Star ratings not refreshing on CR2 files

[Ethan Welty]

Intel Mac OS X 10.8.5
PM 5.0, build 15800 (e6ecc1c)

Here is what I'm experiencing:
Open a contact sheet of (5DII) CR2 files in PM.
Open them in ACR, change the star rating. Save changes.
Back in PM, changes don't load, even with Refresh or Rescan. The only way I can get them to update is to hover the mouse over each image in the contact sheet or open/close the contact sheet. For larger contact sheets, the latter doesn't work (and the former is impractical) and I have to restart PM.

If I convert the same images to DNG, the issue goes away. This issue has been with me for several versions of PM 5.0 now, but I can't remember when it first started.

[Kirk Baker]

Ethan,

Intel Mac OS X 10.8.5
PM 5.0, build 15800 (e6ecc1c)

Here is what I'm experiencing:
Open a contact sheet of (5DII) CR2 files in PM.
Open them in ACR, change the star rating. Save changes.
Back in PM, changes don't load, even with Refresh or Rescan. The only way I can get them to update is to hover the mouse over each image in the contact sheet or open/close the contact sheet. For larger contact sheets, the latter doesn't work (and the former is impractical) and I have to restart PM.

If I convert the same images to DNG, the issue goes away. This issue has been with me for several versions of PM 5.0 now, but I can't remember when it first started.

Are you using XMP sidecar files?  What is your read order for metadata?  (feel free to post a JPEG screen grab of your IPTC/XMP settings.)

-Kirk

[Ethan Welty]

Hi Kirk,

Ah yes, iptc/xmp settings, a common culprit.
Screenshot attached. With the CR2 files I am using sidecar files.


[attachment deleted by admin]

[Kirk Baker]

Ethan,

Ah yes, iptc/xmp settings, a common culprit.
Screenshot attached. With the CR2 files I am using sidecar files.

Do you have JPEGs paired with your RAW files, or are these RAW-only?

-Kirk

[Ethan Welty]

Raw only.

[Kirk Baker]

Ethan,

Please try this build: http://www.camerabits.com/download/PhotoMechanic5R15830.dmg
Windows users can try this build: http://www.camerabits.com/download/PM5SetupR15830.exe

Please let me know how it works for you.  I didn't test it by making the changes in Photoshop, but instead I used a text editor to change the rating and save the file.  When I resume PM, my CR2 file's rating automatically changed.

Thanks,

-Kirk

[Ethan Welty]

Kirk,

That seems to have fixed the problem I described. Brilliant!
I believe it may have also partly - but not completely - fixed a related issue that I forgot to bring up. If I open a large contact sheet of CR2 files, and quickly unclick a star, I can sometimes get an incomplete filtered view. If I reset and reapply the filter, images missing in the first filtered view appear. This is very confusing because there is no way of knowing if all have been loaded or not. I can't always replicate this, perhaps because of caching? Again, this is not an issue with DNG files - in that case, it says "Filtering..." until all rating metadata has been loaded before displaying the filtered images.

thanks,
ethan

[Kirk Baker]

Ethan,

That seems to have fixed the problem I described. Brilliant!

Excellent, thank you for testing the updated version.

I believe it may have also partly - but not completely - fixed a related issue that I forgot to bring up. If I open a large contact sheet of CR2 files, and quickly unclick a star, I can sometimes get an incomplete filtered view. If I reset and reapply the filter, images missing in the first filtered view appear. This is very confusing because there is no way of knowing if all have been loaded or not. I can't always replicate this, perhaps because of caching? Again, this is not an issue with DNG files - in that case, it says "Filtering..." until all rating metadata has been loaded before displaying the filtered images.

PM has never had active filtering, meaning that if you have the 5-star filter set to not show 1-star images (for instance) and you set one of your 5-star images to 1-star, that newly-made 1-star image won't spontaneously disappear.  You have to refresh (rescan is not necessary) the contact sheet to apply the filter again.  This is intentional.

Now, if you're speaking about a different usage case, please explain further.

Thanks,

-Kirk

[Ethan Welty]

PM has never had active filtering, meaning that if you have the 5-star filter set to not show 1-star images (for instance) and you set one of your 5-star images to 1-star, that newly-made 1-star image won't spontaneously disappear.  You have to refresh (rescan is not necessary) the contact sheet to apply the filter again.  This is intentional. Now, if you're speaking about a different usage case, please explain further.

