I want to clarify something I posted above: the catalog update is done once per plug-in per metadata version. In my case, shutting down Lightroom and restarting was all it took to get things going again.
I really can’t say what caused the initial problem, but I have experienced it on Windows (and it’s caused my heart to skip a beat ? ). This time, you won’t see the “update” prompt because the update has already been made (assuming you’re opening the same catalog). You should be able to reinstall the Shutterfly Upload plug-in without incident. Uninstalling the plug-in that triggered the update does not undo the catalog change. Once you OK it, and Lightroom makes the update, it’s a done deal. When a plug-in - any plug-in - is configured to save metadata, Lightroom has to make a one-time update to the catalog to accommodate it (that was the prompt you saw). My plug-in saves metadata about your uploads to Shutterfly in the Lightroom catalog using the tools Lightroom provides. I removed the plugin and the cat now opens. Next day the cat wouldn’t open in LR4 because it wasn’t “writable.” Checked properties and they were good.
The installation asked me to update my catalogue. Other goodies to look forward to are Lightroom 3+ “Publish Service” support, support for Shutterfly folders (did you know your albums are stored in folders? ? ), and one-time-and-you’re-done sign-in (no more login, logoff, passwords, etc., etc.). I’ve got a new version of the plug-in that’s almost ready for release that will be able to work-around - if not totally eliminate - this problem. For what it’s worth, I haven’t seen this problem until recently (I’m not sure if something changed on Shutterfly’s side, or if I just never noticed it). I’ve noticed that Shutterfly appears to cache the list for a minute or two, so if you log off and back on again, the list retrieval may be successful the second time (or the third?). If you’re so inclined, you could turn on the plug-in’s logging and see if this is what’s going on (it probably is). If you have “a lot” of albums, the retrieval request may be silently timing out before Shutterfly responds.
The “Add to existing” radio button activates after your album list is successfully retrieved from Shutterfly (after logging in, of course ? ). This is with 64-bit Windows LR 3.6 and LR 4. The radio button to switch from “Add to new” to “Add to existing” is disabled. I’m actually not able to specify existing albums at all. I’ve published v1.2 of the plug-in that works-around the change on LR3 beta, while continuing to work on LR 2.x versions. Update #2: While I haven’t received a definitive answer from any Adobe employee, it looks like there’s been a change with the published API that broke the metadata maintenace tools introduced in v1.1 of this plug-in. I’ll update this post if I get any new information. Update: I’ve posted a query to the LR3 beta Adobe forum.
But, thanks for the heads-up that all is unlikely to be smooth in the transition to LR3.
[I haven’t done any testing with the Lightroom 3 beta, and Adobe hasn’t released any SDK documentation for the new code yet, so I can’t say whether it’s my code or their code that’s broken ?. The plug-in encountered an error when performing the menu item “Shutterfly Upload extras…”. LrCatalog:withPrivateWriteAccessDo: must be called from within an LrTask Plug-in error log for plug-in at: C:\Users\owner\Downloads\shutterflyupload_1_1\shutterfly-dmckee.lrpluginĪn error occurred while attempting to run one of the plug-in’s scripts.
I’ll take a look and see what I can figure out. (replacing “-at-” and “-dot-” with and “.”, respectively). Click on it to see the file in your Finder (a text file named “ShutterflyUpload.log”). The “Show Log File” link should now be active. Take a look in the “Shutterfly Upload Global settings” section. Once you’ve captured it, return to the Plug-in manager and turn off the plug-in’s logging (un-check “Enable logging” and press “Reload Plug-in” again).