Lightroom Import does not recognise M2 SSD

[Windward]

Windows 11, Lightroom Classic V 13.5

I have just installed a new 2TB M2 SSD on my MSI motherboard to host my working files (At the same time there was an update to LR 13.4). I have 4 other SSD’s used for back-ups etc. At the same time Creative cloud updated Lightroom Classic to v13.4. All programs are on the (separate) C: drive. Working files are all in a single OneDrive folder on the D: drive with a full back-up on E:. On installation of the SSD I had to re-allocate the drive letters to make sure the new drive was the D: drive. (Lightroom 3)

I needed to import some images and discovered that Lightroom does not recognise the new drive in the import dialogue. The main catalogue sees it on the files structure and library (lightroom 1) and I can access all the folders and sub-folders, but when I come to import and click on the drive letter no folders or sub folders appear (lightroom 2). They appear normally on all the other drives. The folders all appear in the back-up E: drive (lightroom 5). The only way to import is to “select source” and pick the folder via explorer.

The same thing happens in the destination box. My catalogue has a main folder “Working Catalogue Images” and then sub-folders for each year. Regardless of the settings I use on the destination side, I cannot see the file structure to select a relevant year and I get a new folder with each import. (Lightroom 4)

I cannot work out whether this is an issue with the SSD or the recent update, or OneDrive. Has anyone any suggestions on how to solve this?

[GoldingD]

So your D drive is associated with your OneDrive cloud storage.

And you assigned that new drive as D, where a previous D existed before.

Is is very possible that the OneDrive is causing you pain and grief. Mixing LrC up with OneDrive can be problematic, And I for one recommend DO NOT DO THAT.

I do not know if your catalog is on that D drive, from your discussion it sounds like it is. And defiantly sounds like your photos are on that D drive. Thing is, they may actually be on OneDrive, the Cloud site, not your physical drive.

I suspect if you bring up LrC /Help/System Info/ that for the info on the Library location you see something like:

Library Path: C:\Users\username\OneDrive\Pictures\Lightroom\Lightroom.lrcat

Recommendation, disassociate OneDrive from that D drive. And/or name it as a different drive letter. Point being to not see that OneDrive associated with the drive. Make sure all catalogs are not on a OneDrive, make sure all photos are not on a OneDrive.

This general occurs because Microsoft, when prompting you to create a user account (typically when first launching Windows) basically forces you into creating an MS account, instead of a local account. Some I.T. experts on the web state to not allow that, and they show how to avoid that. They absolutely hate and mistrust MS accounts. Oh, you can still use OneDrive, but you should be in control of that, not MS

Yes, some LrC community members think LrC and OneDrive is made in heaven, others state made in Hell.

Some links

• LrC Community Discussion | How to remove onedrive from my lightroom catalog location found in Catalo...
• LrC Community Discussion | Lightroom & OneDrive - a match made in heaven?
• https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/lightroom-and-onedrive/m-p/9283443
• LrC Community Discussion | Lightroom and onedrive.
• LrC Community discussion | Lightroom Classic and OneDrive Always Keep On This Device
• Choose which OneDrive folders to sync to your computer

[Windward]

My D: drive  is a separate physical drive on my PC. The LrC program is on the C: Drive and the catalogue, image files, back-ups etc. are on the D: drive.

My OneDrive is set up to look at the D: drive only and all files on the PC are held locally and only synced through the cloud. The laptop has OneDrive with, in effect, a mirror of the pc D: drive. MS Office files are held locally, but image files are only downloaded from the cloud when (rarely) required. This setup allows me to sync between folders on the PC and the Laptop. All my photo editing is done on the PC. This setup has worked for  a number of years with no problem. I was running low on space and so added the new drive. It is only since adding the new M2 SSD and changing the Drive letter that the import has changed.

If I can’t find an easy solution I think I will end up removing and re-installing both OneDrive and Lrc and see if that solves the problem.

[GoldingD]

Instead of sync a entire drive to OneDrive, select folders, and do not select the folder LrC catalog or Photos are in.

No guarantee that will help.

