P: Lightroom Classic: Error Renaming and Moving files and folders

[robmulally]

I have been living with this problem for a while where I get errors trying to move folders and files and rename folders in Lightroom Classic.

Some of the time I can unselect al files and try again and it works but not always.

Normally for clients I work catalog by catalog so don't really deal with the issue heaps but ive started going through all my old catalogs and preparing them to merge into one so now i'm seeing the error repeatedly.

I've posted an example of it in an unlisted video to show the problem.

You can see here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T10d5ZTGl6w&feature=youtu.be

Help appreciated , the lack of information and a simple "retry" button would save me so much time even with the problem in place.

I've still got hundreds of catalogs to go and in each hundreds of folders so i'm going to see these errors a lot.

Seems like lightroom is doing something with the files in the background and tripping over itself.

Thanks
Rob

[Dave Rye]

Had a similar problem in trying to move a few folders (using the LR Folder/File/Collection manager in Library module) that got put on my Windows C: drive onto my network drive where I actually store all my pic files regularly.  A dialog popped up, waited for me to hit OK (no solution offered) and didn't finish the rest of what I had told it to be doing.  It tends to do the same when it has one error with a photo shoot import, and never finishes the import because of my being gone for several hours and not able to hit the OK button for it to continue on.  Sometime it even times out after that sort of thing.  It is getting rather tiresome.  Sounds as if they have trouble with multitasking file handing permissions on the Windows OS sometimes. 

Here is a picture of a dialog that kept (for > 2 hours while I was out on another shoot) the previews from being built yesterday after starting to import and failing to get one video since I couldn't manually select the Save As or OK buttons while I was gone.

[robmulally]

Unfortunatly my issue is slightly different, for your issue David, Are you on windows? if so i found there is a bug failing the HEVC (H265) codecs causing lightroom to hang for a long long timer per video before continuing, something to do with the dynamiclink server, i resolved that by running a scrip that found and converted all my H265 videos to H264 before renaming the orignials.  Lightroom doesn't support H265 anyway on windows so for now the BUG of it hanging on import gets mixed up with it not supporting the codec to start with.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

I watched your video robmulally, 

This isn't an issue I've seen lots of reports on. I've certainly not ever experienced it.  Preference File Corruption comes to mind as a likely candidate since you see this across multiple catalogs. 

Reset Procedure:

1. Close Lightroom.
2. Hold down [Alt/Opt]+[Shift] while restarting Lightroom.
3. Overwrite the Preferences when prompted by the dialog.
4. Close Lightroom.
5. Restart Lightroom.

[robmulally]

Rikk, 

I also see this on both computers - Laptop and Desktop, which I assume preferences doesn't follow but i'm happy to try your suggestion.

For your information I have narrowed down the problem more and if i use a "filter" so no files are visible in my view - eg i use a white label which none of my files match, i get way less errors.  (but not 0)

I also get less errors when i leave an album in view walk away and come back.

My guess still is that the process that builds thumbnails etc etc is using the files and locknig them causing the error, 

If only ADOBE checked a file and reported back first saying "CANNOT MOVE FILE OR FOLDER X because another program is using file X, would you like to proceed with other files anyway Y/N" it would solve 90% of the errors and help so much.

Why adobe is so bad at error reporting baffles me.  Seems very very lazy and would have a Huge impact on customer satisfaction and sentiment.

I'll try your suggestion and report back, takes me less than 30secs to replicate its that common. Back soon.

Rob

[robmulally]

Rik, 

I tried it and while it looked promising for a few moments the errors all still happened.

More feedback on the error is that is i'm going through a lot of catalogs so i think the error would be less of an issue for someone doing a few folders at a time, they wouldn't notice, and also if they were using a catalog that had already build previews etc so the background processes were idle i think that it would also be less frequent.

Hope that helps someone at adobe have the "move and rename " process wait for or pause the indexing / preview branch of code, I think that would fix all the errors.

- Cannot Rename some files (usually 1 in whole et)
- Cannot move some files (usually 1 in whole set)
- Cannot rename folder 
- Cannot Move Folder

I'm 20 days in and written 10 powershell scripts to do a lot of things for me its frustrating that my n00b script error handling/resume is still better than lightrooms 😛

Rob.

[abhishek_india]

Thanks Rob for reporting.
On a few attempts, not able to reproduce it. But, have logged a bug to investigate it further. 

Regards,
Abhishek

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I havwe contiuned issues with renaming and moving folders within Lightroom. Its a simple, 'Unable to rename folder' or 'Unable to move folder'. If i restart the applicatgion it may solve the issue for that folder or it may not. Win10 latest version of Classic CC.

[robmulally]

Craig, 

Try and have nothing selected ( Control D) or try setup a filter like "5 Starts White" something that you know will result in Zero photos matching.

This doesn't stop the problem but means it occurs 50% of the time rather than 90%.

Rob

[robmulally]

No problem, let me know if you want me to attempt to replicate on different devices, i don't have a crazy workflow just , appreciate the response.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

It's a bit later, but since I came across the same problem, here's my workaround. Lightroom won't move/rename the folder because it is accessing it to show the previews/thumbnails. Select a different folder (the one above or below the one you want to rename). Then right click with the mouse over the folder you want to rename (don't select it). I was thus able to rename the folder, as long as it wasn't the currently selected folder being previewed.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

 Here's another post I found, essentially describing the same solution.

https://www.helpzone4u.com/lightroom-classic-error-renaming-and-moving-files-and-folders/ 

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Mmmm, not working for me.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

@Rikk Thanks, should have done that first!

[christopherk70634473]

I too cannot batch rename files. Is there a solution for this?

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Setting status to acknowledged

[Nikondfans]

I had the same problem in some folders. I suspected something wrong with the catalog due to abnormal shutdown your computer. I tried to "Update Folder Location" on the problem folder and the problem resolved.

[marius.haraldseth]

Hi,

I too am having the same problem. And on both my computers.
It's been like this forever, so no I never try to move more than at most 20-30 files at once. More will usually trigger this bug.
It looks to be moving the files on disk, but not in the library. This is extremely annoying as I now on vacation lost dozens of pictures edited as the database lost everything I had done when I forgot and moved all my images from a set number of days to a new folder. That a software which you pay for every month have these sorts of basic bugs is not okay!

Hope this is fixed soon.