I need to move my original Catalog from old PC to new PC with photos already moved through OneDrive

[Martin38645258rbt4]

On my new Windows 11 Desktop computer I have all my photos saved and synced through OneDrive.   The OneDrive Folder is on my D: Drive and under folder DATA.  The pictures are then in a subfolder from the main OneDrive Folder.  I actually have Multiple Catalogs with folders separated into folders.

So CatalogSubject1 with pictures in

D:/Data/OneDrive/Pics in Organizer/Subject1

CatalogSubject2 with pictures in

D:/Data/OneDrive/Pics in Organizer/Subject2

The pictures are then in Directory Trees under each subject based on original file organization.  So not a flat folder scenario.

Now on the new PC all pictures and folder structures are completely copied and setup becuase OneDrive has been installed and is fully synced.

So how do I move the catalogs in this scenario which are still located on the previous PC.   I'd prefer not to do a full copy of all pictures into another folder and then delete the already synced pictures.

I feel like I ran into this before and if I copied the catalog only then all the pictures show disconnected but in some fashion I was able to connect at the top folder level and it automatically found all the rest of the pictures and connected them.   I realize that is manual but seems worth a shot before I backup, delete the OneDrive sync, and fully restore a new set.   Which OneDrive syncs to the cloud and across mulitple computers in my home.

Suggestions?

Thanks for any help

Martin

[Greg_S. · Accepted solution]

In your situation, I think I would try to copy the catalog folder to your new computer and then relink the files which I expect will show as missing when you open the catalog on the new machine.  You haven't indicated how many media files are in your catalog.  And it's not entirely clear whether all of your Subject folders contain sub-folders e.g. by date.  Obviously, the number of files in a catalog will determine how long the reconnect process will take.  There are several methods for reconnecting the missing files and they seem to have different workflows.  Depending on the size of your catalogs, I suggest selecting all the files by hitting Ctrl+A in the grid, and then select File>Reconnect>Missing File . .  

You need to be very patient as the process takes a very long time, even with a simple folder hierarchy.   One other possible time-saving tip I have for you is to find a file named rmf.3.cache in your catalog folder, and open it in Notepad.  There, you may find a number of different folder paths that Elements will look in first for the missing files.  You should delete all folders except for the main parent folder containing your files e.g. Subject 1.  And if that folder path does not appear in the text, add it.

[Martin38645258rbt4]

Thanks so much for the suggestions.   I have brought in one catalog as a test.  Here is my process and what I learned.

I copied the catalog (subjectName1) into the ProgramData default path for the Organizer Catalogs.

Because the older computer was also an older Organizer I had to Convert.

Once converted it opened just fine and then I set the left pane to File/Folder and as a tree.

The only difference in my paths was the drive letter F to D.

So I selected one folder at a time and then the first picture in that folder

Then I selected Missing File (singular) and used browse.  When I reconnect the first picture it automatically does all in the folder.  It then moves this folder in the left pane from drive F to D confirming I have it moved.

I did try the cache edit.   two things:

1. when you name the parent folder you must add a / at the end.  without it doesn't seem to search below and resumes it wide open search.

2. with the / added it worked for awhile.  Basically the same process above but I didn't have to browse at it automatically found it.   But, after about 10 folders it stopped finding it and resumed the Wide search.  I found in the cache file each folder found is added to cache and it only keeps the last 10 so your parent folder is wiped out of the file.

Most of my catalogs are subject specific and this process is doable.  But the "Family Photo Catalog" is huge and I would prefer a full automated process.

Any other hints on "focusing" the automated search to just that parent directory and how to get it to stick.

One problem for me is my Subject Catalogs are copies of the photos in my directories.  The big Family Photo directory is by year/Month.   Those are my wifes and she rarely reconciles and removes unwanted.   So I grab my subject pictures out (hobby) and copy to second folder area and build my catalogs.  Yes I know that is duplicating but she wants to keep a "few" of mine but I never know which ones so I have to leave the whole set there.   