I am not one of those that either like or trust OneDrive. Nor do I like or trust a MS account. Oh I might occasionally use OneDrive for a few items (well actually if testing an issue), and I do have along with local accounts a MS account (may have been  a mistake). But normally I use a local computer account for normal PC use, a Local ADMIN account when needed. Not the MS account, and nothing in those accounts associated to OneDrive. Call me OneDrie and MS account adverse.

[Windward]

I have had to hold off this issue for a while, but now I have returned to it and once again it is confusing the hell out of me.

1) I uninstalled OneDrive, Lightroom Classic, Photoshop and Bridge.

2) I deleted all the folders I could find for the above.

3) I cleaned the discs and registry using CC-Cleaner, which claimed no issues or remnants remained.

4) I renamed my back-up drives to W: X: Y: & Z (from E: F: G: H:) in disk management.

5) I renamed the back-up of the OneDrive folder on the X: Drive (Was F:OneDrive) to "Archive copy of one-drive"

6) I re-installed LRC, PS & B

7) I opened up Lghtroom and strangely it went straight into my working catalogue with no changes. It recognised that the drive letter had changed but was still showing the old "OneDrive" folder on the X: drive not the "Archive copy of one-drive".

8) I tried to create a new catalogue but the import screen still will not show any files in the W: drive.

So to my mind I have not done a clean install of lightroom and it's settings are hanging around somewhere.

How do I do a clean install of all the adobe Apps i.e Lightroom Classic, Photoshop etc?

Does LRC actually work with an M2 drive? Does anyone else use one?

I appreciate that OneDrive is a marmite issue and people love or dispise it, but I have disconnected it and it appears the issues are LR not Onedrive.

[GoldingD]

First up, that sceenshot shows that you are looking in one of your backup drives. Why?

Where is your working catalog at this point? Is it on that D Drive?

Can you show a screenshot, from Windows File Explorer showing where your catalog is in. And another screeenshot where your photos are kept?

[Windward]

First up, that sceenshot shows that you are looking in one of your backup drives. Why?

This screenshot was to illustrate that, although I had renamed the back-up of the OneDrive folder on the X: Drive (Was F:OneDrive) to "Archive copy of one-drive", Ligtroom shows the original folder name “OneDrive”. (Point 5)

Explorer and all other programs show the new folder name, I can’t understand why Lightroom doesn’t.

Where is your working catalog at this point? Is it on that D Drive?

All lightroom files and image files are on the D Drive and stored locally not in the cloud.

Can you show a screenshot, from Windows File Explorer showing where your catalog is in. And another screeenshot where your photos are kept?

Screen shots attached

The images are stored in D:\OneDrive\Photography\Image Files\Working Catalogue Images

The catalogue is stored in D:\OneDrive\Photography\LR Catalogues\Working Catalogue

I am not sure why the folders in the D: drive cannot be seen in Import. The D: disk can be seen but will not expand to show any sub folders. Equally the destination dialogue will not expand to show any sub folders. Screen shots included.

[GoldingD]

Contact Adobe. To accomplish that bring up an Adobe webpage, and click on the Chat button. This will start a Chat. In the Chat include a description of the issue, The info in your discussion should work. And include a link to your discussion. You may want to have all that in a text file before starting the chat just to be more efficient at it. At first the Chat will be with a Bot, be assertive in requesting an actual Adobe Tech join in the chat, and/or ask for a phone call.   For example, bring up: https://helpx.adobe.com/contact.html And click on the Chat button (typically bottom right corner) If at all possible, keep notes on what the Adobe Tech does, as so you can share that with other members in your post.

[Windward]

Many thanks GoldingD

I thought that was where I was heading.

[GoldingD]

You may also want to reply to that other one I sent, inquiring about catalog and photos location.

[Ian Lyons]

You should use the word Agent to denote that you require the assistance of a human.

[GoldingD]

Thank you, Perhaps I should alter my text to state (change in red):

Contact Adobe. To accomplish that bring up an Adobe webpage, and click on the Chat button. This will start a Chat. In the Chat include a description of the issue, The info in your discussion should work. And include a link to your discussion. You may want to have all that in a text file before starting the chat just to be more efficient at it. At first the Chat will be with a chatbot, Typing “Agent” into the chat text field will bypass the initial chatbot. Be assertive in requesting an actual Adobe Tech join in the chat, and/or ask for a phone call.

