Network drive replacement left several files "offline"

Report · May 29, 2017

I replaced a failed network drive (WD MyCloud), restored from a physical backup and then partially from Carbonite. My new network drives (a new WD MyCloud) are aliased the way the former network drive was, with pictures in a P:\ folder. The folder structure and files are identical from my old drive and my new drive, but they are networked differently - instead of \\mybooklive\public, my new drive is \\wdmycloud\public.

Since restoring from my backup, roughly the last 5 years of my pictures are now listed as "offline." But it's only a portion of my pictures, not all of them in these folders. All of the pictures are still on the new network drive, and if I select reconnect from the menu, the "missing file" option is grayed out, and "all missing files" does not find any disconnected files.

The only thing I have found to reconnect these pictures is to "Open Slide Show" and then the action "Reconnect Files" allows me to search for the file on the new external drive, select it, and then the file is reconnected. I can do this for a small number of files at a time, but I have about 10,000 offline pictures. There is also an option to Reconnect Drives, which makes the most sense, but it is grayed out.

I upgraded to PSE15 hoping these would snap back in place, but the problem remains exactly as it was in PSE13. Are there options for PSE to reconnect these offline files?

Thank you for any assistance!

Darren

Report · May 30, 2017

Darren,

First, my suggestion:

- For safety, create a copy of your catalog folder where you want (default location on C: or in any drive or folder outside of your photo library)

- Start this catalog from the catalog manager or simply double click the 'catalog.pse15db' database file in the catalog folder.

- Select all 'offline files' from the left folder tree panel

- Delete all

- Re-import from your folder tree. That may be easier if you know in which folder tree most offline files are situated. Since you have checked that the files are on your new drive, that should work. The import process should skip files already present in the catalog.

My personal comments:

- I can't tell much about network drives to store libraries in Elements. I really believe there are better solutions, such as using external drives for the library and catalogs and leaving the NAS as the backup support or as a 'synced' media for sharing. I can't test your situation because I have no network, sorry...

- 'offline' media in Elements is somewhat a 'legacy' feature from the time we relied on CDs to keep our library... I'd say most Elements users today don't even know that may exist. I don't know how you may have got 'offline' photos with your network. When I want to test 'offline' media, I have to :

* import from a card reader, an USB stick or a CD/DVD

* choose the option to import from files and folders, not from camera and card reader.

* uncheck the option to 'copy' the media on the hard drive

- The problem for 'offline' media is different from the one from 'missing' or 'disconnected' files. You absolutely have to get the real original files, which means plugging the offline media again. In your case, your media are no longer on the original drive (recognized not only by the drive letter, but also by the internal drive serial number). I don't see any way other than removing the old ones from the catalog and re-importing the files as new ones.

- About backups: if you have a backup from the organizer, you can restore everything where you want, on custom location. For other backup solutions, you risk a lot of problems to 'reconnect'. The only way to know if you can trust your solution is to use it really... something nobody does before the catastrophe.

- 'Writing metadata to files': if you have done that from the menu file, you'll recover your tags, captions, notes and ratings for the files you are re-importing again. You'll lose stacks, version sets and albums...

Report · May 30, 2017

Thank you for the detailed reply. I followed your advice and it worked well. My only issue is that I had a number of photos where I had manually set the time (because my camera battery had died), and those dates/times are lost. But it's better to have the organizer full than not I guess. Thank you again!

Darren