one, which is particularly well-researched:
Lightroom Classic: Wrong timestamp stored in catalog causing wrong metadata status (all Windows versions)


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## clee01l (Jan 15, 2020)

I have always thought the conflict occurs when ever a virus scan checks file and updates the modified data tag. As this is the way virus scanners verify that your files have not been tampered with. Lightroom sees the changed data tag and reports a difference. It does not check what the difference is or if any metadata fields stored in the catalog are different from what is on the original file. 

After fighting this a few times, I concluded that the metadata in the catalog would always be correct and be used to create any exported derivatives and chose to simply ignore the message. 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## lbeck (Jan 26, 2021)

dave.marina2 said:


> Thanks very much Johan - that makes sense !
> Do you know if I have to do that individually for every single photo in my library or is there a way to do it for all the photos ?


A couple of things to add here.  First, to bulk-fix your photos.  Once you've found and selected all your photos with conflicts you can click on one and choose overwrite and Lr will cascade your choice across all selected photos.

Next, your confidence that you're not messing up can be confirmed by checking this YouTube video


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