Apple Leopard + LightRoom + JPEG = BAD [READ THIS]

01/10/2008 09:26:45 AM · #1

Some of you might have seen my other thread about the problems I was having on my new Mac with Leopard.

The short of the problem is that I have JPEGs, unedited, that are crashing Finder and a number of Macintosh applications. Now we've replicated this on others computers (thanks

slaakso and

scalvert) and others who helped in general in the thread!

Now on one of my login accounts, the dock is repeatedly crashing, starting, crashing, starting, ... So this morning I'm chasing it down looking through the system.log. The error of significance is:

...[NSCFDictionary addObject:]: unrecognized selector....

Which when I searched, I found this on the Apple discussion website:

//discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1199138

Basically, it says that

1) LOTS of people are having this problem
2) It affects people who are running Lightroom. Apparently, LR is WRITING to the IPTC portion of JPEGs, even though it's not really supposed to (at least doesn't on the PC)
3) Adobe has known about this problem. They just claim 1.2 is not fully Leopard compatible. "�Photoshop Lightroom 1.2 is not fully certified for Mac OS X Leopard, but future updates will address areas of Leopard compatibility�
4) Apple apparently knows about this problem since at least early Nov. It is due to the fact that they modified systemwide JPEG handling in Leopard. The chose not to address it at all in the 10.5.1 update
5) If you put one of these "bad" jpegs in your Downloads folder then Dock crashes. And crashes again on restart. Forever. With no Dock you can't (easily) switch apps. Even a reboot doesn't even help since the same problem will keep happening until you hide that file from Dock.
6) CORRECTION: At least one post in the thread has seen the problem caused by Photoshop CS3!

Both Adobe and Apple seem to be at fault:

1) Adobe shouldn't be writing to the JPEG when you have it set to write sidecar files.
2) Apple is at fault for letting their programs crash when they see (unexpected?) IPTC data
3) Apple is at fault for not addressing this along with the 10.5.1 update

Some advice from the long thread on the apple forums:

1) removing all IPTC data from the files with jhead (//www.sentex.net/~mwandel/jhead/) cures the problem (I have yet to verify that).
2) Using EXIFTool to batch modify the EXIF on your photos also works (unverified)
3) I found exporting a new JPEG with Lightroom can also fix it.
4) There's a workaround for LR. (They claim it's here, but I haven't found it yet.]

Let's hope we see a fix in Leopard 10.5.2.

Message edited by author 2008-01-10 09:52:33.

geoffb

01/10/2008 09:46:25 AM · #2

Originally posted by nshapiro:

Some of you might have seen my other thread about the problems I was having on my new Mac with Leopard.

...

They just claim 1.2 is not fully Leopard compatible. "�Photoshop Lightroom 1.2 is not fully certified for Mac OS X Leopard, but future updates will address areas of Leopard compatibility�

Adobe has put out two updates since 1.2. Have you tried those?

01/10/2008 09:50:55 AM · #3

Originally posted by geoffb:

Originally posted by nshapiro:
Some of you might have seen my other thread about the problems I was having on my new Mac with Leopard.

...

They just claim 1.2 is not fully Leopard compatible. "�Photoshop Lightroom 1.2 is not fully certified for Mac OS X Leopard, but future updates will address areas of Leopard compatibility�

Adobe has put out two updates since 1.2. Have you tried those?

Yes, my LR is up to date with 1.3.1. That statement was just copied from the thread (hence the 1.2). Here's some additional info from Adobe:

//blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/2007/12/lightroom_131_and_camera_raw_4.html

Here's the key info from the blog:

"Per my earlier post, the Finder in Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.5.1 can crash when viewing files that contain Lightroom XMP Snapshot data created in the develop module. This is an error in how the Finder reads metadata and will require an operating system update to solve. The error can be reduced for additional files going forward by modifying the Lightroom preference to *not* save Develop settings within JPEG, TIFF or PSD files. (Preferences: Catalog Settings: Metadata)"

01/10/2008 10:17:10 AM · #4

Good work Neil, too bad you had to suffer through all this.

Caution on editing the EXIF data using the EXIF Tool for clean up - Would that affect the DPC requirement of unmodified EXIF data on the original file? I don't know the answer but that rasied a red flag for me.

