Problem moving Elements 10 to Elements 2024 on new computer

[ValerieJ41]

I downloaded and installed Photoshop Elements 2024 on a new computer.  I opened Elements 2024 and selected Organizer.  As expected, there was no data so I selected the Import option in the program and then selected the path to the backup file located on my portable hard drive.  According to a document  “Move Elements Organizer Catalog” which  I saw online (either found by browsing or recommended by someone in the community – I don’t recall), I expected to be asked if I wanted to restore the catalog to the Original location or to a New location.  I understood that if I chose New Location the folder structure would be flattened.  Since my user name on the new computer is different, I would have to provide the New Location path.  However, when I selected Import to load the backup files, there were no prompts, the data immediately loaded – I could see the photos flash across the screen as a grid view was created.  The total number of photos at the end was correct.  There also was a very long list of numbers that flashed by with a notation “feature no longer supported” (or something similar).  Bottom line – all the photos are just thumbnails with the missing file icon in the upper left corner.  I expect the problem is that since the old location for the files does not exist on this computer, the files were not copied.  I can see thumbnails and I can Find by captions, but there are no tags.  How do I get the files into the new correct location?   

[ValerieJ41]

Update to my Post above:  I've just realized I used the Import option in Organizer to get the files from my backup.  I should have used File/Restore!  So a new question - Can I now just do a file/restore (this will allow me to set a location for the files) and thus get the actual photos loaded?

[Greg_S.]

Hi Valerie. You have mentioned to me offline that the files you are seeing have a B00 prefix. Unfortunately, it sounds like you imported all of the photos from your backup folder location to a new catalog.  And because your backup files were on an external drive that you have disconnected, the files are now listed as missing. What you need to do is restore the backup from your old computer to your new computer.  Here is what I suggest you do:

• Go to File>Restore Catalog on the new computer and go through the process to restore the catalog from your backup.
• Here is the link to more detailed instructions.
• Since you have changed account names on your new computer, you may end up with an added parent layer of folders.  But that really shouldn't matter. 
• Once the backup has been fully restored, you will open the restored catalog and everything should be as it was on the old computer.  You can then delete the catalog with the missing files if you want to. 

Let us know if you have any other questions about the process.

[Greg_S.]

@ValerieJ41 said:  Can I now just do a file/restore (this will allow me to set a location for the files) and thus get the actual photos loaded?

Yes, the files will be copied to your desired location.  If you already have a desired hierarchy of sub-folders, you should choose the option to Restore Original Folder  Structure.  (Otherwise, all of the folders will be copied to a flat structure under the single folder location that you have chosen.)

Also, note that if you choose the original location for restoration, this may not turn out how you want, because you have changed account names on your computer.  So, you will probably end up with two system Pictures folders - one with the old user name and one with the new user name.  This should be no big deal, but it may cause you some confusion.

[ValerieJ41]

Greg - I did a restore following the directions in the document and set a new location which uses the new user account name.  All seemed to go well but when the restore finished the photos were all still missing.  I had received a post from a user in the Community on Oct 4 telling me to "Directly send Email to our Adobe Customer Care Team A  Adobe.Tech@outlook.com and they will help you via Email."  So I sent an email on Oct 4 and received a reply Oct 5 asking for the serial number of the software.  I replied but have heard nothing since then.  I'm thinking of trying the file restore again, just to be absolutely certain that I have provided the new, correct pathname.  

[Greg_S.]

Valerie, YOU HAVE BEEN SCAMMED!!!  Did you actually send the serial number?  Please let us know the name of the user who sent you a private message so that we can get them banned.

When you say that the photos are still missing, are the files not there, or is it simply the thumbnails of the photos that are missing.  If the latter, simply select a thumnail and press Ctrl+Shift+U.  This will update the thumbnail.  If that doesn't work, click a missing file thumbnail and look at the Location of the file in the Information panel on the right.  Does that give you any clue as to what happened to the file?

[ValerieJ41]

I have only thumbnails, no photos - at least not that I can find anywhere on my computer.  When I select a thumbnail and look at the Information panel it lists My Folders on one line with My Catalog03-25-22 underneath.  This is the name on the backup drive which is no longer connected.  If I select a thumbnail and press Ctrl+Shift+U I get a box titled Get Photos from Scanner.  Next to "Scanner" my printer is listed.  The next line says "Save File In: with a pathname of " Users\Valerie\Pi.dobe\Scanned Photos"  (There is no Pi.dobe\ on my computer). There is a Browse option here and I can browse to where I do want the photos to be but Pi.dobe is not an option. I do have the option to make a new folder so I could create it.  The next line in the box has a "Save As:" option which is set to "jpeg" but I can change to "tiff" or "png".   Next to that line is a scaler line where I can set a Quality.  That is currently set to "Quality:6(Medium).  The options at the bottom of the box are "OK" or "Cancel".  

When I ran restore I selected the New Location option and set it as Users/Valerie/MyPhotos.

[Greg_S.]

Valerie, you are talking about the Save dialog in the Editor, not the Organizer.  The restoration of your catalog has to take place in the Organizer.  I have partially responded to your question via PM. (Thanks for letting me know the ID of the scammer.  I have reported them to Adobe.)

At this point, since I recommend that you contact Adobe Support to get a new serial number, you may also want to see if they can help you with restoring your backup properly.  With your permission, support can take control of your computer and try to sort it out.  If you don't want to do that, I will continue to help you here. 

You can start a support chat session by going to the Contact Adobe Support page.  If you click my link, the chat page should open automatically.  Make sure you are signed into your Adobe account and try typing Agent when the chat window opens.

