Last few folders missing in Lightroom for last year’s shoots

[Ken Nielsen]

I catalog my folders by year and then inside, by date of shoot. For some reason the last few folders for December of last year are not showing in Lightroom Library view. I've heard that Lightroom on Windows only allows 1600 folders in a folder. Is that true also for a Mac? The folders are there, and were cataloged at the times of the shoots but now they do not show up. Can I repair this or do I need to use a work-around using another program to view the folders? Any suggestion to how to fix this so I can see the folders and images that are there?

[dj_paige]

As an experiment, in LrC find the photos from one of these folders some other way.  Click on All Photographs and turn off all filters. Then use the filter bar, set it to filter for the capture date of one of these photos. Do you find them?

[Ken Nielsen]

I will give this a try, will be looking for where to click on all photos... then turn off all filters... will come back if I need help with that. These were entered into Lightroom at the times they were shot with no problems so everything should be exactly as accounted for. I will report back...

[Ken Nielsen]

Okay, I was able to enter 'text' into the filter bar and searched on the date which is contained in the missing folder name and nothing came up. I think I need to 'import' these foklders into the catalog again. Does that sound correct. should I try an import to bring them back in?

[Ken Nielsen]

"Then use the filter bar, set it to filter for the capture date of one of these photos. Do you find them?" I do not see a 'filter bar' or place to enter text for a search... Your idea sounds good but I'm in unfamiliar territory now and also don't want to do any damage.

[dj_paige]

First click on All Photographs. Then select Metadata from the Filter Bar, set the left most panel to "Date" and then select the month of interest. In my example below, photos are indeed found from December 2024. What do you see when you do this?

I'm pretty sure that typing the date into the Text field will not work, and therefore is not evidence that your photos are not in the catalog.

Regarding importing the folders again, it would help if you not jump ahead and perform tasks before we are sure that they are necessary.

[drtonyb]

@Ken Nielsen 

The limit of 1600 you mention is related to a pixel dimension limit for a panel in Windows, but I'm not sure about any such limit in MacOS. This limit is a display problem, not a limit on the number of folders that LrC can store in the catalog.

If the issue were happening for you, I would expect that you don't have 1600 years worth of Year folders! With the 1600 limit, collapsing all the years' sub folders should list them all. To do that easily, you would need to be showing the parent folder of all the year folders. You can then Alt/Option click the Open/Close icon on the parent folder to collapse all folders, then click again without the Alt/Option key to reveal one level of folders under the parent, i.e. the year folders.

All Photographs is in the Catalog panel. Turn off filtering in the Library Filter bar, which is only shown when in Library Grid view; select Filters Off from the drop down list on the right side next the lock icon. If you can't see the Library Filter bar, press the \ key to show it.

[Ken Nielsen]

Thank you very much for this. I've learned to move slowly with Lightroom when I'm treading on unfamiliar territory. I'll do this all as suggested and report back.

[Ian Lyons]

The 1600px issue is Windows only, it does not affect LrC running on macOS

[Ken Nielsen]

Filters are off, as this is always off, I never use filters.

I'm. still stuck with missing folders for the  end of 2024. So strange, makes no sense. All other folders for all years are showing just fine. There is really no reason why a few photoshoots for the end of 2024 should not be showing up.

[Ken Nielsen · Accepted solution]

I've considered all that is being posted and it occurred to me to "Add" the missing folders to the catalog, as they were at one time. Nothing moved, no changes but it's working right now and adding the missing folders back into the catalog. When it's done, I'll come back here and proclaim success or failure... let's hope for success...

[Ken Nielsen]

"Add" seems to have brought the missing folders back into the catalog. I'm making a backup now as I do believe this was what was needed. How on earth almost a month's of shoots got eliminated is beyond me, no rhyme or reason. Thanks for everyone's help and confidence to help me take on the monster. To me, learning Lightroom is nothing short of a lifetime pursuit. 

