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R
rtcary
Known Participant
May 2, 2017
Question

Could not locate images I was working on -- all of a sudden.

  • May 2, 2017
  • 1 reply
  • 539 views

On my iMac using an external G-Drive to hold both images and catalog, Lightroom suddenly LR could not find the images I was working on.  When I tried to enter the Develop mode, I got the message about the file was not present.  The Finder indicated that they were present, yet Show in Finder could not find the images. The same for clicking on the "!" in the upper right corners of the images in the Film Strip as well as the "?" on the Folder.

Rebooted multiple times to no avail, then I went to some other images in another folder and all was well. However, when I went back to the "lost" images, there they were -- the "!" was no longer present -- I could enter the Develop mode.

It was as though a Read/Write lock had be put on the files in the folder. Never have had that problem, and probably never will again, BUT I'm curious if anyone else may have had that happen to them or if someone may have a plausible explanation.

Todd Cary

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    1 reply

    dj_paige
    dj_paige
    Legend
    May 2, 2017

    Perhaps the drive is asleep? Or the photos or folders or drive has been renamed or moved?

    Anyway, once you find the location of your photos using Finder, you have to point Lightroom to this location using these instructions: Adobe Lightroom - Find moved or missing files and folders

    R
    rtcaryAuthor
    Known Participant
    May 2, 2017

    <<< Perhaps the drive is asleep? >>>

    The Finder located them (so the drive was working just fine), no problem, BUT if I used the built in locate missing files/images of LR, it could not find them -- it is as if they did not exist from LR's perspective.  Tried the LR synchronize function -- no luck.

    And this is not like I am new to LR -- been using it since version one, and I'm a software developer (retired).  Even shutdown everything when it got late, and had the same problem the next morning.  Somehow going off and testing LR with some other images in a different folder did something so that all of the "!" in the upper right corner disappeared when I came back to the "lost" images, allowing me to go into the develop mode.

    Strange indeed and I'll probably never see it again...

    Puzzled,

    Todd

    dj_paige
    dj_paige
    Legend
    May 3, 2017
    BUT if I used the built in locate missing files/images of LR, it could not find them

    That's not what the command does. it find them in the Lightroom Library. It does not find them in your operating system and reconnect them in Lightroom. Nor will Synchronize fix the problem of missing photos in Lightroom.

    As I said above in my earlier post, YOU must find the photo location in your operating system (Lightroom will not do this). Since you had Finder find the photos, you know where they are, so the next step is to tell Lightroom to reconnect. I provided instructions on how to do this. Please give it a try.

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