LR Classic 9.3 erroneously deleting and "missing" photos!

[Osplo]

I have been investigating issues with the import / synch of folders when using an external disk (using the ADD option at import) and it’s really crazy.
 
I am importing hundreds of folders to LR for the first time. But it will not import all of my photos and it will erroneously mark as “missing” photos it just imported. If I delete the companion live photo from my iphone (the .mov that has the same name as the .jpg) it will delete the .jpg too (with no warning). And more crazy stuff. Completely unreliable!
 
I detail the glitches here:
 
1. TONS OF “MISSING” PHOTOS JUST AFTER IMPORTING A FOLDER
After importing photos into the catalog from an external disk using the Add option, if I click on “Synchronize folder” in most of my folders LR will kindly offer to “Remove missing photos from catalog”. Funny thing is, there are no “missing photos”. I have not touched the folder nor disconnected the external disk or anything. Every photo in the catalog is on the disk. This happens, as mentioned, even right after finishing the import. So why so many photos (dozens typically, hundreds in large folders) are immediately marked as missing? To make it even worse, if I innocently let it remove them from the catalog… there is no way to import them back! I can see them in the Finder, but no Synchronize Folder operation will bring them back. Only way to do it is to remove the entire folder and to import it again, losing all unsaved metadata and changes. PLEASE FIX IT!
 
2. LR WILL DELETE THE .JPG TOO WHEN I DELETE THE .MOV (in a “Live Photo”)
The iPhone will capture two files with the same name (say, IMG_0007) when Live Photo is active. That creates IMG_007.JPG and IMG_007.MOV. If I delete from disk the movie file (IMG_007.MOV) it will delete it from disk and remove the corresponding thumbnail. The thumbnail from the still picture will be visible in the catalog, but if I right click on it and select “Show in Finder” sometimes (not always) it will say it is missing and it will offer to search for it… with no luck, as it has been deleted! YES, LR HAS DELETED THE PHOTO with no warning whatsoever. To make things worse, the deletion bypasses the Trash can (which it shouldn’t, as it clearly announces that it will put it there), so there is no way to recover the still image (IMG_007.jpg) unless there is a backup somewhere. EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. I have a screen recording of this, if it helps just ask me for it. PLEASE FIX IT!
 
3. SOME PHOTOS ARE NOT IMPORTED!
This is also crazy… I noticed that after importing some files on the original folder are happily ignored by LR. Inspecting it further, I see that sometimes the pictures that are not imported have the same name as a movie file that has been captured by a different camera. Example: IMG_0001.jpg has been captured with an iPhone, IMG_0001.mov has been captured by another iPhone (at a different date/time). Well, the import folder operation will import the .mov and it will ignore the .jpg, and not further “Synchronize folder” will detect it either. The only way to import this is to rename the picture file name, but in order to do this you need to know which file has been left out in the cold first… which is absolutely inefficient (or nearly impossible) when the folder has hundreds of pictures. PLEASE FIX THIS!
 
4. DELETED FILES FROM AN EXTERNAL DISK ARE NOT SENT TO THE TRASH  
I briefly mentioned this before as an aggravation for another glitch. When you right-click on a thumbnail and select “Remove photo…” it states clearly that the file, when removed from disk, will be put on the Mac’s Trash can. But nothing like this happens. The trash is still empty after deleting the file using the Delete from disk option. If the file is located on the internal Mac disk, it works. In my case, the files are located on an external disk, but this shouldn’t be an excuse. Everything that LR deletes from disk should go to the Trash can. Please fix this.
 
 
And yes, I do a “check catalog integrity” every time I quit the program. I never received any messages indicating an integrity problem or anything. I am running the latest version of LR Classic, 9.3 on a Mohave iMac with great performance. The external disk where the photo folders reside is an SSD so it is really fast, too.  
 
I really want to make LR Classic my media manager but I need it to be absolutely reliable. All this needs to be fixed. PLEASE.
 
Thanks a lot.
 
 

[dj_paige]

With regards to #1, you have possibly (and accidentally) imported the photos using COPY instead of ADD, and this is why Synchronize Folder does this. Lightroom thinks the photos are somewhere different than you think they are. Lightroom doesn't know and doesn't care that you think they are in Folder A, Lightroom only knows about the photos in Folder B. This is also why you can't import the photos again.

[Osplo]

Interesting, thanks. I'll investigate this further. It could be a reason, but I don't remember changing the import options at all.