Missing Photos from Catalogue (not even greyed out)

[jonathan_freeman]

Hello

Within the past month or so (as I haven't used Lightroom much during this time) half of my current catalogue has gone missing. They are not even displayed as greyed out on my current catalogue. These files are saved on an external hard drive, and always appear when I plug in that external hard drive, however now they do not. The files are indeed stll saved on my external hard drive, yet they are simply not diplayed in Lightroom Classic.

I think the problem has come, as I recently asked 'One Drive' to back up all my files online. It appears that the Library path on my LrC catalgues and backups has now moved to to the folder in my one drive account on my PC's C Drive, and is no longer set to link to my normal catalogue which still also exists on the normal folder on my C Drive. (I can see this when I go to when I go to 'System Info' under Help menu). It's strange as the One Drive folder now created, is an exact duplicate of the previous one (Both are current and saved on my PC in differnt folders) however the catalogue in LrC simply no longer regonises any of my catalogue on my external hard drive (except two lonely folders very bizarely). What do I need to do to re-point my LrC catalogue to where it has always been, and still is... as currently the vast majority of all my photos on this external hard drive (95%) have gone missing, and I do not wish to re-import them again, for fear of losing all the edited / developed material I have previously produced on these catalogues. 

Please help me resolve this rather frustrating situation.

Many Thanks in advance.

[drtonyb]

@jonathan_freeman 

Difficult to help without some more information.

Re-import is the last thing you want to do.

Press the Alt key and click the LrC icon to launch. A Select Catalog dialog will be displayed. Take a screen shot (press the Print Screen key) and share it here as a starting point.

[jonathan_freeman]

Hello

Please see attached screenshots I have taken both from LrC and my PC's
folder, where my catalogue and back-ups are saved. Does this help at all,
in terms of what you were asking for?

Somebody else has suggested that it is my One Drive auto-sync that is
causing me the problem. This makes sense, as this particular issue with
Lightroom only started after I set my One Drive (Microsoft) app. to
auto-sync in backing up all my PC's files / folders. Until then,
everything was fine.

Please Note the first screenshot shows the Lightroom folders which I
currently have access to on an older external hard drive, however my
current / latest external hard drive with a whole range of more recent
photos over the last couple of years, are no longer displayed in my
catalogue files, when I plug this in (even though the photos are still
there in reality on the hard drive).

Any further assistance would be appreciated, however fundamentally at this
stage, I am going to switch off my One Drive auto-sync (which I'm not sure
how to do right now) but I hope that will solve the problem.

Many Thanks for your assistance.
Jonathan

[GoldingD]

I suspect that you replied via email. In this community, when attaching files, when replying via email, fails, hence no actual attachments.

Please attempt your reply again, this time on the web.

[jonathan_freeman]

Hello
Please see attached screenshots I have taken both from LrC and my PC's
folder, where my catalogue and back-ups are saved. Does this help at all,
in terms of what you were asking for?

Somebody else has suggested that it is my One Drive auto-sync that is
causing me the problem. This makes sense, as this particular issue with
Lightroom only started after I set my One Drive (Microsoft) app. to
auto-sync in backing up all my PC's files / folders. Until then,
everything was fine.

Please Note the first screenshot shows the Lightroom folders which I
currently have access to on an older external hard drive, however my
current / latest external hard drive with a whole range of more recent
photos over the last couple of years, are no longer displayed in my
catalogue files, when I plug this in (even though the photos are still
there in reality on the hard drive).

Any further assistance would be appreciated, however fundamentally at this
stage, I am going to switch off my One Drive auto-sync (which I'm not sure
how to do right now) but I hope that will solve the problem.

Many Thanks for your assistance

[GoldingD]

I notice that a few of your folders, are in effect, duplicated. Now, I do not doubt that if you bring up your Windows File Explorer, that you will find out they are not actually duplicated.

I suspect that you might have a capitalization issue. This might not be the cause of your posted issue, but is something to check for and fix

see:

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

.