[GoldingD]

Why do you continue to associate your drives with OneDrive.? If you want to use OneDrive as a backup, fine, but to automatically sync each and every hard drive, each and every folder?

By syncing everything to OneDrive, every little save gets run into/from OneDrive, that eats up network bandwidth, that slows things down. This may not be so bad for say a Word Processing file, or a Spreadsheet. But it terrible for LrC. In LrC, each and every change you make, then causes communication to OneDrive. Add a keyword, OneDrive, Move the Exposure slider, OneDrive, apply a mask, OneDrive, OneDrive, OneDrive. If Access to OneDrive is slow, LrC is slow.

Point of the possible fix was to not allow OneDrive to sync your catalog. Point was to relocate the catalog in a folder that is not associated with OneDrive. This has helped some members.

Another method, is to go into OneDrive and disassociate LrC  catalogs and Photos with OneDrive, but then if you sync entire hard drives, that is problematic.

The fault for this lands at Microsoft. Microsoft wants everyone to use a MS account, MS wants everyone to just love OneDrive. They are heavy handed in trying to force users to create MS accounts for Windows PC's. And when you create a MS account to logon to your Windows PC, you get OneDrive. By default MS apply's that OneDrive to various System Library Folders, and to some file types. The Pictures folder, the Music folder, Videos folder, Documents, Downloads(not sure of this one) . Now in theory you could disassociate those (their are arguments for and against) but it is easier to just create a folder that is not associated with OneDrive. But if entire drives are sync's, not so easy.

Their are supposed I.T. pros on-line that advise to not use OneDrive so much, and more to the point who advise to not use MS accounts, to use local accounts. Some like myself avoid OneDrive like the plague. Some advise that OneDrive is not where you may want to backup (do you trust MS to keep you safe? Do you trust MS to not all of a sudden want money as in subscription?)

When you chat with Adobe, ask them about that. I could be full of it.

P.S., if you do move that catalog, you will probably have an issue with missing photos, or more specifically missing folders. see the following for how to fix:

• https://www.computer-darkroom.com/lr2_find_folder/find-folder.htm

P.S.(2), After moving that folder, you probably should not just clcik on the LrC startup Icon, that may bring up the wrong catalog (by default, most recent catalog) instead use your MS File Explorer, locate the catalog, and double click on it.

some links con MS accounts:

• Why you should NEVER login to Windows with a Microsoft Account! (VIDEO)
• I STILL Don't Want a Microsoft Account!! (VIDEO)
• How Do I Go Back to a Local Account after Setting Up Windows 11 with a Microsoft Account? (VIDEO)
• OneDrive Backup vs OneDrive Sync: Myths and Facts (mind you an advertisment)

and some con OneDrive with LrC links:

• https://www.lightroomqueen.com/community/threads/one-drive.49359/
• https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/how-to-stop-lightroom-catalogue-syncing...

[Windward]

I appreciate that you are not a fan of OneDrive, but my set up has been working fine for a couple of years and it is only since I installed the M2 Drive that Lightroom has had this hissy fit and the import doesn't work properly.

One Drive only syncs changes and the way to make sure there is no interference, you just simply pause syncing for a few hours. My set up is generally not about lightroom it is more that all my laptop files and folders are a mirror of  my desktop and this allows me to forget about what files need to be updated regardless of which device I am using.

To get away from MS world take over, there is clearly something amis with LR as I have uninstalled and disassociated all files from OneDRive and the LR import is still not the same as it was before the M2 Drive. It will not see the M2 sub folders for either import or destination.

[GoldingD · Accepted solution]

Give Adobe a chat. Please keep immaculate notes so that you can share them in a reply when you issue gets resolved. Lately members have been having good experiences with the Adobe Customer support. (well at least a few positive replies, and no absolute hate replies)

[Windward]

SOLVED I had  night mare contacting Adobe support as they didn't seemto be able to call the UK until I made a complaint and then got straight through, but Hey Ho the last (senior) tech guy was amazing and using screen sharing and about an hours sleuthing we discovered that the M2 Drive OneDrive folder was set to hidden. This must have happened during a MS or OneDrive update as I hve never hidden a file in my life! Once we changed the attributes for the folder every folder and file on the drive was visable and accessible.