Skip to main content
Bongman
Bongman
Participant
January 10, 2020
Question

Photos disappearing after migration

  • January 10, 2020
  • 1 reply
  • 699 views

Yesterday I migrated my LR Classic Catalog to Lightroom CC cloud service. It contains more than 43.300 photos.

Migration went OK, Lightroom CC said that all 43.300 photos where migrated with no problems.

But today my cloud "catalog" says that I only have 42.900 photos. Being a huge catalog, I can't go photo by photo to find what is missing. Where that 400 photos go?

How do I suppose to rely on a service that promise to "safetly" store my photos when at the first import it removed more than 4 hundred photos without warning?

This catalog not only contains my "pro" photos, it contains my personal/family memories too. That photos are invaluable to me. Of course I have a backup and my old LR Classic catalog is still "live" in my hard drive, but whats the point to keep paying for service that not provide a reliable storage?

Can you help me?

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

JP Hess
JP Hess
Inspiring
January 10, 2020

I have never migrated a catalog to Lightroom, and use Lightroom very little. Lightroom Classic is what I use almost exclusivvely. So I might be talking way out of line. But I'm wondering if maybe you had 400 virtual copies that are causing problems. Just a thought, something to consider.

    Bongman
    BongmanAuthor
    Participant
    January 10, 2020

    Hi Jim, thanks for your reply!

    When you migrate Classic catalogs, virtual copies are (supposed to be) converted to real copies, as Adobe itself indicates in their own guide. Also I'm pretty sure that there wasn't that quantity of virtual copies in my catalog (I don't use them that much).

    So I think there must be a problem or reason somewhere else. Maybe the app detects real duplicates or something? This problem made me think a lot and I just recall that once I misconfigured my camera and stored both RAWs and JPGs and maybe now those photos where merged together or JPGs discarded? (I really hope that).
    But the problem for me is there was no warning, just one number yesterday and another today...

    Theresa J
    Community Expert
    Theresa JCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    January 11, 2020

    When you migrate your catalog, your originals are uploaded to the cloud. It does not 'convert' virtual copies to real copies.

    The shortage of images could be the raw + jpeg that you suggest, or even virtual copies. Lightroom (cloud) does not support virtual copies right now.

    With such a large catalog, I'm with Jim in recommending that you NOT switch to Lightroom. Keep your Classic catalog and selectively sync collections to Lightroom when you need access to them online. If you decide to keep Classic,  IT IS REALLY IMPORTANT THAT YOU DO NOT OPEN CLASSIC UNTIL YOU CLEAN OUT ALL THE IMAGES UPLOADED TO LIGHTROOM.

    If your Classic catalog is synced to Lightroom, all 42,000 images will start downloading to your hard drive creating duplicates of everything you have.

    Firefly Community Gallery
    Adobe Firefly

    Remix with Firefly Community Gallery

    Thousands of free creations to fall in love with and remix in Firefly.

    Explore now
    Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
    Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices