LRC 15.0 Upgrade Missing Folders but not any photos on a Mac

[Brook Lee]

The installation was not interrupted and seemed to be successful.

Please see attached screen capture. Three different folders with "!", each at a different level.

The lowest level folder "Properties" was the one I was working on previous to the upgrade.

When I r-click and select Update Folder Location and use "choose", LRC goes to the correct folder location. But nothing happens, and the exclamation points remain. This is true for trying to update location for all of the 3 folders.

I have not renamed or moved any folders or photos. I have not used synchronize.

The photos are on the Mac, not an external drive.

I do not store photos on the Apple iCloud or Adobe Creative Cloud.

In the LRC Backup folder, I do have a zipped file from 4 days ago. When prompted at closing, I have not saved any backups since I've had this problem.

I tried signing out and signing in to LRC. No difference.

I have not tried uninstalling and re-installing LRC.

Is there something I should try with the 4 day old backup that is previous to the upgrade?

LRC created a folder named "Old Lightroom Catalogs" during the upgrade.

Is there something I should try do with what is in this?

I do have an old version of the Lightroom Classic app 14.5.1 from August on an external drive.

[Sameer K]

Hey, @Brook Lee. Welcome to the Lightroom Community. I'll help you figure this out. 

The new black (!) mark on the parent folders are to alert you that within this parent folder's heirarcy, any files and folders are missing. 

In the Library Module > go to top menu > Library menu > Find All Missing Photos to refresh the Missing Images list and know what is missing. From there, you can follow the steps here to find missing images: https://adobe.ly/4nIUZK5

Also, please do not reimport any images, it'll create more confusion. 

Thanks!

Sameer K
(Type '@' and type my name to mention me when you reply)

[Brook Lee]

@Sameer K , Thank you for the reply. I followed your instruction. Please see attached image. No missing photos. Exclamation points remain.

[Brook Lee]

@Sameer K , I made a mistake. I told you something that was wrong. I store photos both on my Mac and in the Apple iCloud. I used to not store the photos in the iCloud. But I must have accidentally turned on the setting for "Sync this Mac to iCloud Photos" some time ago. Or maybe a system software update for the Mac turned iCloud sync for photos back on.

Could photos on iCloud cause new black (!) mark on the parent folders even though Library Module > go to top menu > Library menu > Find All Missing Photos DOES NOT find any missing photos? 

What should I do?

Does the Mac iCloud have something to do with my problem for this 15.0 upgrade?

[Brook Lee]

@Sameer K , please see new attached screen capture. At the bottom of the catalogue, there are DUPLICATE "RAW" and "properties" folders with exclamation points ("!").

Within the properties folder, there is an exclamation point on a subfolder "A Gillis Way" that has 0 photos in it. I renamed "A Gillis Way" to "A Gillis" a years ago. The "A Gillis" subfolder near the top of the Catalog show 2,711 photos. I cannot find any missing photos here. What should I do?

[johnrellis]

"there are DUPLICATE "RAW" and "properties" folders with exclamation points ("!")."

You may be tripping over a known bug or a close variant. See if this article helps:

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/capitalization-catalog-error/

[Brook Lee]

@johnrellis , Thank you very much for your suggestion. I appreciate it, since my attempts of getting help through Adobe via phone and chat have failed and I have not seen a reply from @Sameer K to this post.

I want to be sure I am doing the steps correctly. I don't completely understand, since when I follow the Lightroom Queen instruction "Float over the folder until a tooltip appears showing the full path" a tool tip does not appear and does not show the path. (I do know that both Properties subfolders that have exclamation points that go to the same correct location when I use r-click and select Update Folder Location and also when I use r-click and select Show in Finder.

Since Lightroom Queen wrote "And if you get stuck or this sounds too complicated, don’t panic, just take screenshots and post them on the forum, and we can give you more specific instructions based on your own folder names." I am going to do this in a few hours and hope that someone will reply.

cc: @Sameer K )

[johnrellis]

Tool tips on Mac LR can be very fussy.  The screenshots could help understand more.