[GoldingD]

I notice that you may also have a few folders that have gone missing (although a few of those may be capitalization issues). After seeing if you have in fact the capitalization issue, and fixing that, see if you still have missing folders.

see:

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

Your LrC catalog, being a database, can have issues if the file management gets fouled up, all those missing folders, and any missing photos, should be fixed. A cluttered or fouled up database can cause LrC to go south..

[GoldingD]

Looking at your screenshot of your Windows File Explorer, showing where your catalogs are, a few observations/questions

You mentioned that you attempted to backup on OneDrive, But what about backups on your hard drives?

I see a backup folder that is a subfolder on the hard drive containing your catalogs, in fact in the same folder structure as the catalogs. Are your backups in that folder? Why? Backups should not be on the same hard drive as the working files, that C drive dies, then both the working and the backups die. Those other hard drives, any backups in them?

I see that your current catalog is very much smaller in file space from the previous. What about any backups when uncompressed??

Also, what version is LrC now? What version was it in December? File names would imply v12, but that is probably a false lead. And, how much actual importing occurred between December and now? If a LrC upgrade fouled up a catalog upgrade, and you attempted to open, and perhaps as a result upgrade the December catalog, would you loose much? (assuming back in December a very different LrC was in effect)

[drtonyb]

@jonathan_freeman 

Your screenshots indicate you are working on One Drive. Why? Have you moved all your files to One Drive? If so, very bad idea.

You need to to be working on your local hard drive, not on One Drive.

As @GoldingD points out, your most recent catalog by date is very much smaller than the previous one. Less than half the size. This indicates a major problem. I don't see a capitalization problem. The missing folders that have a duplicate have the same case, eg. there are two "Coastal Views", each with 185 photos, but one is marked as missing. This looks like a folder problem in the catalog.

Is there anything wrong with "Lightroom Catalog-2-v12.lrcat"?

[DdeGannes]

@jonathan_freeman , you stated " It appears that the Library path on my LrC catalgues and backups has now moved to to the folder in my one drive account on my PC's C Drive, and is no longer set to link to my normal catalogue which still also exists on the normal folder on my C Drive."

This is likely the source of your problem, it's likely your Catalog file has become corrupted.

[GoldingD]

Is your working catalog on OneDrive, or being automatically synced to OneDrive. IMO both are bad, especially working from OneDrive. And if just Auto Sync, then performance will take a hit and the catalog can get corrupted in rare instances.

Consider placing LrC catalog(s) in folders that are not associated to OneDrive sync. Consider creating a root leval folder named something like MyLightroom, MyPhotos, Rumpelstiltskin, whatever you like but not user system library's like user, pictures, desktop, downloads, videos,

If you bring up LrC /help/system info/ and the library path includes OneDrive in the path name, then it is auto sync, and you may be asking for trouble.

P.S. unless you have paid for extra cloud space, OneDrive might be a lousy space to backup to.

[dj_paige]

These files are saved on an external hard drive, and always appear when I plug in that external hard drive, however now they do not. The files are indeed stll saved on my external hard drive, yet they are simply not diplayed in Lightroom Classic.

I don't think this indicates catalog corruption, there are many possible causes. Please search for the files in Lightroom Classic by following ALL four of these steps in order, and report the results.

1. In the Lightroom Classic Library Module, on the left, under Catalog, click on All Photographs
2. Turn off all filters (Ctrl-L once or twice)
3. Turn off all stacking (Photo->Stacking->Expand All Stacks)
4. Search for at least one of these photos by file name using the Lightroom Classic Filter Bar

[jonathan_freeman]

Hello

Thanks for the notes and steps to follow. However I already tried this
before I even posted my enquiry. Searching for either individual photos or
named folders etc in my catalogue, it does not work or bear any results.

Another guy said that it is the Auto Sync on my One Drive back up which is
causing the problem. This would make sense, as the issues started when I
chose to start backing up files using One Drive. I hope my catalogue has
not become corrupted in the meantime. Tomorrow when I have time to look
into this, I will remove / turn off my auto sync with One Drive. I hope
that will solve the problem, and nothing else has become problematic in the
interim.

Do you have any experience of this yourself?

Many Thanks

[dj_paige]

Could it be the photos have been re-named? That could be why the search fails.