I've been trying to decide between Aperture and Lightroom. I've been leaning toward Lightroom, but now I'll wait until they get this figured out.

01/10/2008 10:36:39 AM · #5

Originally posted by scarbrd:

Caution on editing the EXIF data using the EXIF Tool for clean up - Would that affect the DPC requirement of unmodified EXIF data on the original file?

The problem occurs with JPEG files exported from Lightroom, which would be invalid as DPC originals anyway. The native camera JPEGs are fine.

01/10/2008 10:40:46 AM · #6

Originally posted by scalvert:

Originally posted by scarbrd:
Caution on editing the EXIF data using the EXIF Tool for clean up - Would that affect the DPC requirement of unmodified EXIF data on the original file?

The problem occurs with JPEG files exported from Lightroom, which would be invalid as DPC originals anyway. The native camera JPEGs are fine.

Thanks Shannon!

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM

01/10/2008 10:59:31 AM · #7

Originally posted by scalvert:

That's a nasty one, although to be fair Adobe's own web site says that "Photoshop Lightroom 1.2 is not fully certified for Mac OS X Leopard, but future updates will address areas of Leopard compatibility." I'm more than a little shocked that Leopard could have such a major issue with JPEG metadata, but other software (and native camera JPEGs) don't seem to have the same problem, so it may be something that Apple couldn't have anticipated with Adobe's software. For now turning off the Lightroom option to "Automatically write changes into XMP" will prevent the issue.

Originally posted by scarbrd:
Caution on editing the EXIF data using the EXIF Tool for clean up - Would that affect the DPC requirement of unmodified EXIF data on the original file?

The problem occurs with JPEG files exported from Lightroom, which would be invalid as DPC originals anyway. The native camera JPEGs are fine.

No this isn't correct. The exported files are fine (when I finally was able to send that file to you the other day, that WAS an exported file. The one that was bad was the original (only renamed). The problem is the native files are being touched by Lightroom.

And of course it's not just Lumix files.

And someone has seen the problem with CS3 as well.

And... ;)

Mike_Adams

Canon EOS-40D

01/10/2008 11:02:16 AM · #8

APERTURE!!

Go into your local Apple store and try it out. I was in an Apple store and was working on a 30" in full native RAW doing pretty much any and everything I would have done in CS3 and there were probably 4 people behind me watching me pep up a mountain and sky image and I literally thought several of us were going to cry :) Yes it is that good, and yes you can still use it with CS3 but the flexibility to use all of the tools while having a marvelous workflow?? Simply put, when computer upgrade time comes Mac Pro and Aperture are my purchases!!

Now, so sorry about all this JPG craziness you had to deal with, but thank you so much for being willing to lay out all the issues and steps for us. You have probably saved many hours of customer service!!

salmiakki

Sony Alpha a7R III

Sony Sonnar T* 35mm F2.8 ZA

01/10/2008 11:04:41 AM · #9

I agree, Aperture rocks. Or, at least it will rock again once Apple provides support for the .NEF files from the two new Nikons (D300 and D3)! I'm waiting very patiently.

Originally posted by Mike_Adams:

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM

01/10/2008 11:10:36 AM · #10

More info: I think the "Bad" setting in LR is this:

"Include Develop settings in metadata inside JPEG, TIFF, and PSD files"

To Adobe's defense, I think this is pretty clear that this being checked gives it permission to write to the files. The forum thread I read before implied that it was writing even though the settings were not that way. We'll see if that fixes it.

To Apple's defense for not fixing this problem in Leopard in the two+ months this has been known, ... I don't see any defense. (Assuming Adobe is correctly stating that the files are valid, but in fact, there's no good excuse since they don't crash Windows, and since a bad jpeg file or exif info shouldn't **crash** finder (it should just not display.)

Now I still have to find "where" the jpg files are that are continually and repeatedly crashing the Dock. Hopefully, it's not "all my jpeg files".

Photologist

Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max

01/10/2008 11:17:37 AM · #11

For those that really want to use Lightroom without all the hassle, run it on a Windows Vista PC. :-)

01/10/2008 11:20:44 AM · #12

Originally posted by nshapiro:

Now I still have to find "where" the jpg files are that are continually and repeatedly crashing the Dock.

