Migrating photo collection to PSE 2018

[jareza59]

Hi everyone!

Im hoping you guys could light some wisdom here: I got tired of using windows 10 photo manager, while its a great app and is able to handle over 26k photos when importing photos from my iphone I could only do about 300 before getting a copy error.

I looked over to seek an alternative and PSE showed up

I downloaded, installed it and imported my photo library.

Its recognizing my over 26k photo gallery but 99.9% of the pics have a sandclock icon instead of a thumbnail.

I see a little spinning wheel on the bottom that says generating thumbnails, PSE has been running for over 2 days on my computer and no thumbnails appear.

my computer is an i5 7400 @3.00 ghz with 8gb of ram

any ideas what could be happening?

I imagine its processing the files but its takin a LOT of time

best regards!

[99jon]

If you hover over any of the sandclock thumbnails does anything happen?

If you double-click (control-click) on one of the thumbnails does a full screen image open?

[jareza59]

hovering over the thumbnail does nothing and double clicking does indeed open the file correctly

[MichelBParis · Accepted solution]

You may have a look at this help paper for recreating the thumbnails:

Photoshop Elements (PSE) knowledge base.: How to correct hourglass (generic) thumbnail in Elements O...

Usually, even for raw files, a library of 26k photos should be rebuilt in a few hours.

So, I don't exclude another possible problem.

Which is your OS version? If Windows 10, did you upgrade it recently?

[jareza59]

Im trying this as I type:, yes I have Windows 10 (latest edition) and I just installed about 4 days ago

Will come back to report if this worked

[MichelBParis]

It's just a guess on my part, but there are so many posts about a memory issue created after that last Windows update.

There are many different issues including unusual slowness that I would read this:

Error: An integer between 50 and 8 is required | Elements | Windows 10

Do the test for the menu Edit >> Preferences >> Performance. If you get the message error, you'll have to do the registry edit mentioned in the paper. Not all users have this problem, but I have found that there is no risk to apply it 'just in case'.

[jareza59]

Is it weird MichelBParis​ that Im not able to find my ProgramData Folder?

This is what Im getting on the system info tab... (this is using my laptop but the same applies to my workstation) I just cant find the ProgramData Folder...

any ideas?

Elements Organizer 16.0.0.0

Core Version: 16.0 (20170902.m.113423)

Language Version: 16.0 (20170902.m.113423)

Current Catalog:

Catalog Name: My Catalog

Catalog Location: C:\ProgramData\Adobe\Elements Organizer\Catalogs\My Catalog\

Catalog Size: 119KB

Catalog Cache Size: 270.6KB

System:

Operating System Name: Windows 10

Operating System Version: 10.0

System Architecture: Intel CPU Family:6 Model:5 Stepping:1 with MMX, SSE Integer, SSE FP, SSE2

Built-in Memory: 3.9GB

Free Memory: 1.6GB

[MichelBParis]

The 'programData' folder is 'hidden' by default.

You have to tell Windows to show those 'hidden' files and folders in the Explorer.

Here is my French Explorer version. 'Eléments masqués' means 'hidden elements'.

[jareza59]

MichelBParis​, wow do I feel dumb.... Texas Heat is no joke, and Im literally heat impaired.... thanks for your reply, Im back at work right now, but I will check this out when I get back home

Thanks for being so patient with me!

Best Regards!

[99jon]

You can type directly into the run dialog

Press the Windows Key+R

Then type:

%ProgramData% and hit return.

That will take you directly to the folder from where you can navigate the file path.

[jareza59]

THANKS A LOT!!! MichelBParis​ YOUR SOLUTION WORKED LIKE A CHARM AND NOW THUMBNAILS ARE APPEARING

I dont know what caused this but it worked