Problem writing meta data changes in xmp in spite of enabled settings

Question

Dear Adobe Community
After struggling with this for two full days and one night, you are my last hope before I give up and migrate to Aperture instead.
I am having problems with Lightroom 5 writing meta data changes into xmp and including development settings in JPEG, inspite of having ticked all three boxed in catalog settings.
In spite of having checked all boxes, Lightroom refused to actually perform the actions. I allowed the save action to take a lot longer than the saving indicator showed was needed, but regardless of this no edits made in the photo would be visible outside Lightroom. I also tried unticking and ticking and restarting my compute.
Therefore, I uninstalled the program and the reinstalled it again (the trial version both times). I added about 5000 images to Lightroom (i.e. referenced). After having made a couple of changes for one photo in development settings, I tried closing the program. However, then this message was then displayed:
I left the program open and running for about 5-5 hours, then tried closing the program, but the message still came up so I closed the program and restarted the computer. I tried making changes to another photo, saving and then closing and the same message comes up. The program also becomes unresponsive, and of course still no meta data has been saved to the photo, i.e. when opening it outside Lightroom, the edits of the photos is not shown.
What do do? I would greatly appreciate any insights, since I have now completely hit the wall.
Oh yes, that´s right:
What version of Lightroom? Include the minor version number (e.g., Lighroom 4 with the 4.1 update).
Lightroom 5.3
Have you installed the recent updates? (If not, you should. They fix a lot of problems.)
I installed the program two days ago and then for the second time today.
What operating system? This should include specific minor version numbers, like "Mac OSX v10.6.8"---not just "Mac".
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_8_5) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/31.0.1650.63 Safari/537.36
What kind(s) of image file(s)? When talking about camera raw files, include the model of camera.
JPEG
If you are getting error message(s), what is the full text of the error message(s)?
Please see screen dumps above
What were you doing when the problem occurred?
Trying to save metadata + trying to open images that it seemed I had saved meta data to
Has this ever worked before?
No
What other software are you running?
For some time Chrome, Firefox, Itunes. Then I closed all other software.
Tell us about your computer hardware. How much RAM is installed?  How much free space is on your system (C:) drive?
4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Has this ever worked before?  If so, do you recall any changes you made to Lightroom, such as adding Plug-ins, presets, etc.?  Did you make any changes to your system, such as updating hardware, printers or drivers, or installing/uninstalling any programs?
No, the problems have been there all the time.

Answer 1

AnnaK wrote:
Hi Rob
I think you succeeded in partly convincing me. : ) I think I will go for a non-destrucitve program like LR when I am back in Sweden, but will opt for a destructive one for now.  Unfortuntately, I have an Olypmus- so judging from your comment NX2 might not be for me.
Hi AnnaK (see below).
AnnaK wrote:
My old snaps are JPEG, but I recently upgraded to an Olympus e-pl5 and will notw (edited by RC) start shooting RAW.
Note: I edited your statement: I assume you meant now instead of not.
If you start shooting raw, then you're gonna need a raw processor, regardless of what the next step in the process will be. And there are none better for this purpose than Lightroom, in my opinion. As has been said, you can export those back to Lightroom as jpeg then delete the raws, if storage is a major issue, or convert to Lossy DNG. Both of those options assume you're willing to adopt a non-destructive workflow, from there on out anyway (not an absolute requirement, but probably makes the most sense). It's generally a bad idea to edit a jpeg then resave it as a jpeg, because quality gets progressively worse every time you do that. Still, it's what I (and everybody else) did for years before Lightroom, and if you want to adopt such a workflow then yeah: you'll need a destructive editor that you like (or as I said, you can continue to use Lightroom in that fashion, by exporting new jpegs and deleting originals - really? that's how you want to go???). Reminder: NX2 works great on jpegs, and so is still very much a candidate in my mind - my biggest reservation in recommending it is uncertainty of it's future (it's kinda in limbo right now).
AnnaK wrote:
Rob Cole wrote:
There is a plugin which will automatically delete originals upon export, but relying on plugins makes for additional complication too.
Which plugin is this?
Exportant (the option is invisible by default, but can be made visible by editing a text config file). To be clear: I do not recommend using Exportant for this purpose until after you've got everything else setup and functioning, and even then it would be worth reconsidering.
AnnaK wrote:
Rob Cole wrote:
What I do is auto-publish to all consumption destinations after each round of edits, but that takes more space.
How do you do this?
Via Publish Services.
PS - I also use features in 'Publish Service Assistant' and 'Change Manager' plugins (for complete automation), but most people just select publish collections and/or sets and click 'Publish' - if you only have a few collections/services it's convenient enough.
AnnaK wrote:
Would you happen to have any tips on which plugins I may want to use together with Photoshop Elements?
No - sorry, maybe somebody else does.
Did I get 'em all?
Rob