Of course that scenario outlined above means the Wide Open Reconnect could find the picture in my wifes directory and I only want it to search in mine which does have one master parent folder name.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Martin

[Greg_S.]

Martin, thank you for your detailed observations which confirm a number of similar issues that I have seen recently.  As I like to say, misery loves company.   I recently tried to reconnect 250k media files, when my hard drive ran out of space and I had to move to a new larger drive.  My file (dis)organization is probably similar to your wife's directory and I spent many days running my computer 24/7 trying to get the missing files to reconnect.  I finally gave up and am now in the middle of starting a new catalog from scratch.  (Face recognition has taken literally a week of non-stop computer analysis.  I now have to rename many thousands of stacks of faces.)

One of the reasons that I gave up on the reconnection of missing files is that I believe many assigned dates of files were changed, particularly on phone photos.  While I have seen this from time to time when importing files to the catalog, the random nature of this problem suggested it would be difficult to fix quickly.  Have you noticed anything similar?

One other observation I had was that my catalog has many duplicate photos.  The Organizer is not supposed to import such duplicates, but they seem to find their way in for a number of different reasons.  Because of the different workflows that I used with the reconnection, sometimes a message dialog would appear telling me that the duplicates would not be reconnected.  And, sometimes, the process just seemed to hang, perhaps because of the duplicates.  When the message dialog appeared, I was given the opportunity to locate the missing file.  But if I did, another message would appear saying that the file was a duplicate.  If I OK'd out of the message, the process would move on to the next file in a list and the process would be repeated.  Sometimes, the list would contain a file that was presumably not a duplicate, and the reconnection would be made.  There was simply no consistency in what would happen.

One other fact  I just discovered (after using the program for more than 20 years) is that if you request to Find>All Missing Files, any files tagged as Hidden will not be displayed in the grid.  Since I have several thousand hidden files, I am convinced that this is a reason why I have had problems with using the Organizer to backup my catalog.  Since I could not see the missing hidden files, I did not eliminate them.  I believe this is a known cause for backup failures.

It is my intention to bring these issues to the attention of Adobe, and your specific findings will help me lay out the case that improvements need to be made.  Thank you. 

[Martin38645258rbt4]

Hi Greg,

I don't use this often enough to really identify patterns.   What I can say is I stay away from holistic "fixes".  So import all or reconnecting all, seems to get me in more trouble then just systematically walking through.   So here are a couple examples.

While reconnecting 1000s of pictures seems daunting, I found reconnecting 1 pic in each folder much more successful.  While 50 folders is still a bit painful you seem to stay in so much more control and can correct a folder set error relatively quickly.   So that's why I used the Folder Tree view because I can walk through the folders one by one.  For whatever reason even if you say reconnect 1 missing file it will reconnect all of them in the same folder.  This can be anywhere from 5 to 1000 in one connection.   And I know they are all in that one place and it doesn't head out looking for others.   In my case on one of my small project catelogs I connected about 15 folders (1 pic in each folder) which resulted in more than 4000 pictures reconnected.

In a similar fashion in the same tree view you can right click at the top level folder and say show all folders.   It will now show you folders you have not imported.   Right click on the folder and say import and boom its now in.  The only agravation here is for whatever reason after importing it defaults to only imported folders and you have to repeat the show all folders again.   Still, I feel like I'm in control doing a folder at a time as I review them.   If I know the whole folder and sub folders are good I will add to Watch and then on a success startup it will import those in.

Lastly, my son showed me a program called Beyond Compare.  If you haven't imported folders and need to clean them up first its a great program to find duplicates.  There are other similar programs so I'm not here to debate the best but simply I used this and liked it.  

I think I'm on a roll and have found a few "tricks" that seem to work for me.   No one has screamed NOOOO so even though not how they wanted you to use it, it seems to work.   I would say in a world where OneDrive, GoogleDrive, DropBox, are so common, I would think they would have better tools for catalog recovery when the Picture Files are recovered somewhat automatically today.  I feel like the Catalog "recovery" is archaic and behind the current file schemes.   Personal opinion.

Thanks again for your quick comments as it did give me more confidence in my recovery.

Martin Wade