Understanding the Out of sync indicator

[quartz]

Dear all,

Please help me understand how and when the out-of-sync marker is triggered.
I have been struggling with this for some time now, but I don’t fully understand how it works….

The way I understand it is that the icon indicates that the database contains metadata that needs to be written to the image file or to an XMP sidecar.
In the manual it is explained as: “When a file is out-of-sync, then that indicates that Photo Supreme has reason to assume that the metadata in the file may be different from what it knows in the catalog.“

In my workflow I have no need for keywords, color labels, ratings etc. to travel with my images.
I have no third-party applications nor client needing it.
So I like to keep everything internal to the database without a need to write data to the image files.
I think I have PSU properly configured to achieve that.

Nevertheless, when I import images the out-of-sync indicator is shown on the thumbnails.

This certainly is configuration dependent, so let me describe the relevant configuration details.

I use private Catalog labels exclusively.
Private labels are internal to the catalog only, so there should be no need to write them to the image files.


Screenshot 2023-08-24 at 13.56.55.png (182.14 KiB) Viewed 12180 times

The Synchronize Settings - Write settings is set to Store metadata to the database only.
All other checkboxes are unchecked.


Screenshot 2023-08-24 at 13.58.05.png (533.67 KiB) Viewed 12180 times

The Synchronize Settings - Read settings - Keyword processing is set to Do not convert keywords to Catalog labels.
All checkboxes are unchecked.


Screenshot 2023-08-24 at 14.00.42.png (501.46 KiB) Viewed 12180 times

When I import images to the catalog the ingested images are assigned a private Catalog label corresponding to the first step in my workflow.


Screenshot 2023-08-24 at 14.03.15.png (595.18 KiB) Viewed 12180 times

After import of a new image the image has been assigned the proper label and I can find it in the Workflow category of the Categories panel.

So far so good.

However, the thumbnail then shows the Out-of-sync marker.

My question is why?
Which image metadata needs to be synced between database and image?

As far as I understand there is nothing to sync given the configuration I use.

Thank you for any suggestion to clear up the fog in my mind ....

[Hert]

Upon a first import, the XMP block is created which puts images out of sync.

But you are correct that displaying the out-of-sync marker makes little sense when you ticked the box for "store the metadata to the database only". As soon as you untick that, PSU should know the sync state, hence why PSU always maintains the sync state...it just doesn't act on it when that box is ticked.

[quartz]

Thanks for responding.

I understand now better what is going on under the hood.

Is there anything I can do on my side to make the out-of-sync indicator invisible?

I noticed that the Clean and Framed thumbnails do not show the indicator, so I tried to configure a Custom thumbnail to hide the indicator while showing the information I want it to show, but I did not succeed.

[Hert]

There's no control over that. PSU just shouldn't show the indicator when the forementioned preference setting is ticked.

[quartz]

Oké, thank you, that is clear.

I just realized that, even if one could hide the indicator on the thumbnail, there would still be the Out of Sync in the States tab that would tell there are files to be synced, so the thumb would be only a partial solution.

I guess I'll have to live with it, this time understanding why the indicator shows up

[quartz]

Thank you Hert for fixing this, you made my day!