Photos in Catalog can't be found where they should be

[kwcalm]

Lightroom Classic on MacOS Catalina  10.15.7

Lightroom 10.01.1  Build is shown in screenshot below

My catalog has over 500k of photos.

I work in two locations, for several months at a time at each location.

When I change locations, I do the following:

• I synchronize my entire Lightoom folder, containing database and catalog, to an external USB drive
• I take the drive to my other location
• I synchronize the external USB drive to the second location - the entire Lightroom folder, containing database and catalog. 
• The catalog from the external USB drive replaces the catalog at the second location
• I then use this replaced catalog

I have been doing this successfully for some time.

HOWEVER, this procedure is not working anymore.  All the photos in the catalog now point to the external USB drive, not to the local drive.  I can reattach them manually, but it is a very long process.

If I rename my local drive to match the name of the external USB drive, could this solve the problem?

Is there another method of getting the catalog to look for photos on the local drive?

Thanks.

[Tony_See]

Thanks for posting you screen shot of your version details.

It sounds like from your careful posting that you are wanting to use the same Catalog in two locations, and use Sync function, like I have attached below.

.

Can you post a screenshot of your expanded Folder structure from within the Library Module?

BTW please use the "Insert Photos" icon in the post-reply window for easier forum viewing if you do so.

[dj_paige]

You can reconnect Lightroom Classic to an entire "tree" of folders via these instructions (see Figure 4): http://www.computer-darkroom.com/lr2_find_folder/find-folder.htm

I doubt that Synchronize Folders will do what you want, it will also remove from your Lightroom Catalog any photos that are not in the folder Lightroom Classic thinks it is in; and this is NOT what you want.

[D Fosse]

FWIW I do exactly this as part of my backup routine regularly (and also to let me work on two machines), but on Windows. It has been very reliable and I never had any problems.

I use special file synchronisation software to streamline the process, which means the "transport" drive does not need to have the same name (or drive letter, this being Windows). This added flexibility should be well worth the small cost.

As long as the source and final destination drives are identical, the catalog correctly picks up the files from the destination drive.

Precautions: I run the process in one direction only, never in reverse, to avoid any corruption spreading (there hasn't been any). I also back up the catalog separately using the built-in routine, since the synchronisation treats the catalog as a single file, completely overwritten every time.

[Tony_See]

I do similar and use Transmit (Mac) for this and a few other sync processes. Very reliable.