Skip navigation
bostonmacro
bostonmacro Calculating status...
Currently Being Moderated

lightroom changing date stamps (or more) on unopened files??

May 19, 2011 6:13 AM

I routinely backup my catalog to an external drive, and then I sync all the folders with images to the same drive. I have done this ever since starting with Lightroom a long time ago, with no problems. Last night, I backed up the catalog (LR 3.4), and afterwards, I set up a sync. There should have been 50+ deletions and a smaller number of additions, the latter mostly XMP files. I got those, but the synch software also said it needed to update roughly 2000 additional files. Windows confirmed that the date stamps of these files had been changed. These were all jpgs or XMP files, not raw files. I had not done anything with any of these 2000 extra files. Some I had not touched since December of 2008! Could LR have changed the date stamps of these files, or done some other modification, while updating the catalog for it's backup? I have never experienced anything like this before, and now I am uncertain which version of the 2000 files to keep.

 

Thanks for any thoughts.

498 Views   7 Replies   Latest reply: R Owens, May 19, 2011 11:22 AM
 
Replies
  • ssprengel
    Currently Being Moderated
    1. ssprengel,
    May 19, 2011 7:06 AM   in reply to bostonmacro
    Report

    Did you turn on Auto updating of the XMPs and the checking process finally made it over to those directories?  It takes a long time to look at every file to see if it is up-to-date or not so depending on how long you have LR open, usually, it might not get a chance to look at them all unless you left it open a long time.

     
    |
    Mark as:
  • bostonmacro
    Currently Being Moderated
    2. bostonmacro,
    May 19, 2011 7:15 AM   in reply to ssprengel
    Report

    If you mean "automatically write changes into XMP", I have that checked. Is there another setting that you are referring to? Would this also affect jpgs? The time stamps changed on jpgs that I worked on only years ago, before I even installed LR.

     
    |
    Mark as:
  • clvrmnky
    Currently Being Moderated
    3. clvrmnky,
    May 19, 2011 8:00 AM   in reply to bostonmacro
    Report

    bostonmacro wrote:

     

    If you mean "automatically write changes into XMP", I have that checked. Is there another setting that you are referring to? Would this also affect jpgs? The time stamps changed on jpgs that I worked on only years ago, before I even installed LR.

     

    This setting will affect JPEGs. The XMP block is updated in the file metadata directly, or updates a sidecar file for those file types where there is no such metadata block, or updating the block may be dangerous (i.e., in proprietary files.)

     

    Updating the metadata in JPEGs will update the last modified timestamp on the file object itself.

     
    |
    Mark as:
  • PhotoGAP
    Currently Being Moderated
    4. PhotoGAP,
    May 19, 2011 8:41 AM   in reply to bostonmacro
    Report

    Did you do any housekeeping work with your keywords? If you renamed any KWs, or moved any around in your hierarchy, and if auto write XMP is checked, then LR will update the effected files throughout your catalog. Same for any other metadata that may be common to a group of files.

     
    |
    Mark as:
  • bostonmacro
    Currently Being Moderated
    5. bostonmacro,
    May 19, 2011 9:17 AM   in reply to PhotoGAP
    Report

    Thanks for all the replies.

     

    I don't think I changed any kewords at all, and certainly not for the files in question. Most of them have no keywords. Many have no LR edits--some have no edits at all. Most are files that I have not touched with any program in a long time. So there shouldn't have been any metadata changed at all.

     

    However, I did change computers not that long ago. Until then, the files on the external drive were my primary copies, and a different external drive served as storage for backup copies. When I got the new computer, a month or more ago, I copied all of these files to a 1 TB internal drive and started using the copies on the external drive as a backup. In addition, more recently, I upgraded to 3.4. I have used LR many times since both of these changes, but I wonder if they might have caused it somehow.

     
    |
    Mark as:
  • R Owens
    Currently Being Moderated
    6. R Owens,
    May 19, 2011 11:22 AM   in reply to bostonmacro
    Report

    When you copied the files to the new drive they became new files created on that date.

    I have the same thing, files not worked on in ten years with a creation date of 2009 when I got the latest computer.

     

    Rich

     
    |
    Mark as:
  • bostonmacro
    Currently Being Moderated
    7. bostonmacro,
    May 19, 2011 11:42 AM   in reply to R Owens
    Report

    Rich,

     

    Thanks very much. I think this resolves it.

     

    Dan

     
    |
    Mark as:
Actions

More Like This

  • Retrieving data ...

Bookmarked By (0)

Answers + Points = Status

  • 10 points awarded for Correct Answers
  • 5 points awarded for Helpful Answers
  • 10,000+ points
  • 1,001-10,000 points
  • 501-1,000 points
  • 5-500 points