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daisytrue
Participant
October 14, 2021
Question

Photo import failing in Lightroom Classic on Windows 10

  • October 14, 2021
  • 5 replies
  • 207 views

When I first started using Lightroom Classic, I had no problem importing photos from my SD card to the catalog on my external hard drive. Now, during every import, there are photos that do not import, sometimes as high as 20-25%.

 

I've attached an image of the error: "Could not copy a file to the destination folder because it is not writable or there is not enough free space."

 

The drive is writable. I am able to create files there on my own and some of the photos do get added to the catalog so it can write within LR.

 

The external hard drive has plenty of free space (around 60%). The internal hard drive running Windows10 also has plenty of free space (around 80%).

 

I have tried both the laptop SD card reader and an external USB card reader as well as two different SD cards to rule out a card reading problem.

 

I have copied the files that would not read to a folder on my internal hard drive and tried importing from there. In those cases, none of the files import even tho I can view them just fine in File Explorer.

 

I have tried disabling Windows Antivirus as well as making my catalog directory and the lightroom.exe process an exception to Antivirus coverage.

 

Nothing is fixing the problem. This is a real problem and I need help fixing it.

This topic has been closed for replies.

5 replies

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daisytrueAuthor
Participant
October 14, 2021

To answer the various replies...

 

  • i tried importing files from SD and some failed - i copied the failed files to the internal drive of my laptop (to take the sd card and reader out of the equation) and tried importing from there to the external drive that has my LR catalog
  • the external drive (where the catalog lives) is 1TB with 289G used and 642G free
  • the internal drive (where LR lives running underWindows 10) is 500G with 94G used and 382G free
  • the folder on the internal drive that I am importing from (that has the failed imports from the SD card) is 5G
  • the files in that folder do not exist in the catalog folder - they do not appear greyed out when importing and i verified in the File Explorer that files with the same name do not exist in the dated subfolders
GoldingD
GoldingD
Legend
October 14, 2021

Oh, and double check that you are not creating duplicates upon import.

GoldingD
GoldingD
Legend
October 14, 2021
Could not copy a file to the destination folder because it is not writable or there is not enough free space."

The hard drive that you want to import the photos to. 

 

  • How large?
  • How much free space, physical, a amount

 

As for the photos, a memory inquiry

 

  • The total space the photos occupy. Not just one photo, but the entirety of what is on the SD card that you are trying to import?
GoldingD
GoldingD
Legend
October 14, 2021
I have copied the files that would not read to a folder on my internal hard drive and tried importing from there. In those cases, none of the files import even tho I can view them just fine in File Explorer.

Let me restate that, perhaps a bad assumption

 

Outside of LrC. You copy the photos from the SD card to the desired hard drive. That works

You try to import those files on the hard drive in LrC. That fails.

 

If the above is correct, two questions

 

1. What method of import in the import screen, Add?

 

2. The hard drive that the catalog is on. The catalog, not the photos (unless the same) How much free space in %. And I do mean %. Looking for 20% or better.

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daisytrueAuthor
Participant
October 14, 2021

Also, I have run chkdsk on the external drive and it does not have any problems.

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