Photos in Lightroom Classic Disappear

[jzt123]

I have a very strange problem. Some folders have randomly disappeared recently on my computer in Lightroom Classic (I am running Mac OS 14.6.1 on a 14 in Nov 2023 MacBook Pro with 4TB drive and Lightroom Classic 14.2) giving me the folder with the question mark on it. I had edited some of the photos in that folder after importing them and was even able to export them, but after switching between catalogs, those photos are no longer to be found even though the thumbnail image is there.

All of the photos this has happened with were imported from cards where I imported some of the photos from the card into one catalog and then switched catalogs and imported other photos from that same card (not the same photos) to a different catalog. I did not remove the card in between imports.

It's not often that I will have two different projects on the same card, but it's sometimes the case if I'm out shooting at two different locations back to back.

Has anyone else encountered this? Any solutions? Thanks!

[Sean McCormack · Accepted solution]

Sorry to hear you're having issues. Lightroom doesn't remove photos randomly. If there is a ? on a folder it's because the folder is not where Lightroom is expecting it to be. Lightroom merely points to the folder the images are imported to (or were at with ADD). Switching to a different catalog and back won't affect this either. The folder has been moved or deleted outside of Lightroom. 

Solutions. Check the folder hasn't moved, or check Trash. Workaround for now, copy the files again into the expected location with the same names and Lightroom will reconnect them to the edits. 

[jzt123]

Thanks for the response - that's what I thought, too, but the photos are not in the trash and cannot be found anywhere on my computer or other drives when I do a search.  It is really freaking me out as I am scared to trust LR.  I shoot for theater and so take large numbers of burst mode photos in raw so even if I had the originals still on the card losing all of the editing work is terrible.  I really think there is something technical going on.  I have had the same process for years and only started having this issue last fall.

[JohanElzenga]

Are you using CFExpress cards by any chance? MacOS sees those cards as removable hard drives rather than memory cards, and as a result so does Lightroom Classic. That means it is possible to use 'Add' rather than 'Copy' when you import photos, meaning the photos are added to the catalog but remain on that memory card. If you remove the memory card, Lightroom Classic can't find them anymore...

[dj_paige]

Are the photos still on the camera card?