Metadata is corrupted with the little exclamation mark in upper right corner of thumbnail

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No I don't get this error message.  I use Nikon Transfer, have the latest version, it works fine.  The raw files are fine.  The problem is somehow the filenames or directories LR is looking for get lost or not updated after moving photos to different directory/folder and/or renaming them.  It's a problem with the metadata getting corrupted.  I have not been able to isolate exactly what causes the problem.  To me it has appeared randomly.  All of a sudden the metadata is corrupt and it can't find the file it's looking for.   I have changed my work process to avoid moving photos to different directories.  I haven't had the problem since I started doing that, but it's really too soon to say that solved the problem.

Have not tried resetting preferences/settings.  Also have not tried sync folder for this.  I have used it once or twice in the past, but didn't think about trying it.  I also decided I can just put the camera files into the "final" directory I want them in to start with, and thus, avoid moving photos to different directory.  There's something strange going on in LR, and I don't think I've isolated the problem/bug.  Some little something I'm doing is corrupting the metadata or catalog.   It's not obvious at all.  But every time it's happened it's involved renaming files, moving them to another directory and setting a star rating.  I've always edited photos, renamed them, and sometimes rate them in LR in a nikon transfer directory.  Then move them to a "final" directory.  A lot of times I wait to rate them until in the final directory, which is what I did this time.  I've been doing it this way for years, and it's always worked.  But that seems to be when the bug happens, however, it's inconsistent.  The first time it happened, I thought it was when I renamed the files, but just doing that works fine.  It's some specific sequence of steps that causes the problem.  Easiest for now to try and avoid moving the photos around to different directories, but it has certainly given me doubts about LR.  I'm sure locked into it though...like everyone else I assume.  

This help report is if I did something to the file outside of LR.  No...I do everything inside LR to avoid problems like this.  I always have.  I've been using computers/software from 1970s, so am not stupid about this.  I wrote engineering analysis software back in the day, so know a bug when I see one.  I've been using LR for quite a few years, between 5 and 10.  I've renamed, deleted, edited files many times, thousands of photos.  Only ran into this problem with version 14, doing the same thing I've been doing since starting LR.  I've been extra careful after seeing this bug a couple of weeks ago, but ran into it again today with some new photos.  Every thing appeared ok even after I moved the files  to a different directory.  LR didn't complain until I tried to set rating on a photo in the new directory.  I did not experiment to see any other changes would cause problems.  I just stopped working on LR for today, and recovered the files in LR by removing, deleting sidecar, re-importing, and re-editing.  Note that the files were there all the time.  It's just LR lost track of them for some odd reason.  I believe it was the move that did it, but not sure.  That was enough wasted time.  It seems like I fixed the problem/catalog with workaround, but not sure.  Don't know how much to trust LR now.

I'm experienced LR user.  I rename, move, delete, etc is all done within LR.  I know you have to do this to keep catalog/database in sync with files.   I've done this same procedure many times in the past with absolutely no problems.  I only started having problems with version 14.x.x     I know where the photo files are.  They are still there and ok.  Sidecar file is still there.  But LR doesn't know it.  It has lost track somehow after the move and if you change rating (or maybe do something else to the photo) it can't find the file, even though Mac Finder show it's there.  This is a bug!  It used to work fine.