[Brook Lee]

@johnrellis , I registered for the Lightroom Queen forum (Brook Lee), but ran out of time to make the post. A friend (who doesn't know LRC) tried to help, and at least now I can see the tooltip paths. See attachments. They are correct.

I looked at your profile and saw all the times you have helped people. Wow! Admirable.

Thank you.

cc: @Sameer K 

[Brook Lee]

I posted this problem on the LightroomQueen forum today, titled  "6 Exclamation Points at 15.0 Upgrade On Mac Not Resolved By "Update Folder Location" or "Find All Missing Photos". Maybe someone can help me there.

@Sameer K , you wrote "I'll help you figure this out." in your one and only post. Whether you are a real person or an AI virtual support, this problem is still unresolved and I still need advice.

[johnrellis]

[This post contains formatting and embedded images that don't appear in email. View the post in your Web browser.]

Your screenshot shows that, at least with the "properties" folder, their paths are identical and don't differ by case (which is the most common cause of these symptoms):

1. As a next step, right click the top-level folder "Pictures" and do Show Parent Folder.  Keep doing that until you can't get further up the parent folders (i.e. until you reach "/").

2. Repeat that for the top-level folder "RAW". 

3. Post a screenshot of the entire Folders panel showing both sets of ancestor folders.

4. Hover over both "Pictures" folders and capture their full paths in screenshots. Do they differ?

5. Repeat for both "RAW' FOLDER.

[Brook Lee]

@johnrellis, thank you for the instructions. I can't touch LRC today, but will definitely try this tomorrow.

[Brook Lee]

@johnrellis ,

Internal error message when I right click and select Show Parent Folder for the top level folder. "Pictures".   Also internal error message when I right click and select Show Parent Folder on the lower RAW folder.  Please see screen captures. 

Ugh. Is this fixable?

Thank you.

[johnrellis]

Your catalog is obviously in an inconsistent state, which happens very rarely. In the past, sometimes the technical team can repair damaged catalogs -- @Sameer K?

[Sameer K · Accepted solution]

Hey, @Brook Lee. Thanks for your continued patience and cooperation with our Experts. 

Yes, @johnrellis - I suspect this could be a standard catalog corruption. Before I collect the catalog for possible repairs, we can try to duplicate it on @Brook Lee 's machine and check how it goes. 

Follow these steps: 

1 - Create a new catalog from File > New catalog, or by holding the OPT key at the launch of Lightroom Classic.

2 - In the new catalog, go to File > Import from catalog > target your previous/old catalog with the issue. Proceed with merging the previous catalog into the newly made, internal storage-based catalog.

For more help via video-based steps, check here. See https://adobe.ly/3NTC9Rv

Once the catalog is duplicated, you may not see the Missing marks, or you should be able to correct them as discussed before in this thread 

Thanks!
Sameer K
(Type '@' and type my name to mention me when you reply)

[Brook Lee]

@Sameer K and @johnrellis , Thank you both, that worked! Nothng is missing in the new catalog after I imported the old catalog. All exclamation points are gone and all the photo settings are current. Two questions:

1. I did not put the new catalog in Pictures>Lightroom. Instead I placed the new catalog at Pictures>a new folder "15.0 Catalog". Is this location OK?
2. When I use the LRC on the Mac's dock, it opens the previous corrupted catalog. Can I delete the corrupted catalog and all of my backup catalogs? I have saved the new catalog to an external drive.

[Sameer K · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the update, @Brook Lee. Glad to know you're back on track. In Lightroom Classic, go to Lightroom Classic on the top menu > Preferences > General > Default catalog & point to the new catalog you've just set up.

Let me know if this helps. Thanks!

Sameer K
(Type '@' and type my name to mention me when you reply)