The problem file(s) will be in a folder in the Dock itself. I would check your Download folder first.

01/10/2008 11:30:59 AM · #13

Originally posted by scalvert:

Originally posted by nshapiro:
Now I still have to find "where" the jpg files are that are continually and repeatedly crashing the Dock.

The problem file(s) will be in a folder in the Dock itself. I would check your Download folder first.

I found it; three files on my desktop. And not even camera files (screen grabs). As soon as I moved them to the trash, the dock came up and stayed!

01/10/2008 11:37:30 AM · #14

Originally posted by nshapiro:

I found it; three files on my desktop. And not even camera files (screen grabs). As soon as I moved them to the trash, the dock came up and stayed!

That's interesting. Mac screen grabs are PNG files, not JPEGs. :-/

Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM

01/10/2008 11:44:29 AM · #15

Originally posted by scalvert:

Originally posted by nshapiro:
I found it; three files on my desktop. And not even camera files (screen grabs). As soon as I moved them to the trash, the dock came up and stayed!

That's interesting. Mac screen grabs are PNG files, not JPEGs. :-/

Actually, they were grabbed in Apple "Grab" and saved as TIFFs, then converted to JPG to post. I don't recall what I used to convert them, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't lightroom (it was probably Graphicconverter, but I don't remember.) Nonetheless, LR could have touched them.

Message edited by author 2008-01-10 11:44:55.

digitalpins

Canon EOS-60D

01/10/2008 11:50:55 AM · #16

wow thanks for the info, I am glad I did not install leopard on my macbook yet. I was going to but I am waiting still....

On my macbook I am using both lightroom and aperture I kind of like both, lightroom is a little faster too me though

Message edited by author 2008-01-10 11:51:25.

slaakso

Olympus E-510

Olympus 50mm f/2.0 Macro ED Zuiko Digital

01/10/2008 12:22:21 PM · #17

Wow! Neil you are really taking the bull by the horns here I applaud your efforts. I am happy that you found a way to keep your dock up and running after trashing the specific files. I was able to get my files out easily since they were not on the dock and only on the desktop. I still have a mail account that is problematic and will have to delete. I need to see if there is anything in there I cannot live without. I have turned off the account and this has stopped the file problems though I do not know if there e-mails I need in other folders, in mail, from this account before deleting the offending e-mail account.

I run leopard and have been happy with it since the middle of November. I have not had the issues that other people have been having and I am happy about this.

01/10/2008 12:59:10 PM · #18

Originally posted by slaakso:

Oh wow, I'm REALLY sorry that the file I sent you is causing so much grief. I would have NEVER done it if I thought there was even a remote chance of that. (It was the same email I had sent to Shannon, and he didn't have problems, so at that point I just thought we were just checking whether the nVidia 7300GT had a problem with this file.

SORRY!

01/10/2008 01:07:10 PM · #19

Originally posted by Mike_Adams:

Thanks for that.

I am still using a 4 year old Dual G5 tower as my main work machine. I've heard Aperture can be slow on non-Intel Macs. I do have a new MacBook and just upgraded the wife's iMac to one of the new Dual Core iMacs. Sad thing it, my once screaming Mac Pro is now the slowest computer in the house!

I am wating for Tuesday's MacWorld keynote, if something compelling comes out of that, I'll probably order a new desktop Mac. I hope they come out with something to bridge the gap between the iMac and Mac Pro. The new 8-core MacPros may be a bit of overkill, but man to they look sweet.

01/10/2008 01:09:03 PM · #20

Originally posted by nshapiro:

I'm REALLY sorry that the file I sent you is causing so much grief. I would have NEVER done it if I thought there was even a remote chance of that. (It was the same email I had sent to Shannon...

HEY! ;-P

Prof_Fate

01/10/2008 01:19:51 PM · #21

I'm a PC guy, but since I've never met a Mac owner that's every had a problem of any kind, ever, with a Mac I can only assume you're making this all up.
And since Macs don't break or have issues, getting help will be impossible as no one has needed to learn how to fix them.

Sorry to interrupt, but every broken PC thread has some Mac-ssole butting in to say how Macs don't have those issues and never break.