Right, and I like that newly-rerated images don't spontaneously disappear. What I'm speaking about is that brief time between when a folder is clicked and the images of a contact sheet are all loaded. Let me try again to explain:

If I open a large contact sheet of CR2 files, and set an "only 5-star images" filter (for example) in this time before all the images are loaded, I get an incomplete filtered view (say 3 instead of all 10 5-star images). A reset and reapply of the filter is needed for the missing 5-star images to finally appear (a refresh would also work I think). The problem is that there is no way to know if all images have been loaded or not, and I can't always replicate this, perhaps because of caching? Interestingly, this is never an issue with DNG files - in their case, PM says "Filtering..." and the contact sheet goes blank until all image metadata has loaded and the requested filter is applied. This DNG behavior is the correct behavior. In the CR2 case, I run the risk of working on a selection of 5-star images unaware that some of the images are missing.

[Kirk Baker]

Ethan,

PM has never had active filtering, meaning that if you have the 5-star filter set to not show 1-star images (for instance) and you set one of your 5-star images to 1-star, that newly-made 1-star image won't spontaneously disappear.  You have to refresh (rescan is not necessary) the contact sheet to apply the filter again.  This is intentional. Now, if you're speaking about a different usage case, please explain further.

Right, and I like that newly-rerated images don't spontaneously disappear. What I'm speaking about is that brief time between when a folder is clicked and the images of a contact sheet are all loaded. Let me try again to explain:

If I open a large contact sheet of CR2 files, and set an "only 5-star images" filter (for example) in this time before all the images are loaded, I get an incomplete filtered view (say 3 instead of all 10 5-star images). A reset and reapply of the filter is needed for the missing 5-star images to finally appear (a refresh would also work I think). The problem is that there is no way to know if all images have been loaded or not, and I can't always replicate this, perhaps because of caching? Interestingly, this is never an issue with DNG files - in their case, PM says "Filtering..." and the contact sheet goes blank until all image metadata has loaded and the requested filter is applied. This DNG behavior is the correct behavior. In the CR2 case, I run the risk of working on a selection of 5-star images unaware that some of the images are missing.

These CR2 images that don't filter correctly (at first), did they recently have a star rating lower than 5-stars?  If for some reason the sort cache had an older value in it then it would be used instead of the actual value that gets loaded later.  Usually, some change is made to the file that would make the sort cache disregard its value (file size change, or modification date change) but that info is tracked on the main file only and not the sidecar.  The sort cache needs to consider the sidecar XMP file as well for determining if a cache entry is still valid.

-Kirk

[Ethan Welty]

These CR2 images that don't filter correctly (at first), did they recently have a star rating lower than 5-stars?  If for some reason the sort cache had an older value in it then it would be used instead of the actual value that gets loaded later.  Usually, some change is made to the file that would make the sort cache disregard its value (file size change, or modification date change) but that info is tracked on the main file only and not the sidecar.  The sort cache needs to consider the sidecar XMP file as well for determining if a cache entry is still valid.

That seems to be the issue. Here are my test results:

Open contact sheet -> Change ratings in ACR -> Contact sheet updates (Yay!) -> Close contact sheet
Open contact sheet -> Apply filter -> SUCCESS -> Close contact sheet
* Clear all caches -> Restart Photo Mechanic *
Open contact sheet -> Apply filter -> Filtering... -> SUCCESS -> Close contact sheet
* Change ratings in ACR while contact sheet closed *
Open contact sheet -> Apply filter -> FAIL
(Only updates to correct rating from ACR if thumbnail is clicked or hovered over)

[Kirk Baker]

Ethan,

Please give this build a try:

Mac:
http://www.camerabits.com/download/PhotoMechanic5R15834.dmg
Windows:
http://www.camerabits.com/download/PM5SetupR15834.exe

Please let me know if this solves the problem when filtering RAW images whose XMP sidecar files were modified outside of Photo Mechanic.

Thanks,

-Kirk

[Ethan Welty]

Please let me know if this solves the problem when filtering RAW images whose XMP sidecar files were modified outside of Photo Mechanic.

This new build (5R15834) works like a champ! Thanks Kirk, you're the best