Often when applying a preset metadata template or nearly always when individually selecting a series of images in Bridge to apply captions, descriptions, locations, keywords, etc. Bridge now tries to generate new thumbnails as soon as I start typing in a field (or pasting into a field) and will not allow me to embed or add new information into any fields if I have a larger number of raw-format files in a folder.

For example, I'll have a set of 500+ DNG format photos from an event and after waiting for Bridge to generate the thumbnails, I'll apply my standard photo credit template. At least half the time, after waiting for Bridge to "write" the data to the file, my templated metadata information will not actually appear in my files. It usually requires several attempts (and watching Bridge tell me it's "writing" to the files each time) before the metadata finally shows up in the fields. Then I'll batch-select, for example, 15 images of a particular speaker at the event and select a field and start to write a caption, description, keyword or whatever, Bridge immediately freaks out and keeps trying to generate new thumbnails or "write" to the files as soon as my first keystroke lands in a metadata field and even if I paste a complete caption, description, keywords or whatever from elsewhere into fields in Bridge, I'll see the little status indicator at the bottom saying it's "writing" to the files (and watch the thumbnails flicker wildly and jump around) and as soon as it's "done" (or when the spinning beachball finally stops) the metadata I've just added vanishes from ALL the fields where it's been added. Repeating the process gets the same results.

And another new quirk with Bridge 2023 is that often random metadata fields from other files from other projects and project folders (not from a metadata template) will be persistent in the Bridge Cache and appear to be embedded in the metadata fields within brand new images in folders that I've just opened for the first time after it's generated thumbnails for the first time. This doesn't happen with folders of JPEGs or with folders with only a dozen or so camera raw files. But if I have more than 50 or so DNG images in a folder, the new version of Bridge is useless for metadata entry.

I've tried deleting the Bridge cache, compacting it, clearing all my machine cache files. Nothing works to resolve this problem which only appeared in Bridge 2023. I'm having this issue on several different computers with different user accounts, so it's not specific to any machine or user.

I've started to look at products like Photo Mechanic for metadata entry now because Bridge 2023 has completely broken my workflow for metadata entry.