Photos won't display in Parent folders or All Photographs

The issue is not with preferences, it is with the preview process.

When LR converts a catalog it attempts to copy the previews without question and does not give an option to "not copy" the previews.  There is an error routine that keeps tracks of what previews could not be found and therefore not copied forward during conversion. This error routine crashes LR because it cannot handle any substantial amount of mismatches.  Somewhere north of 3000 image previews not found.  I can repeat this easily by exporting more than 3000 images from my LR3 catalog for items that no longer have previews available.  In the automated catalog conversion, the previews not found is ignored (most likely because it never asked if I wanted previews copied forward) The catalog conversion works fine, but somewhere in the preview crashing, the catalog is left in a state that does not allow the regular images of the catalog to be viewed.  I can prove this.

I was successful today in first exporting my LR3 Catalog without copying previews.  This took all of 2 minutes or so. I then created a new empty LR4 Catalog and then immediately imported my recently exported LR3 catalog.  Again, about 5 minutes to convert to LR4 and all images visible no issues; other than, I lost all of my published collection information.  I am currently rebeuilding that.  Most of my publish collections use jfriedl plugins, so really not a big deal to rebuild except for Smugmug. 

The SmugMug plugin allows you to sync what is online with the catalog, but it presents potential matches....1 at a time.  I get at least two potential matches on almost every photo.  One that is an exact match with the jpg version of the file and then a potential match with the NEF.  Unfortunately, I have to tell the plug in to accept the "Perfect" match, 1 at a time.  I have 10k images at Smugmug.  So, once again, I can either switch to jfriedl's plugin for SmugMug or work my way through 10k photos 1 at a time.....At least I am working in LR4 now.  Still no reasonable answer from Adobe.  They blame the plugins and publish services and basically offered no help to retain publish information intact. Very disappointed with their support on this and not really sure why we have to trouble shoot this for them.  Perhaps they tested everything with < 500 images or with something that had recent previews all available. I delete previews after 30 days. The first thing they asked me to do was create a small catalog then convert it. Once that worked, they basically wiped their hands of the issue and stated the software is working correctly and everything else is just performance issues.  Honestly, they must not know what the issue is or don't care.  I also offered to troubleshoot it for them.

Thanks Kevin, I've sent you a private message.

-Ben

Hi All,

Has anyone experiencing this problem tried throwing out their Lightroom preferences to see if that fixes the problem?  This link describes where the preference files are located:

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/843/cpsid_84313.html

Try quitting Lightroom, throwing out the preference files, and relaunching lightroom.  Let me know if that fixes the problem.  If it doesn't, it would be very helpful if someone could provide a catalog (the upgraded LR4 catalog) that is exhibiting the problem.  Only the catalog is necessary, not the photos.  The catalog can be zipped to make it smaller, and can be uploaded to Dropbox or a similar service, and you can then provide a link to it here.  Or, if you prefer, I can provide instructions for sending the catalog directly to me at Adobe via FTP.

Thanks,

Ben

Well I attempted to contact Adobe again today through Chat.  They had me create a small LR3 Catalog of 600 photos, then export that catalog, then import that catalog to LR4.  Once it worked the chat person basically wiped his hands of any issue, indicated it is not a software problem and told me it was a performance issue.  Suggested I reduce the size of my catalog.  I respectfully disagree, but am appalled that Adobe basically has no upgrade path for a 45k image catalog and their solution is break the catalog into tiny pieces. Not really sure what that solves.  It certainly does not help me given that I use LR to publish all my stuff. I also use LR to create collages which if things are in different catalogs becomes a pain.  Really cannot understand why 45k images is such an issue.  Photoshop Elements handled the volume without issue.  When I asked whether the failed conversion from LR3 to LR4 was a bug, the answer I received was that we were able to convert your new catalog no problem......  Not really sure if they are just overwhelmed or not, but this is rediculous answer.  I have spent in excess of 60 hours attempting workarounds to convert my catalog with no answer from Adobe and no answer that works.  I'd be willing to lose all my publish information to be able to convert.  I suspect I will have to export my existing catalog into 5 or 6 other minor catalogs and then attempt to import each of those.  The problem with this approach is that the import function takes upwards to 8 hours or more to check for duplicate images once the catalog starts to grow and I cannot get the initial import to complete.  I'm basically dead in the water until Adobe fixes the conversion issue that leaves me unable to view the photos.

I am having the same issue that everyone else has noted.  I will wait for adobe to fix this bug as long as it doesn't take too long.  thanks everyone for your suggestions and help in this matter.

UPDATE........I spoke to adobe this morning and they have an engineer still working on this issue! They are monitoring this forum post so instead of calling them with this same issue it would be better to post here that you are having the same problem.

This is in fact a bug with LR4 and hope to see it fixed SOON......As I said above there is a great workaround posted by richardondrovic.

Just wanted to let everyone who is following this post know that I did not hear from Adobe with any further information. I was told that I would hear back by today and since they did NOT contact me I have resubmitted a request for someone to do so. I know that there are MANY people with this same issue and all I can say is that I WILL update this post as SOON as I hear anything.

Until then a GREAT workaround with the EXACT steps were posted by richardondrovic .

Regards,

Kevin

I encountered the same problem after upgrading to LR4. No images were shown when viewing All Photographs. I created a new catalog and imported from my freshly created LR4 catalog but that didn't work. I created a second new catalog but this time I chose to import from my previous LR3 catalog which did fix the problem, for now.

Have Just got the result I want with a work around that I think someone else has suggested.

Let lr4 upgrade the lr3 catalog as per normal.

Then in lr4 create new catalog.

Then choose to import photos from existing catalogue with: FILE/Import from another catalog....

Choose the newly creat lr4 catalog from the previously upgrade LR4 catalogue.

Everything appears to be as it should be.

I also have had the problem and to take it further I have found that for me it is the number of Thumbs (Including VIrtual Photos) in the sub directory.

The magic number for me is 3418,

With 3417 thumbs total in the subdirectories then they dispay in the parent folder but as soon as I go to 3418 thumbs in the sudirectories all thumbs in the parent folder dissappear.

Hope we get a fix soon this is sending me balmy.

I do not want to loose all of my collections and virtual photos let alon my edit history.

I will stick with LR3 till it is solved I think