Missing files after Lightroom encountered an error...

[gugamillet]

Hi everyone, may 2021 be an amazing year for everyone.

I was working on Lightroom (on windows 10 pro) early today when I recived the following message: "Lightroom encountered an error when reading from its preview cache and needs to quit."

I reed some old post sugesting to delete the cache file, when I opened my folder, ALL MY PHOTO FILES ARE MISSING!!!

Can someone put some light on this issue to help me?

Someone have or had this issoe?

Thank youverymuch for the attention.

[JohanElzenga]

What do you mean with "when I opened my folder"? The Lightroom catalog folder is where that preview cache is located. But that folder only contains the catalog and its support files, not the images. The images are usually stored alsewhere on your computer (you decide where on import).

[gugamillet]

Exactly, this elsewhere is empty. 

I work with lightroom for almost 12 years now. I never saw this happen. 

[GoldingD]

Is the following what you did?

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/lightroom-gives-error-preview-cache.html

Deleating the correct files should not have resulted in photos being deleted.

[GoldingD]

Define missing. Do you mean LrC tells you they are missing? 

Did you search for them using your OS file manager?

Did you move or rename them outside of LrC?

[GoldingD]

Making an assumption on answer to third inquiry on previous reply.

see:

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