Unable to Export - Source file(s) are offline or missing

Report · Nov 29, 2024

I am using LR Classic on MacOS and just moved my catalog to an external SSD in order to free up space on the MacBook system drive.

I did the move with LR closed. I simply copied the entire folder that contained the library to the new location.

I then double-clicked the catalog file in the new location to launch LR. This worked fine. I was able to browse my files, etc. with no errors. I closed and then reponed LR to make sure it was still referencing the new location and it was.

I then proceeded to import some images from a memory card as normal. This worked fine. I made some minor changes to those files and then went to export those images, but the moment I clicked the Export button in the Library module, I get this error:

Unable to Export -

Source file(s) are offline or missing.

The only problem is, the files are not missing and not offline. Nothing else on my system changed.

I dont get it. Can some help with this please?? i urgently need to resolve this and am not sure where to turn.

Thanks in advance.

John

Report · Nov 29, 2024

Please clarify something: You just moved the catalog file? Or did you move the catalog file and photos?

Are there exclamation point icons on the photos as shown in Figure 2 here: https://www.computer-darkroom.com/lr2_find_folder/find-folder.htm ?

Report · Nov 29, 2024

Thanks for the quick reply.

I moved only that catalogs (old and current) and their associated files (but not the source photo files... they are stored in a separate location that has not changed. And there were no exclamation point icons of the photos.

So, after trying a few things, it suddenly started working again. One thing I did notice while I had the problem, was that there seemed to be a lot disk activity from one of my external drives so perhaps a backup was running at the same time which may have locked some files temporarily. Not sure.

In any case, I no longer have the problem and am able to export without an issue now.

Report · Nov 29, 2024

see:

https://www.computer-darkroom.com/lr2_find_folder/find-folder.htm