[dj_paige]

I see you have marked your answer correct, and I disagree. I point this out in case others are in the situation where they can't find a folder in LrC. There are cases where importing is the wrong thing to do. If the photos were already in the catalog, now you have two copies of each photo, with different edits and different user provided metadata, and this leads to confusion and you have not solved the problem, in fact you have made the problem potentially worse.

We see all the time here in the forum people have imported photos into the catalog while (accidentally) using the wrong import settings and so LrC thinks the photos are in a different folder than the human user thinks the photos are in. The user can't find these photos in LrC (sound familiar?). Importing wasn't necessary and will lead to future confusion. And there was no need to import the photos again, the better approach was to find the photos and then fix the location of the photos.

[Ken Nielsen]

I'm prepared to pull my 'correct' as you and others here are far seniors at this than I am, but before I selected "Add" I made sure to select "Do not add suspected duplicates" which seemed like definitely the thing to do. All is in place and working properly now. But I want to be sure others know you'd input... let me re-read and check your every word. No doubt this is important as, to me, using Lightroom is like playing with fire and you'd better know what you are doing.

[Ken Nielsen]

Okay, we're on the same page on this I do think "the better approach was to find the photos and then fix the location of the photos." I may not and do not want to re-create the problem. And I agree with you on 'best approach' but the missing folders were not recognized as 'missing' so I couldn't instruct Lightroom to 'locate' missing items as would be easy to do and I do use when an item that Lightroom knows about has sudddnly lost contact with. Let me run my working routine over the next 24 hours to be sure, but it looks now, that the missing items that Lightroom had completely lost contact with are now recognized, added in place, and 100% restored, but only by going through the process of 'adding' them back to the catalog.

PS: I also add here that I have checked the contents of the 'added' thus recovered folders in place and see that all of my edits and ratings are fully there for all folders. Hooray, I have lost nothing, Whew! I realize that this is no small thing as I have endless hours and days of work poured into my images, over a month's worth of work, all recovered and all there.

[dj_paige]

And I agree with you on 'best approach' but the missing folders were not recognized as 'missing' so I couldn't instruct Lightroom to 'locate' missing items as would be easy to do

Explanation:

I was trying to walk you down a path to locate the PHOTOS in that folder, and then once the photos are found, we can locate the folder. The folder were not shown as "missing" with a question mark icon, because as I said, when you did an import, the wrong Import options were selected, and the photos were imported into a folder that is different than the folder you think they are in. We see this all the time here in this forum. So LrC thinks the photos are in a different folder whose name we don't know, and we have to find that folder. That's what I was trying to do. You can't simply look for the folder YOU think the photos are in, that won't get you anywhere, because LrC doesn't know about that folder.

Nevertheless, it seems you have fixed the problem, so all is good. But for others reading this far, it may be that this is not the solution for you, and when you try this your newly added photos have no edits and no user-provided metadata. So this may not be the solution for everyone, and you still need to find the PHOTOS in LrC and then we can find the folder.

[Ken Nielsen]

Day after, and all is well, The folders have been restored, all edits and metadata are present and accounted for. Absolutey perfect. I don't know why Lightroom would loose track of a handful of folders that had been imported and were a part of the catalog. But locating them from within Lightroom using the ADD command and then, for my own security, selectiong do not add suspected duplicates, the folders and contents were added back into the Lightroom catalog with all edits and metadata. I am happy, my catalog is now resotred and working perfetly. With due respect for those who object to the way I solved this, I am willing to delete this thread as it seems to be contrary to the way experts here think it should have been handeled. I won't belabor the point, I think the way I solved this problem has value for others to consider who run into this type of problem. Because of the very detailed nature of this work-through I could now write a book on this subject but will spare doing anything like that here. The problem is solved. I would leave this thread as is for others to take into consideration. But I will abide by the choice of the experts here just out of respect for the hard workd everyone has put into making these forums userful to everyone. Let me know.... and Thank You to everyone who responded to this issue, All of you have been a help in solving this matter.

