P: Catalog import fails to merge folder paths

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I have been coalescing my mini travel catalogs in to my main catalog. They import fine, but they show up in the folder panel not in the correct spot in the directory tree. When I do show parent folder it gives me 

An internal error has occurred: Database "E:\lightroom\lightroom.lrcat": UNIQUE constraint failed: AgLibraryFolder.rootFolder, AgLibraryFolder.pathFromRoot Statement: UPDATE AgLibraryFolder SET rootFolder = ?,pathFromRoot = ? WHERE

and an ok button. I tried doing update folder location 


My folder tree looks like this:

2018
    trip 1
2019 
    trip 2
Z
  2018
        january
  2019
         january
        february

where the actual hard drive is:

Z
 2018 
    trip 1
    january
 2019 
    trip 2 
    january
    february


In future I'll make sure to do show parent folder in the mini trip catalog before I import it, but how do I fix my main catalog now?

[COBill]

I use a very different approach which eliminates the need to merge catalogs:

• use "sidecar" files. Then all the info about the photo is stored in this separate file. 
• copy the images with their sidecars into the appropriate master folders
• Import from the folders, now all the edits, keywords etc are correctly associated with the images

BTW, if you keep sidecar files for all your images and your catalog is irrecoverably corrupted, you can just create a fresh catalog and import your whole library. 

I personally find this approach to be more straightforward and less error prone. 

[Bob Somrak]

Unfortunately "sidecar" files don't bring in virtual copies.

[COBill]

Unless there is a need to keep a virtual copy, virtual. I export them as the original file type into the same folder. Perhaps not ideal but works for me as I make very limited use of this feature. 

[Bob Somrak]

I do the same thing.  I have an export preset just for this purpose. If I have multiple vc's it just adds number to the filename.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Strangely I left my computer exporting one of the problem trees as a catalog (was planning to remove, open exported catalog do show parent filter all the way up to the root then reimport) but I came back to computer after it finished to find the library folder tree to now look like this

z
  2018
  2019
Z
 2018
 2019

so importing the catalog perhaps has a bug in it with capital letters in path names?

[Bob Somrak]

Looks like the lowercase/uppercase issue addressed here.

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/capitalization-catalog-error/

[Sunil_Bhaskaran]

Do you still get the internal error that you mentioned in the first post when show/hide parent folders?
I will send an e-mail off list; we can investigate the error in the catalog.

Thanks,
Sunil

[JohanElzenga]

What you can do in the meantime is use 'Import from Another Catalog', but keep the originals where they are. That means you have merged the catalogs, but the new photos are still in their original place. You can now move these by using drag & drop in the folder panel.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Setting status to Investigating

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Updating status