Modified CR2 files in ACR and changes were not saved

Question

I have a directory with 1400 CR2 files in it. I have a stack of picks that I am working with. I went through and for 6 hours adjusted all the images by opening them in Camera Raw and making changes to White Balance, Fill light, etc... When I was done, i clicked done to save the changes to the file (Like I've done many many times before).However most of the modifications were never saved. All the files have sidecar xmp files, but most show original files without modification. I edited approximately 580 images this way and probably 20% kept the changes and the rest "seem" to have reverted back to their original "As Shot" state. Any ideas what happened? Is this reversible or did I just waste my life?

Answer 1

Look at the folder in windows Explorer.   What are the time stamps on  the xmp files?  Do they appear to be "current" -- that is, timestamps approximately when you performed the ACR edits and pressed Done?  Or do 70 to 80% of them have earlier time stamps?  Current time stamps would suggest that xmp files are being written or updated, possibly omitting some ACR edit data; earlier time stamps suggest that the xmp files were not updated by ACR-Done.
Sequence the xmp files by Date Modified.   Do the xmp file time stamps appear to be in time groups?  If you clicked Done after editing 20-25 images in ACR, you would expect to see 20-25 xmp files with the same file modified date and time.  If you see this, it suggests that entire groups of edits were saved; but some groups of edits that should be saved by a Done from ACR may not have been saved to xmp.  If you see groups of substantially fewer than your usualy edit Done sets of 20-25, it suggests that only some xmp files were written.
Since it looks like that you will need to go back and redo the edits to a good many of your 580 images, you might try looking at the xmp files after each ACR Done.  Sequence the xmp files by Date Modified.  Is the number of file modified timestamps with the 'now' date and time the same as the number of files you just edited in ACR?
In Bridge, do the just-performed edits appear in the thumbnails?  Look a the ACR values in the metadata for each of the just-edited images.  Do they show the values you just edited?  (Be sure that you have checked on Camera Raw metadata in Bridge preferences.)