Ken

[drtonyb]

@Ken Nielsen 

I'm not sure your solution will help others at all because the steps you took to fix your problem are not clear enough.

I still don't know what you mean by using the 'Add' command.

If you mean Import the missing folders again with the Add option selected, this will only restore edits if you have the edits saved to XMP sidecar files. In such a case, there will be no History for the Imported files and if you use Virtual Copies, these will be lost too.

[Ken Nielsen]

I do use virtual copies and they are there too. All edits, all copies as I use other software on edits but from Lightroom as the 'hub' for everything done. I imported the missing folders and their contents into Lightroom, adding them to where they should have been. This worked for me and I've had more than 24 hours now to check everything and it's all there. Sorry if I appear dense, but it seemed logical to me that if the folders had been removed somehow 'subtracted' from the catalog that 'adding' them back in would be logical. To ensure I would not be duplicating I checked 'do not add suspected duplicates' just to be sure. Fortunately it worked. Everything is completely restored and working properly. Nothing missing and all in order.

[drtonyb]

@Ken Nielsen 

Re-Importing photos cannot re-establish Virtual Copies, let alone Edits without XMP sidecars.

So, I still do not understand what you did to 'Add' your 'missing' folders back into your catalog, and recover all your edits and virtual copies.

I am wondering if your catalog had got corrupted in some subtle way that caused the 'missing' folders not to show, but all the photos were still in the catalog. By Importing again, LrC somehow re-established the folders so that the photos were re-linked to the 'missing' folders and thereby fixing the problem.

Without examining your 'before' catalog, we may never know.

[Ken Nielsen]

You've made an excellent analogy and to let anyone who winds up in the same boat referencing this thread will have a chance to see there is some missing element to the folders being restored. I know they were entered over several shoots over several days, over a dozen in all, and were all present an accounted for at the end of last year. The mystery to me is why just that one bunch in the last month of the year that dropped out of sight from the catalog without a trace but with all folders and files still in place on the hard drive. I'm hard line for consistency in the way that I work so there is no reason for the sudden disappearance of a block of folders from the catalog. I'll certainly accept your "we may never know" as I am not interested in trying to re-create the problem.as I really wouldn't know how to do that. I was banking on 'it was working' and 'nothing has moved or changed' to employ the 'ADD' and 'without duplicates' as a measure of insurance. Thank you for your help and input as well as to everyone who commented and gave advice. The happy thing is that everything has been restored with literally the press of a button, what a relief it was to see it importing and with folders showing up in place during the process. Whew! 

[drtonyb]

@Ken Nielsen 

When you say "Add" the missing folders back in the catalog, what do you mean? Can you explain the steps in more detail? Do you mean that you Imported the photos in these folders? Did you previously have edits for these photos before you 'lost' the folders?

You seem very unsure about using LrC, so my advice is to buy a good reference book on Lightroom Classic and read it thoroughly.

[Ken Nielsen]

I've been using Lightroom every day since the day it was released and it has been foundational software to me. I'm unsure because I've been through the dregs, Lightroom Queen et. al. of the various skirmishes that are possible with this program. Being unsure, to me, is just being smart and not jumping headlong into complete destruction. 

[dj_paige]

A better way to avoid "complete destruction" in my opinion is obtaining more knowledge about Lightroom Classic (such as @drtonyb 's suggestion). Being cautious doesn't help if you are about to do the wrong thing that will cause "complete destruction".

[Ken Nielsen]

I have over half a million photos and no parent folder as they are all stored over several drives adding up to nearly 100TB.  As you can guess, I don't want to mess anything up as I have been through a few crises since Lightroom was released  many years ago. My problem with a few missing folders for the end of 2024 is not good but I'm tackling the problem today. As I said, I just don't want to make matters worse. I will first 'turn filters off' which I don't know if it will do anything...