Missing folders in database of LR Classic

Report · Jan 18, 2018

Hello, this might seem a common error, but I don't think it is: the folders several layers of nested onesà are missing in the thr database of LR. For the entire disk, LR indicates over 80000 pictures, which is correctnut in the folders most of them are missing in the LR but not on disk çnew location).

All this happened after moving LR and catalog to a new computer and the folder with all the pictures tu a external disk.

I can solve this by looking for a picture for each and every date for which I ever imported at least one. Once that done I can locate the new location. Inconve,eance is that this is a lot of work due to the nimber of files. And on top of the work this solution is not perfect: after this manipulation LR shows only one level of folders for thr so found pictures.

Can anyone give me a bettter solution ?

Report · Jan 18, 2018

Hi

Please check the link How to find missing photos in Photoshop Lightroom Classic CC

Regards

Priyanka

Report · Jan 19, 2018

i, rhznks for answerin,g my question, but as I tried to explzin I midding flders in LR not files. Well I'm issing the files containredf in those folders mising in LR but the major problem is de folder structure in the LR catalog that is incomplete.

A sample may clarify thinfs I guess:

D:\mnt\PHOTOS\2000\2000-01\2000-01\01\img-00001.jpg (full path name)

this file lives on the right place outside of LR. In Lr this file can only be found under the tab \mount, where it is to be found, bit with the more common problem of pointing to the old location which is no longer on-line.

reards

Freddy

Report · Jan 19, 2018

Do not use Folder > Synchronize to solve this problem. It won't - it will make it worse.

OK, that said, go to the folder 2000 for example and right click it. You should then have an option to Find Missing Folder. Point to the folder in its new location, and you should be done - it fixes subfolders too.

John

PS your attachment doesn't display in the forum because email attachments don't work.

Report · Jan 19, 2018

Hi John

in some ,if not all cases he folder 2000 doesn't even appear on the LR screen. But that seems to be solved meanwhile.

That's probably the result of an action I had undertaken and that I tought was without result . I constructerd a tree with a folder for each and every monh and day of a year with in each folder a jpg file; I then dit import those into LR. At fist it didn(t change much, but now after several hours tI see a lot of changes. Maybe that the solut that you are proposing became dable in the new situation!?

regards

Freddy

Report · Jan 19, 2018

I suggested 2000 because correcting a parent folder is more efficient than correcting its child folders one after another.

If the parent folder 2000 isn't visible, try right clicking the photo's folder - 01 in your example - and choosing Show Parent Folder. If it works, you can repeat this step on 2000-01 and eventually up to 2000, which you can then fix with right click and Find Missing Folder.

Above all, please do not use Folder > Synchronize.

Report · Jan 20, 2018

Hello,

I've been trying fixing the catalog. Under Folders on the left pane of LR I selected the mount point of my folder containing my photo's. And yes there I see 80000+files. That's the right number. I then selected a photo from the grid. One dated in the year 2010, a year completely missing on the left panel. I then located that picture and yes the left pane now shows folders

2010

2010-12

2010-12-11 with 2 (out of 58) pictures ?

I located another photo, now dated july 2010 with result the appearance of folders

2010-07

2010-07-01 => 127 photos (out of 130)

2010-07-24 => 7 photos (correct)

It seems to me that if I continue this way I'll have a lot of work to do without getting all pictures in place.

regards

Freddy

Report · Jan 20, 2018

Is it possible that when these folder appear in the Folder panel, that they are on a different disk, or in a different location in the hierarchy than you expect them to be in? That's what it seems like to me. Please let us know.

But there is a simpler way to find photos by date, without first somehow finding the folder. Use the Filter Bar, select the date of interest, and you will find the photos very easily.

Report · Jan 20, 2018

Hello

Yes, they are indeed on a different disk but in the same folders. Remember: I moved the whole photo tree to another disk with Windows explorer, thinking that relinking the whole folder structure would be easy.

I did give iy a new try with a picture dd july 19 2010:

2010\02 got added with 90 picture (correct number)

So your solution works fine, but reveals only one path to the top, in the case that there are other day(s) and

folders missing then these remain hidden!

Please do remark also that if something is missing initially then all levels are missing like in the first sample (2010-12-11).

regards

Freddy

Report · Jan 20, 2018

You haven't been terrible specific about exactly what you are doing to make these folders appear. Could you give us more details about the actual steps you are following?

