Lightroom/Camera Raw: Does not import DNG files from Parrot Bebop drone

This should be fixed in todays Camera Raw 9.5/Lightroom CC 2015.5/65 update.

Is this an original DNG from the drone or one you've processed with software?

I ask this because there is an XMPMETA history record that says it was converted from DNG to TIF with Lightroom 5.6 Mac.

Thanks for the sample file. I'll have someone on the eng team take a look.

That is the image after I imported it into Lightroom (taken from the lightroom directory with corrections), here is an image before (which can still be opened with photoshop, os x preview, and lightroom): https://www.dropbox.com/s/fv9p0rnfi72...

I can replicate this starting with the second DNG link, the one with snow, before it was touched with LR, and there is a workaround to prevent it from happening while we wait for Adobe to program around whatever the problem is.

The issue seems to be that if Save Metadata to Files happens first, either explicitly or because Auto Write XMP is turned on in Preferences / Catalog Settings, then the ORIGINAL DNG WILL BE CORRUPTED and unusable. Nothing beyond importing need to have occurred, either, so no crop or Export or adjustments need to be done before the corruption occurs.

The good news is, if Update DNG Preview & Metadata happens first, which must be explicitly initiated via the Develop / Photo menu, then when any Save Metadata to Files happens, things will be ok.

So it would appear that something in the DNG structure isn't handled correctly by LR when Save Metadata has occurred, but if enough of the structure is rewritten by Update DNG Preview & Metadata, then that incompatibly is gone and things work as they should.

The means that until Adobe programs around the format oddity that the Beboop drone DNGs contain, the original user can work around the problem by immediately initiating an Update DNG Previews & Metadata on the just-imported images and things will work ok after that. This does require that the Auto Write XMP setting in preferences be turned off, so LR doesn't start corrupting the files before the Update DNG Preview & Metadata can be initiated.

We will investigate the root cause.

For now a workaround is to make the DNGs from the camera read-only, which will cause any metadata edits to be written to a sidecar .xmp file instead of updating the DNG itself.