Lightroom Classic: When moving folders, the task gets stuck at 100%, old folder remains in LR

[Carlos_Oliveras]

I have seen there are a number of threads about issues related to moving folders from within LR, so this one could be related indirectly to some of them (or not - who knows).

This is my problem: when I move a subfolder (i.e. a folder not sitting directly on the root of the drive) to another subfolder in a different drive, Lightroom starts a "Moving folder" task and the progress bar appears to reach 100%, but the operation never completes - the progress bar remains at 100%.

If I check with Windows File Explorer, I can see that everything went fine: the folder has been moved, so, the operation has been completed succesfully. But from within Lightroom, I can still see the old location of the folder (and the new one too, as expected) in the Folders panel. It's as if LR didn't realise that the "old" folder isn't there anymore, and is waiting for something that has already happened. Or maybe it's unable to write this change to the catalog, I don't know.

I hope this explanation is clear enough, but just in case, I recorded a 1 minute video showing this:

https://youtu.be/_I1b-SHGp6Q

I'm using Windows 10 (with latest updates) and LR 8.1, although this problem started happening with 7.x versions, (can't tell which one exactly). Thanks.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Carlos,

Does this happen every time, some of the time, or rarely?

[Carlos_Oliveras]

Hey Rikk,

First, I've realized I made a mistake in my explanation - the problem happens when moving any folder (subfolder or not) to a subfolder in a different drive (not when moving a folder from one subfolder to another subfolder, like I said). Or at least that seems to be the trigger. Unfortunately, I think I cannot edit my original post anymore, sorry for the mistake.

And yes, it happens every single time. But when it started happening, it seemed intermittent, until I realized that the problem was limited to moving folders from one drive to subfolders in a different drive.

By the way, I just tried this on my laptop (I don't usually move folders there, just some quick edits), and the same thing happened.

Thanks for taking an interest in this.

[Bob Somrak]

Are any of these network drives

[Carlos_Oliveras]

No, none of them. They are local hard drives.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

I've forwarded this post to the engineering team for review. They may be contacting you. 

[Carlos_Oliveras]

Thanks Rikk. I will be more than happy to provide any extra data if necessary. Like I said, I can reproduce this on 2 different computers (with different catalogs too), but if it's some problem on my end, I guess we will be able to find out.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

This is also happening for me also, Mac OS Mojave, and the operation always says "In progress" although all of the image counts in the old folders show a 0

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Same for me on Mojave - the TO and FROM derives are both networked drives (but not my NAS).

[Carlos_Oliveras]

Any update on this? Not the end of the world, but experiencing this problem several times a week is getting old... Thanks.

[DMEEPhD]

Lightroom is ignorant of any file operations performed outside of Lightroom.  This is by design as Lightroom is a database application—albeits, constructed on a poor man's database—and not a file management system or operating system.

This is made pretty clear in virtually any manual or Lightroom book published by third parties.

However, Lightroom is also notorious when it comes to file handling as it does not message the operating system to perform the file handling; it does it itself.  This might sound wonderful as certain Lightroom Champions have implies, but Lightroom bypasses the protections inherent in the operating system.  For example, Lightroom does not verify the file is in the destination folder before deleting the file in the source folder.  The operating always does this verification.

The problem here is—and many, including myself have experienced this—that if Lightroom hangs, and only briefly, there is a good chance that your images go into the ether never to be seen again (unless you have a backup).

From my experience, Lightroom can hang for any number of reasons; e.g., competing for RAM with other applications, competing for CPU time with other applications, issues with the GPU, cats fighting, dogs barking, and the earth rotating on its axis.

Never trust Lightroom to perform any file operations.  Do it outside of Lightroom under the inherent protections of the operating system and follow Victoria's brillant solutions for locating moved files.  (Lightroom is pretty good at finding images if you can point it to the correct directories.)

[carlc53565279]

When I first created a folder on a new drive and moved a few folders into it, I got the same thing.  By looking in the folders using explorer I could tell the images had been moved ok.  I closed Lightroom telling it to quite the processes and then opened it again.  From then on, moving folders worked properly.  Once the folder was moved, the old location was updated and the process quite on its own.

hope that's helpful.

[Carlos_Oliveras]

Thanks, Carl, but it's the same for me everytime - I drag a folder inside another folder on a different drive, and while the files are succesfully moved, the task won't complete according to LR's progress bar, and also there will be a non-existing folder remaining in the "old" location (again, according to LR - the folder isn't there anymore).

I was granted access to the RC versions, and the process worked sometimes with some of these versions, but with the final 8.2 version it's the same as it was before. And now for some reason I don't have access to RC versions anymore - I guess that evil Mangalick guy made sure to kick me out of the prerelease program, given the animosity he holds towards me since he started deleting my comments when I posted in the LR blog - but I digress (that's a different story). Anyway, I already wasted too much time trying to get into the program the first time around (again, I suspect Mangalick's tricks were at work), so it's not like I'm interested in playing Guinea pig anymore (don't get me wrong - it's good to try new versions, but it looks like this problem is not high in the priority list, so I don't think it's going to get fixed, hence no sense in trying more beta stuff).

Maybe if I were to start my catalog from zero (with fresh folders, on a fresh hard drive), or keep my current hard drive but move thousands of photos (in hundreds of sub-folders) from one folder to a new, differently named folder, then LR would do things the way it's supposed to do them. But it's too much hassle (not to mention the significant risk of something going wrong while moving that many files and subfolders) for something as simple as moving files from a program that is supposed to be a photo organizer (among other things).

Anyway. I don't care anymore about this, I just create a new folder everytime and move the files manually, then delete the old folder. Mangalick has won this battle, but the war isn't over yet.

[carlc53565279]

So further to my previous post/comment.  I noticed that if I moved the main folder, say 2017, that's when the task would stick at 100%.  If I instead created a 2018 folder in the new location and moved the sub folders, the tasks all completed 100%, including removing the old folder.