Reconnect Collection to Master Images [after disk rename] MacOS

[Alasdair_Scott]

So here's an interesting one.  Working with a client who has a massive library with master images on several external SSD's.

There are a number of collections totalling approx 40,000 images where LRC has lost reference to the master image files.  The "?" is shown on the image thumbnail when viewing a collection.  We can click this and then re-link to the master image file and all others within the same directory -- however we'd need to do this about 3,700 times BY HAND to relink all of the masters.

In the Folders panel it only shows folders on the SSD which contain images that have been re-linked -- in other words, no folders with the "?" on them.  So no quick way of relinking the missing folders.

Looking at the paths to the masters when re-linking it looks like the originals were imported when the SSD was called "T7" and subsquently it was renamed "Phone".  Changing the name back to "T7" does not magically refind the files.

Any ideas?  My client has spent months organising images into lots of collections so we don't want to re-import and re-catalog 40k stills.  Also re-linking 3,700 folders by hand is a nightmare.

Any ideas?  

[dj_paige]

Reconnect folders or trees of folders via the instructions here (in particular, see Figure 4)

[Alasdair_Scott]

unfortunately the folders simply don't appear in the Folders panel UNTIL they are linked manually. And I'm trying to avoid doing that 3,700 times. 

[dj_paige]

The folders that you want to re-link should appear underneath the previous name of the disk. Those are the ones you need to re-link in Lightroom Classic.

[Conrad C]

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@Alasdair_Scott wrote:

Looking at the paths to the masters when re-linking it looks like the originals were imported when the SSD was called "T7" and subsquently it was renamed "Phone".  Changing the name back to "T7" does not magically refind the files. 

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Renaming might not work because each volume has a unique volume ID in macOS, so if Lightroom Classic is tracking volumes by unique ID (so that it won’t get confused if two volumes with the same name are mounted), changing the name won’t change anything.

The typical way to solve this is to relink to the top level parent folder/volume shown (not image or collection). Earlier you said…

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@Alasdair_Scott wrote:

We can click this and then re-link to the master image file and all others within the same directory -- however we'd need to do this about 3,700 times BY HAND to relink all of the masters. 

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…does that mean you are always looking for images to relink, and not a top level folder/volume? If so, that’s probably where the frustration is coming from. That's the long way around. Start over by relinking the top level folder containing photo folders in T7/Phone (whatever that volume is named now). For specific instructions, see this article:

Lightroom thinks my photos are missing—how do I fix it?

[JohanElzenga]

Renaming might not work because each volume has a unique volume ID in macOS, so if Lightroom Classic is tracking volumes by unique ID (so that it won’t get confused if two volumes with the same name are mounted), changing the name won’t change anything.

Don't worry, Lightroom does not use the unique volume ID. It simply looks at the disk name, so you can easily fool it into thinking a new disk is the old disk by giving the new disk the same name as the old one. Just do not mount two disks with the same name at the same time, because that does indeed confuse Lightroom.