Lightroom 7.4 constantly crashes when source files/folders are missing

[maxigs]

I just updated to Lightroom 7.4 the other day, both on my Mac and Macbook.

While on the Mac everything is working fine, on the Macbook it's completely unusable because it crashes everytime i navigate the library.

I assume this has something to do with the Macbook only having a subset of the folders, while the Mac has all of them.
Since the HDD on my Macbook is much smaller than my Lightroom Library i have been using Dropbox+SelectiveSync to only sync the folders i currently need to the Macbook.

This has been working for several year this way now but broke with 7.4. - A downgrade to 7.3.1 "fixed" it for now, but it's obviously no solution.
Also it is impossible for me to have my entire photo library on the macbook.

Has anyone made similar experience and was able to fix it?

Or is there any alternative way of handling the situation where the lightroom has to work on 2 devices (never at the same time obviously), with different subsets of sources. I can't really change my workflow, as the notebook is obviously the only way to work on location, while on the other hand lightroom is way to resource-hungry to make this a efficient primary work-device.

Thanks

[dj_paige]

I assume this has something to do with the Macbook only having a subset of the folders, while the Mac has all of them.

I would NOT assume this at all. Many people run Lightroom 7.4 and have some missing folders, and it doesn't crash. Nevertheless, I don't know what the cause is (you could be right, or not). If you want to report this as a bug, go here: Photoshop Family Customer Community

The way to work on 2 computers and trasnfer work back and forth is to set up a small catalog on the Macbook with no missing folders, and then transfer this small catalog and photos to the other computer. Similarly, when working on the Mac and you want to transfer photos to the Macbook, you select the subset of photos you want, then File->Export as Catalog, check "include negatives" and then copy all the files to the Macbook. No missing photos, no missing folders this way.

[JohanElzenga]

Agreed. Missing image folders do not make Lightroom crash, but missing support files might do that. Syncing a catalog over Dropbox used to work fine, but that does not automatically mean that it will continue to work. There may be references in the catalog to local support files that are not synced. Use separate catalogs and ‘Import from Another Catalog’ to sync them.

[cmgap]

Have you always used Selective Sync?

If you want to identify if SS is the problem, copy the support files to the MB and see if it still crashes when they are present.

Alternatively, you can copy the Lightroom catalog files to an external drive and see if it opens without crashing from there.

[maxigs]

As it turns out - and everyone was saying -  it was NOT the selective sync.

The issues was some symlinks i had in the Adobe Settings folder:

I did have symlinks for Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom as well as../Photoshopxx and ./CameraRaw, with the original files in my dropbox as well. Like this they stayed in sync across the 2 computers AND backed them up nicely.

I'm still trying to narrow it down and ideally find a solution again, to keep the sync behavior.

PS: My Lightroom Catalogue is also in the dropbox (with a little "hack" in dropbox to ignore the previews, as it does not make sense to sync them).

[JohanElzenga · Accepted solution]

Right. That is a known issue. You can sync the old presets folders, but the CameraRaw folder (including the new presets and profiles) cannot be synced by using a symlink and placing the folder itself in Dropbox.