Lightroom Classic 10.4 has “lost” all the images in random collections (shows 0)

[Robert Ripps]

Here’s a new one on me…and not a good one. Was looking for some older images just now, and noticed that many of my collections inside my catalog now show 0 (zero) images in them!  These are jobs image collections, withing a collection set of all of that years jobs, inside another set covering a 10 year spread. So I have a collection set, 2001-2010 images, inside of that are many collection sets- one for each years personal images, one for each years jobs, and inside a years jobs, a collection for each job. Previously each collection had images in it, but now, many of those job collections show no images in them… but not all- see a sample below:

I checked, and all of the images are still in the same folders on the same hard drive that they were in previously, so why in the world would Lightroom have “lost” them- it is not showing they are listed in collections and can’t find them, but that those collections are just empty. The missing images seem random, as some collections still have all(?) their images, some don’t. This seems to have happened to images that cover a span of 5 years- no idea when this occurred, but seemingly recently, as I am often accessing those collections. The only thing I have done is update Lightroom to this current version last year.

I have yet to find any other collections inside different collection sets that are also missing their images. I tried optimizing the catalog, restarting Lightroom, but to no avail.

Has anyone else experienced this behavior, and if so, what did they try to get the images to show up again? Thanks.         

Lightroom Classic 10.4, macOS 10.14.6

[Todd Shaner]

Use the filter bar and search by Date to see if you can locate the pictures missing in the collections. You may also want to use the Creative Cloud app and update to the latest 11.1 version.

[Robert Ripps]

Hi Todd, thanks for chiming in.

When I select my 2011 jobs collection set, it should only show me jobs I shot in 2011, as I created each sub collection for each job, then manually added images when shot. So not a smart collection in any way. When I look at the collections I created, I see 8 collections- 4 have what are the right number of images listed in those collections, and the other 4 show zero images. The total shown in 2011 is 1463 job images (just in those 4 folders).

I look at personal images shot in 2011 (which is a smart folder, to omit any job images), and I see I have 5414 (although it includes a few shot by other people that I imported at one point to make a slideshow, so say 8-10 extras). So when I add up those two totals, I should see about 6877 images for all of 2011.  When I search All Photographs, for 2011, I see 6883- off by 6, but within the margin of error. What I don’t see is any of the job images that are in those 4 empty collections, which number 543- they just do not exist in my Lightroom catalog!

I searched All Photographs, picked the dates of some of the missing images (I can see “missing” images manually on the hard drive, and check the dates I shot them), but nothing that’s missing shows up in Lightroom on those dates. When I look at 2012- I shot two jobs a day apart, the images from one of them is visible in All Photographs, the job I shot the following day does not exist (according to Lightroom).

So basically, Lightroom has each collection I created for all the jobs over all these years, but just has none of those images in it’s database! And it appears to be random. And it seems like all or nothing with those collections- they either are all there, or all are missing.

I have not updated to version 11 yet, as I cannot install the latest Adobe updates under my current os. And I can’t update my os right now, so I am fine using version 10.4- if it worked!

[Randy Hufford]

Have you tried to sync folders? Under grid mode right click on folder and select syncronize folder...

[GoldingD]

Their was an odd bug, an inconsistent one. Try creating a collection, add a photo to it, then close LrC, followed up by reopening LrC.

[Robert Ripps]

I create a few collections each week, but have not seem that behaviour repeated. These are older collections, nothing more recent than 2013.

[Todd Shaner]

If you have catalog backups try loading each of them to see if any of the collections that have the missing images are populated. If so add a keyword to those image files with the name of the collection they should be in and then CTRL + S to save them and your settings to XMP files. You can then load your current working catalog and try Syncroinize Folders on those specific folders.

[Robert Ripps]

Hi Todd, thanks for the suggestion. I back up the catalog each night, but after a few days they are overwritten by a more recent one. However, I checked time machine and pulled one from June 1, 2021, before the latest update. I was able to save it to my documents and launch LR using that catalog. I see all of my missing images (see screenshot for comparison).

I was thinking about your suggestion, and I certainly could do what you said. However, that would mean altering the xmp files for thousands of images on my archive drive, and then searching for each set and re-adding them to the correct collection, then deleting that extra metadata, altering the xmp’s yet again, unless I am misunderstanding something.

I am thinking that instead, if I take that screengrab, double check each job folder of images to make sure the total number of images in the collection matches the number of images in each missing job folder. Relaunch LR with current catalog. Then I could just re-add each folder of images, adding in place, and not doing any presets, to keep xmp files untouched (as they are full of metadata, raw settings, etc). I don’t think that would be any more work than your method, as each collection that lost its images has an easily definable set of images (as opposed to some of my curated collections that would be impossible to directly re-add), plus it doesn’t touch the xmp files. Does that make sense? Thanks.

[Todd Shaner]

If the files in the June 1, 2021 catalog backup file have been edited, but not changed since that date then there's no harm in doing as I suggested. Using that catalog archive file you will add a keyword to all of the files in each collection with the collection name. Then use CTRL + S to save the added keywords and Develop data to XMP. You can then open your current working catalog and use the Filter bar to search by each catalog name for the associated files. Then drag and drop them into the empty collection.  Repeat for each collection that has missing photos. Does that make sense?