Also, I specifically mentioned that the folders might be in a part of the hierarchy that you aren't expecting them to be in (or the other possibility is that they are found in Lightroom on a different disk), thus resulting in what you are seeing. Is that happening?

Can you also show us a screen capture of the result so we can see your Folder Panel

Report · Jan 20, 2018

Helo,

I did explain it in message # 6 of this conversation. It corresponds to what you suggested me to do.

What can I tell you more ?

BTW what database does LR use? Any chance to read it with SQL ?

regards

Freddy

Report · Jan 20, 2018

Here you go ...

Report · Jan 20, 2018

The filter says there are 4721 photos in 2010.

But they can be elsewhere under rmt1. You may not have put them in the 2010 folders (by accident?). Or you may have put them in 2010 folders but not under +++Photos+++.

Also, in reply 6, you don't really say what step in Lightroom is used to make this folder appear. Are you using "Go to Folder in Library"? Or some other step?

Report · Jan 21, 2018

I'm quite sure that using this filter all photos van be found. That means they still have entries in the catalog isn't it ?

Anyhow that's the way I've been using to recover folders in LR. I accomplished this using "Show in explorer" and then completing this by answering the request to "Locate" the file.

This works fine but is tedious since one has to proces all files day by day without being sure that all are shown in LR’s grid nor tto be included in the count on the left pane.

Report · Jan 21, 2018

FreddyPaparazzi wrote
I'm quite sure that using this filter all photos van be found. That means they still have entries in the catalog isn't it ?

Yes, they're still in the catalog. They're not "missing" as you have described in your title; they are mis-placed.

Anyhow that's the way I've been using to recover folders in LR. I accomplished this using "Show in explorer" and then completing this by answering the request to "Locate" the file.

I think this agrees with what I have been saying. The photos are in some other folder in your hierarchy, and are not in rmt1\+++photos+++.

I think a much easier approach is to use the filter bar to find photos by date, by setting the left-most dropdown to Date as you have done; in which case there is no need to re-arrange the Folder panel at all. As always, I advise using Lightroom tools instead of folders for organizing.

Report · Jan 21, 2018

I talked about missing folders, not missing files. Folders are missing on the F older pane, and of course files under those folders are not accessible this way.I’m pretty sure that all photos are still out there on my hard drive.

Yes this agrees. All photos (and folders) where living under “F:\ +++ Photos +++”. As I told before I moved LR to a new pc and the photos to a external disk. The disk <as then mounted on a mount point on a drive of the same new pc.

So the new address became: “ D:\mnt\+++ Photos +++”. In my opinion it would be a piece of cake to link to new and the old “+++ Photos +++”.

I don’t know where it went wrong nor what I could have been doing wrong?

Report · Jan 21, 2018

I don't know what went wrong. I wasn't watching you as you tried to do this.

I guess I still don't feel you have grasped the point, which I will make one more time and then let it die. The Folders are not missing, they are present, but in a different place in your LR folder hierarchy than where you think they should be. And you don't need the folders to be in the proper hierarchy anyway. You can find all the photos you want without the folders; just use the Filter bar instead of folders.

Report · Jan 21, 2018

I agree with what you are saying, but I want LR to work the way it was designed for. After all what's going wrong can't be nothing more then a couple of links that were not updated correctly. I'm going to try to read te catalog with SQLite Database Browser to see what's really wrong. Possibly that will give me a clue about how wrong the links are.

Thanks for trying to help me.

Report · Jan 21, 2018

Hi Freddy - If you were to do this again would you do it differently? Here is a video from Julienne Kost where she moves through the steps of migrating to a new computer. Perhaps after watching this you'll want to start over again...

How to Migrate Lightroom to a New Computer - YouTube

Report · Jan 23, 2018

Hello, sorry for the late answer! And no, I don't think I would do it differently. the recovering of all missing folder went well, at least for a number of years. Now I'm somewhat stuck.
But I found also a new problem that could be the origin of all troubles. When reading the catalog with sql I see no tables at all! NONE!
Reading an older copy of the same catalog gives me a lot of tables!
I guess I'll look for a method to add all these missing table definitions and eventually start a new discussion on this forum.

best regards

Freddy