P: File Not Found shown in Metadata panel's File Size after reconnecting a drive

[John R Ellis]

When an external or network volume is disconnected and later reconnected, the Metadata panel can sometimes still show "File not found" in File Size rather than the actual size.  I think this is another bug with the caching of metadata in "<catalog> Helper.lrdata".

There have been three recent reports about this:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/file-size-not-shown-for-files-on-networ...

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/community/threads/metadata-says-file-not-found-in-the-file-size.46971... (two reports)

The workaround is to exit LR and delete "<catalog> Helper.lrdata".

To reproduce:

1. Import a photo from an external drive with Add.

2. Exit LR, disconnect the drive, delete the "<catalog> Helper.lrdata" file, restart LR.

3. Observe that the photo is correctly marked missing and the Metadata panel shows "File Size: File not found":

4. Exit LR, connect the drive, restart LR.

5. Observe that the photo is no longer marked missing but the Metadata panel still incorrectly shows "File Size: File not found":

6. Exit LR, delete "<catalog> Helper.lrdata", and restart LR.

7. Observe that the Metadata panel now shows a correct value for File Size.

Tested on LR 12.2 / Mac OS 12.6.1.

[addieleman]

Issue: Metadata panel does not show File Size for network drive

• Lightroom Classic Version Number: 12.2
• OS Version Number: macOS Ventura 13.2
  
• Network drive: Synology DS214, attached as SMB share
  

Steps to reproduce:

1. Go to Jeffrey’s “Metadata-Viewer Preset Editor” Lightroom Plugin
2. Install the plugin
3. Select "File Size" as an item to be shown in the Metadata panel
4. Select file on network drive and look for file size on the Metadata panel

Expected result: File size should be reported for the file viewed in the Grid view
Actual result: File size is reported as "File not found" (see image below)

[John R Ellis]

[This post contains formatting and embedded images that don't appear in email. View the post in your Web browser.]

I tried both that plugin and my own custom metadata tagset with files located on an SMB-connected volume on another Mac, and the file size was properly shown:

(Tested with LR 12.2 / Mac OS 13.1 connecting to a volume on Mac OS 12.5.)

Steps to narrow down the problem:

1. Do the command Library > Find All Missing Photos -- does it show photos on the Synology as missing?  (Sometimes LR is slow in updating the thumbnails in grid view with the "!" missing badge.)

2. In the Metdata panel's Default tagset, click the Customize button and check File Size. Does the size properly appear in the Default panel, or do you see "File not found"?

3. If you have another computer (Mac or Win), try mounting a shared folder from that computer as a network volume and importing a test photo.  Does the test photo's File Size properly appear?

4. If your Synology still supports it, try temporarily changing the protocol from SMB to the deprecated AFP. Does File Size properly show?

[addieleman]

Thanks for coming back to me. Going through your list.

1. No missing photos were reported just now.
2. Using the default panel with "File Size" added shows "File not found" for a file from the network drive.
3. Made a network connection with another Mac running on macOS Ventura 13.2. File size is now properly shown.
4. At this moment I'm connecting to the Synology network drive with AFP. The Synology DS214 is updated to the latest version DSM 6.2.4-25556 Update 6 of its operating system. Problem persists: "File not found"

So that narrows it down to a particular problem with the Mac <-> Synology DS214 connection, I guess.

[addieleman]

A few extra experiments, leading to much more serious problems!

1. Creating a virtual copy from a network drive's raw file shows the correct file size for the virtual copy, but not for the original raw file.
2. Moving a file from the network drive to a local drive results in showing the correct file size.
3. Moving that same file back to the network drive results in a much more serious error:
   
4. I had to resort to moving the file back to its original location in Finder. Then I tried to synchronize the folder on the network drive, which causes Lightroom to hang: the situation like below for more than 5 minutes. The folder contains only 6 raw files of about 17 MB each.
   

So now I seem to have a much more serious problem: the network drive doesn't play well with Lightroom, not being able to move files is a big deal of course.

[addieleman]

Switching back to SMB protocol for the network drive, I managed to synchronize the folder. The file that was added through synchronization, now shows the correct file size. So the workaround will be: save metadata for all files, remove the files from Lightroom and synchronize again.

I have used the AFP protocol until a few days ago, which may have led to these problems. Will have to explore further if everything will work well again when using the SMB protocol from now on.

[John R Ellis]

AFP has been deprecated by Apple for many years (since Mac OS 10.9), so I definitely recommend using SMB. I recall other issues reported here using AFP with Synology boxes (problems with ignoring the case of .xmp files was one). I was certain I had seen your symptoms in another recent post, but I can't find it, maybe I'm not remembering correctly :-<

[addieleman]

Moving files still doesn't work when using the SMB protocol to connect to the network drive.

I made a new bug report.

Thanks for your responses so far.

[John R Ellis]

I finally found the other recent thread about "File not found" being displayed for File Size:

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/community/threads/metadata-says-file-not-found-in-the-file-size.46971

I think this may have to do with bugs in how recent versions of LR cache metadata for faster display in Grid view. If you're still seeing those symptoms, please try these steps:

1. In Catalog Settings > General, click Show to open Finder / File Explorer on the current catalog folder.

2. In the catalog folder, delete the file "<catalog> Helper.lrdata".

3. Restart LR -- it will rebuild the Helper.lrdata

[addieleman]

Well, thanks, that fixes the "File not found" for the File Size property. Unfortunately, it didn't help for the inability to move a file to the NAS, but hopefully my other bug report will yield a solution to that.

[John R Ellis]

I filed a bug report on the File Size problem:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/file-not-found-shown-in-metadata-panel-s-file-...

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Setting status and adding bug number