Adobe Lightroom 2015.8 - lost keywords over the last weeks and keyword hierarchy messed up

[thomasw93998831]

Hi,

today I noticed that I lost many keywords within my catalog (30.000 photos).

I searched back through older backups and I recognized that I lost more and more over the different backup versions starting Dez 2016. Also my keyword hierarchy was messed up.

Did anyone else experience such problems ?

Chat support told me the only way to solve these technical issues is via this forum. Is this true ?

Can´t believe that a professional photographer spends his time within a forum rather then calling a technical hotline for a payed product ...

Thanks

Tom

[john beardsworth]

Can't believe a professional photographer only notices a problem after a few months?

Seriously, Tom, people here use Lightroom and know its strengths, weaknesses, and the kinds of things people do. We don't answer on autopilot from help desk software but from direct experience. And we're all volunteers. We don't owe you anything, but ask politely, explain your problems as clearly as you can, and you'll get more help and advice that you might expect.

As for your problem, I don't think it's common - keywords don't just disappear and hierarchies don't mess themselves up. My guess is that you might have a Metadata Preset for some other purpose (eg copyright) but you've not noticed keywords are ticked even though they are blank in that preset. Applying it will clear the keywords for those photos. Hierarchies tend to get messed up when people export files to other programs and then reimport those files - Export does have a Preserve Keyword Hierarchy, which might be unchecked, or the other program may be screwing things up. Do those ideas give you a clue?

[thomasw93998831]

Hi John,

thanks for your quick response.

This was a misunderstanding as I did not expect you or any other non-Adobe personal to help me with my technical problems (Adobe chat told me that Adobe supporter also participate in this forum). Also I am not a professional photographer but I just estimated how one of those who really rely on this product for their daily work manage these situations.

All of this was referring to the Adobe chat I had in the morning telling me that the only way to solve my technical problem is a forum despite the fact that I pay a certain amount of money to Adobe each month. I did not want to offend anyone helping in their spare time. Imagine I buy a car and have a technical problem after a few weeks - then the manufacturer is telling me I should look for a solution in a forum ? I just can not believe that there is no direct support from Adobe on technical issues with Lightroom. Maybe I missed something - if so please point me to it. Is there really no direct technical support from Adobe available in these cases ?

---

Back to my problem:

This is the keyword list from my catalog backup in December:

And this is the list currently:

Please believe me that I am not a complete beginner in computer usage (working in the IT business for a lot of years) so I would have been aware if I deleted all those keywords by myself .

I noticed keyword problems in January where I had to do some re-arrangements in the keyword hierarchy because it was "messing up" (sorry I don´t have a better word for it) - I admit I should have investigate already at this time:

I have MetaData presets but they are only applied on the initial import, also I did not do any export & reimports.

But I thought noticed that Adobe added some functionalities and features to the keywords - e.g. a new way of displaying hierarchies "keyword < keyword < keyword". So at least to my observation there were changes within this topic which might relate to my issue.

Regards Tom

PS: Also some of the keywords in the last screenshot like "glow", "holiday", "light" -> I did not create them myself ...

[dj_paige]

My first guess is that you actually have multiple catalogs, and this accounts for the difference in the keyword list. We have even seen cases where people have multiple catalogs and don't realize it.

So please confirm that you do (or do not) have multiple catalogs by using your operating system's search feature and searching for all files on all hard disks that have names ending with .LRCAT.

[thomasw93998831]

Hi dj_paige,

I have multiple catalogs (exactly two) since mid last year.

The other catalog has a very short keyword list which is still fine.

Regards Tom

[john beardsworth]

"Also some of the keywords in the last screenshot like "glow", "holiday", "light" -> I did not create them myself ..."  But you might have imported a picture from somebody else.

Adobe will support installation and that the software is running properly, but they haven't changed this area recently and this doesn't look like a bug. You wouldn't expect the car maker to help you with your driving, and it's similar here.

[thomasw93998831]

John,

as I told you I did not drive this way on purpose.

And my believe is that a software developer has to fix and help with problems which appear during runtime - not only with installation purposes.

Regards Tom

[john beardsworth]

I don't think this is something that just appears during runtime, Tom. It'll be something you have done by mistake or by not noticing. So find which images have "glow" applied (you can click an arrow on the right side of the keyword) and it should be obvious what happened. It's most probable that you imported images tagged by someone else.

[thomasw93998831]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/john+beardsworth  schrieb

I don't think this is something that just appears during runtime, Tom. It'll be something you have done by mistake or by not noticing. So find which images have "glow" applied (you can click an arrow on the right side of the keyword) and it should be obvious what happened. It's most probable that you imported images tagged by someone else.

So I checked the glow etc. keywords in an old backup catalog version - and they appeared because I imported one picture from an internet search which had pre-added keywords Lightroom recognized.

But even those mentioned keywords vanished in my backups since beginning of Feb.

But if no one else experienced such an issue I will take it as it is.

Also the imho missing Adobe technical support.

But keep up the good supporting work from your side ...

Thanks Thomas

[ouiouiphoto]

Hello Thomas

Di you find the problem finaly. I have a user with the same problem. The backup catalog have less keywords that the Backed up one. In the backup catalog some keyword disapear from photos and the keyword list is reduced.  

Kind regards

[dj_paige]

And my believe is that a software developer has to fix and help with problems which appear during runtime - not only with installation purposes

You can believe anything you want, but Adobe software developers will not be assisting you. That simply doesn't happen.

I have multiple catalogs (exactly two) since mid last year.

Did you actually perform the search using your operating system's search feature? That's what I asked you to do to confirm that there are no un-expected catalogs, did you actually do that?

[thomasw93998831]

Hallo dj_paige,

I searched and I found only the expected catalogs. So no wrong catalog chosen here.

Regards Thomas