How do I get the parent folder “Pictures” to see its subfolders?

I know I’m partly repeating other replies, but just to be clear, when you see the message that says “please relink”, the important thing to understand is that relinking means one very specific thing: Correcting the file path from the catalog database record to the actual file.

What it does not mean is to use any form of importing, which means, don’t fix this by using any Import command, and don't use Synchronize because that’s really sort of a semi-automated import. The difference is that relinking restores the association between a file and its existing Lightroom Classic edits, but any form of importing will be like starting over, where any of your previous edits no longer apply to the new catalog record you’re about to create for the files coming in. You get the file back but you lose your work.

Part of the problem is the word “synchronize” in there, that seems to trip up a lot of people. Apparently that wording is ambiguous enough that many think it can update existing catalog records, when really, it isn’t smart enough to ask you if you’re really trying to restore broken path links. All Synchronize Folder does is ask “are there any files in these folders that don’t match existing catalog links?” But it will not stop to wonder if some of the “new” files it finds in the subfolders might actually need to be re-associated (re-linked) to catalog items that are missing.

I doubt very much that this is a bug. One thing you clearly misunderstand is this: ‘missing’ images or folders only means that Lightroom does not see them on your drive where it thinks they should be. It does not mean that they are missing in the catalog itself. You can find them using any of the tools that you normally use to find them. So as an example: if you search for certain images by means of a keyword, then Lightroom will display them in the library grid just fine, even though they’ll have the ‘missing image’ icon in the upper right corner. You can even add new keywords or other metadata, because these are stored in the catalog. The only thing you cannot do is edit them, because that requires Lightroom to load the original from disk, and it doesn’t know where they are. If you happen to have smart previews for these images, then you will not even see the ‘missing image’ icon (you will see a ‘smart preview only’ icon) and you will be able to edit them.

Your screenshot shows two parent folders with the ‘has missing subfolder’ icon (OneDrive and Pictures), but it does not show the actual missing folder(s). Scroll down till you see the folder(s) that are actually missing. They will have a question mark in front of their name and the name will be written with italics letters. Those are the folders you must find on your hard drive and then use to reconnect the folders in Lightroom.

Hi dj_paige and JohanElzenga!

Many thanks to both of you for your help. I tried to follow your advice but unfortunately none of the suggestions solved my issue.

The problem is not really missing subfolders. I have not been moving picture folders outside of Lightroom and the folder structure displayed by LrC is correct. The problem is that LrC apparently lost track of the subfolders under some of the parent folders in my setup (E:\, OneDrive and Pictures) while other subfolders under OneDrive (Documents and Music) and at the same level as “Pictures” do not display the warning on missing subfolders. Nevertheless, using the Library Filter to select photos based on text or tags does not work when starting from the parent folder (regardless of whether they display the “missing subfolders” message or not). On the other hand, retrieving photos by clicking on the keyword list works fine and picks up photos even if they are stored in the subfolders that Library Filter did not manage to look into.

Unless I am missing some fundamental setting that I might accidentally have changed in the preferences (I do not recall even assessing that menu by the time I first noticed the “missing subfolders” message), I suspect the issue may be a bug in LrC that I happened to run into – unfortunately without knowing exactly when and in which context it first occurred. It seems to me that LrC lost track of its subfolders at a logical level and I have not been able to restore its “awareness” by relinking or synchronizing the parent folders. Creating a new catalogue and importing everything again may solve the issue but it will take a lot of time given the very large amount of pictures and the vast number of subfolders in my structure. I also reinstalled LrC and took a look at the internal structure of the catalogue files to see if I could find some obvious flag that would explain the spurious error message and LrC’s search behaviour failure but, as expected, my effort was unsuccessful. The structure is, of course, quite complex and it would take me quite some time to figure out its architecture, so I dropped that project and hope that the error will magically disappear with the next LrC update.

Best;
Francisco

Synchronize folder is almost never the solution. Of course, the brief message provided by Adobe doesn’t help. You need to follow the instructions here when you come across a folder that has a question mark icon.

‘Synchroniseren Folder’ is not the way to fix missing folders! It can make this issue worse. You have to identify the actual missing subfolder(s) and ‘reconnect’ them. This is how you do that: 

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/lightroom-photos-missing-fix/