Lightroom Classic: iPhone import shows already imported images as new

Ok... This seems messed up. Time after time Lightroom Classic shows images that I just imported as new. Even though I just imported them and have not touched them in any way on the phone or on the computer... Plus when I synchronize the folder it shows images that are missing but when I click on "Show in Explorer" the images are clearly there.

I am really confused about this and I suspect something is going terribly wrong here or I am doing something the software does not anticipate. Seems to me a like this is not ready for prime time. It works perfectly well when importing images from an sd-card. Why is it so hard to do that from the phone? I also read about people having issues importing from a connected camera. Can it be that the data is communicated differently when connecting a device/camera?

You have discovered a quirk about Apple photos in iOS! It turns out, whenever you edit a picture on your iPhone it creates a derivative file that is invisible through the UI but is there "behind the scenes."

I was able to reproduce it like this:
1. import new picture from my iPhone into Lr Classic
2. disconnect iPhone from computer 
3. Edit the picture in Apple Photos app on iPhone
4. Connect iPhone to computer and select Import in Lr Classic 
5. Image presents as a new image available for import

Since Apple treats every edit as a new image Lightroom sees them as new images as well. In this example my first image had the filename IMG_4163.JPG. The second image was given the filename IMG_E4163.JPG

So... there it is. It's iOS that causes it and not Lightroom. Kinda interesting though! Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

Cheers!

Thanks for your reply Rick!

As said above, I did not edit any of the images in between imports. I also don't see the naming difference you mention. It shows e.g. IMG_3507.jpg as new. When I search that image in Windows Explorer I can find it in the folder that's presumably in LR.

Plus there's the quirk that after importing, when I sync the folder by choosing "Synchronize Folder..." in LR, just to make sure everything is in order, I get a report about missing images. But again, when I test-serach a few images LR shows as missing, I can find them through Windows Explorer.

The main problem with syncing iPhone, and what makes me feel very uneasy, is that there's many images. And on the phone, I tempt to shoot a few after each other at the same location to make sure I got the shot I wanted. And then having to go through the phone, the folders in the OS and compare both to what I got in LR becomes very messy and frustrating.

I am actively investigating if I could use Lightroom CC to sync phone images to the desktop and skip the manual import. But so far that was also pretty frustrating tbh. Especially with the naming of the products. One thing the people that decided to rename Lightroom as we knew it to Classic and making Lightroom CC a new product with the same name, is that it creates a huge mess if you start Googling Lightroom CC problems. The results barely point to the new Lightroom CC, most of the times to the one that's now called Classic and then there's Lightroom Mobile problems coming into the mix... In the future, if you plan to release a new product, give it a new name!! That charade is hurting us and in the end your products...

Any news on this? I'd be happy to help resolving this issue. Let me know what I can do to assist.

For now, I am taking a photo of a note on paper that says "This photo was taken after the last import to Lightroom. Everything before that has been manually collated". Which is a stone age solution...

This is weird. I'm passing this on to our engineers so either I or one of the team will get back to you.

Rick

Hi Alex,

We are looking into the issue. In order to investigate this issue further,Could you please follow the below steps and then share the catalog with us?

1)Create a new catalog.
2) Import images from iPhone. 
3) Disconnect your phone
4) After some time, connect the iPhone and try to import the same images in same catalog.
5) Note the timestamp of both the images(image imported in first import and image imported in second import)
6) Share the catalog with us.

Thanks
Mayuri

Thanks Rick & Mayuri, Thank you for your answers. I will do this later today. How should I deliver the catalog with you? And note the timestamp you mean to jot that into a text file and send it alongside the catalog?


I'm about to pull my hair out.  There's further problems with this.

- After importing right click the folder where you just imported images from the iPhone to and choose "Synchronize Folder..."

Images get reported missing while they're clearly on the disc.

When I choose to synchronize the folder the JPGs get removed from the catalog and the MOV files remain.

This is beyond me... Why o why??

EDIT:
After syncing a few times because I assembled a panorama outside of Lightroom and edited this in Photoshop it seems that all images are back in the catalog. Not that I would have noticed it importing the missing files again tho'. Plus it groups JPG and MOV files under one node, but displaying two nodes in Lightroom. Weird, or?

Any news on this? Maybe the conversation got lost because it was restarted in the middle of the thread?

Not that I am asking for an immediate fix, but a live-sign would be nice.

Thanks!