Missing folder icon

[mclynn]

I'm using Lightroom Classic version 15.0.1 on a MacBook Pro, Sequoia 15.7.1.
I understand that you may get an icon showing that folders have missing subfolders in them. My main folder, Pictures, shows the icon. I have gone through every folder & subfolders within that parent folder, and none of them have the icon.

I have no idea how to get rid of that icon without starting a new catalog and reimporting all my images (26K+).

Is this a bug as was suggested by a Lightroom Classic guru, or am I missing something?

Thanks!

[GoldingD]

See: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/community/threads/black-exclamation-marks.53757/

[mclynn]

Unfortunately, that link was not the answer. As I said, I went through the whole list of folders, opening each parent folder to see where the "missing" folder was, but no other folder or subfolder had the icon. 

[johnrellis]

Many have now reported that they're having problems finding the missing folders causing the black exlamation points in the Folders panel. I just added the command Find Missing Folders to the Any Source plugin. It will find all folders that are missing (not located where the catalog thinks they are), select them in the Folders panel, and write their paths to the file "missing-folders.txt" on your desktop.

If you see black exclamation marks in the Folders panel but Find Missing Folders doesn't find any that are actually missing, then that indicates a LR bug that should be reported to Adobe.

The plugin has a 30-day trial, enough time to clean up your folders and/or report a bug to Adobe.

[mclynn]

Thank you for that. I downloaded your plugin, installed it into LrC (vs 15.0.1), and clicked the choice of "Find Missing Folders." It came up with this folder missing: /Volumes/OM SYSTEM/DCIM/101OMSYS and in addition to that being in a txt file, that missing folder showed up at the bottom of my Folder list, under Missing Folders (which had not been there before). I did a search in my Finder for that folder and it was nowhere to be found.

[When I download images from my SD card, the last bit of that path shows in the finder window and holds my Olympus images that I then download to my Desktop.]

I then clicked that missing folder, went to the Folder title bar, and clicked the minus sign which got rid of the missing folder.

However, the black icon still shows. Since I'm an A-type personality, that's going to drive me nuts. Hope Adobe fixes that.

Again, thank you for your input. At least I know I've done all I can to fix this.

[GoldingD]

 It came up with this folder missing: /Volumes/OM SYSTEM/DCIM/101OMSYS

That sounds a lot like your flash memory card from your camera. (SD, CF, etc)

What type of memory card does your camera use? Typically if it is an SD card, then LrC would not allow ADDING those images, you would need to Copy, or Copy as DNG.

[mclynn]

Yes, it is definitely from my SD card that I used in my Olympus camera. I typically download image files to the desktop before importing them into LrC, but I probably imported directly from the SD card once or twice to show someone how that works.

Of course you're correct about having to Copy the files in that scenario.

Thing is that the black icon remains on my Pictures folder which is the parent folder ofr all the rest.

[johnrellis]

@mclynn: "However, the black icon still shows. Since I'm an A-type personality, that's going to drive me nuts. Hope Adobe fixes that."

Over the years, LR has left all sorts of detritus in catalogs via otherwise harmless bugs. I'm pretty sure that all these reports of the spurious folder black icons are coming from inconsistent folder entries in the catalog database resulting from past (or current) bugs in LR.  

You shouldn't have been able to create a folder by doing Import / Add from an SD card (though can with a Cfexpress card), but LR let you do it. Another source of bogus folders was early versions of sync between LR Classic and LR Cloud -- it creates funny "virtual" folders, and there are bug reports here filed about other problems with those.

I doubt this will get fixed soon. Adobe generally only pays attention to bug reports that they can easily reproduce, and these bugs generally can't be reproduced. Nor we can we easily send them a copy of your catalog proper, since the catalog needs the entire folder structure as well to reproduce the problem.   An engineer would have to log into your machine and poke around, something they do only for problems affecting many more people.

[mclynn]

I appreciate your input, but I do want to clarify that I did not create the missing folder. LrC must have created it by itself when I imported images directly from the SD card.

I'm sure you're right about Adobe not being able to do anything to replicate my icon problem — that's frustrating, but LrC is my go-to app and I'll have to live with it.

Now I've run into several other problems that make me wonder if I should go back to the last version. Question is, would I have to go back to the catalog version 14? I've done quite a bit of work since I updated to 15, so if I'd lose all that, which I can't afford to do.

Comments? 

Thanks!

[johnrellis]

@mclynn: "I do want to clarify that I did not create the missing folder. "

I understand. LR must have erroneously let you do an Import with the Add option or erroneously did the equivalent of an Add.