[ValerieJ41]

Greg, I was definitely in the Organizer when I selected one thumbnail, did the CTL+SHift+U and got the "Get Photos from Scanner" box I described to you.  I did try reconnecting the backup drive and you are correct in that the photos are now not missing.  But nothing else has changed - I have captions if I double click on a photo in the grid to just show that photo.  I have no tag info that I can find - the Information panel on the right has a list of tag selections but if I click on Family under the People tag I get this message: "no media available.  Please clear applied filter and try again"  I have no idea what that means.  At this point I guess I need to contact Adobe Support as you suggest.  I'm also wondering if I should somehow just start over: uninstall, new install, new restore (since I mistakenly first did an Import this time and then a restore).  

[Greg_S.]

OK.  You were in the Organizer, but you didn't have the Shift key pressed (at the same time as the Ctrl and U keys):

But, clearly, that is not the problem.  As best as I can figure out what has happened:

• you backed up your old computer's files to the external drive
• you used the Import command to import the photos from your external drive to your new computer's (new) catalog (this used the backup files with the B00 prefix names)
• you somehow created another backup of  a catalog containing the files on your external drive.  I'm not sure whether you may have done this on your old computer or your new one.  Either is possible
• you have now restored to the new computer the catalog that contains the files on your external drive.

Let me know if you think I have got something wrong.

So, before suggesting how to proceed, let me ask a couple of other questions:

Go to the Keyword Tag panel and look under the Imported Media category.  Do you see any tags there (particularly names of people that you expected to see in the Family section of the People tags).

With your external drive connected, do a search of your computer for a file named catalog.pse24db.  How many such files do you have and where are they located?

[ValerieJ41]

Your summary of actions is not quite correct -

I had backed up my old computer files to the external drive (I did this from the backup process in Photoshop Elements)

I used the import command (user error, my fault) to get the files from the backup on the external drive

I did NOT create another backup

I used the same backup on the external drive when I did the restore to the new computer.  

Under Imported Keyword Tags in the Keyword tag panel I have 6 tags. All are correct/mine. (I also had many more tags).  Each has an empty box in front of it.  When I clicked one by one in the empty box in front of each of the 6 tags, two tags brought up the same photo - which would be correct because the tags were Christmas and Max and that photo was tagged that way.  Clicking on each of the other 4 boxes brought up a message "No media available. Please clear applied filter and try again."

When I searched the computer, with the external drive connected, for a file named "catalog.pse24.db" no file was found.

[Greg_S.]

I think you may have to start from scratch.  But first, let's find all of the catalog folders on your computer.  Please download and install Everything which is a free utility that is much faster and better than Windows File Explorer for finding files.  Then try using it to search for the the catalog.pse24db files.  I am confident that it will find at least one.

[ValerieJ41]

I just found your message today.  I installed Everything (thanks for that) and it found one catalog.pse24db file in C\ProgramData\Adobe\Elements Organizer\..

Now what?  I'm fine with just starting over, i.e: uninstalling PSE24, reinstalling PSE24, and then doing a restore of the backup from my Elements 10 program, if this is the best plan.  If that works OK, what is the next step?  I have seen posts about Elements 11 not being combatible with newer versions and some kind of conversion needing to be done so I assume that would also be true for my Elements 10?  How do I do that?

[ValerieJ41]

Update as of Dec 4 - I decided to start over in my attempt to move my Elements 10 backup to my newly purchased PSE 24 on a new computer.  I uninstalled PSE 24 and then reinstalled it with no errors. I connected my portable drive which contains the Elements 10 backup and did a file/restore of the backup.  As I watched I saw a message that the photos had been restored, followed by a message saying that a conversion was now being done (perhaps to convert Elements 10 features to PSE 24?).  This was followed by a message about some other process - maybe optimizing? - which said it would take a few minutes.  That ran for about 20 minutes and then a window popped up:

  Error Report for "Elements Organizer"  Sorry, an error occurred.  Elements Organizer has encountered a problem and needs to close.  An error report has bee generated.  Click "Send report" to help us analyze the cause of the problem and explore solutions.  Please tell us what led to the error.

In the box provided I explained what I had been doing, and agreed that Adobe could contact me for fixes and workarounds and provided my email address.  That was about 2 weeks ago and thus far no one has contacted me.  I have discovered that many folders and files were created in various places including a folder called BreezeData which contains numerous files named breeze, breeze-1, breeze-2, etc.  All my photos are actually on the computer now and sort of in the correct new pathname I set for them.  When I open Elements Organizer I can see photos and tags and titles so I think everything might be OK now but I would like to be sure and to know what the errors meant before I start using the program and adding photos.

[Greg_S.]

I may have heard of Adobe responding to a crash reporter once or twice in the more than 20 years that I have been using the program.  So I wouldn't expect that you are going to hear anything from them.  So, at this point, I think you should move on.  Why did you decide to undo everything that seemed to be working (other than a somewhat disorganized folder structure)?

The Breeze folder and items within it were probably part of your original Elements 10 catalog folder.  I believe that's where the face recognition information for each picture was stored.  That information was probably converted to whichever files are currently used for face recognition.  You haven't told us what path the Breeze folder is in, so I don't know whether those files can be safely deleted.  If Elements 2024 face recognition and People stacks are available, the Breeze files can probably go.  But you haven't given me enough information to give you any advice.

[ValerieJ41]

Thanks for the quick reply.  I decided to do the uninstall and reinstall because in our last conversation on Oct 9 you suggested that might be the best thing to do.  I needed to do something because nothing was working.  The first installation when I mistakenly did an import instead of a file/restore did not load the photos onto the computer - they remained on the portable hard drive.  The tags, titles, names, etc. were mostly missing and the portable drive had to be connected in order to access the photos.  Because PSE 24 is so different from my Elements 10 - at least in appearance - I could not tell what else might be missing.  So I started over and installed correctly using file/restore.  I'm cautiously optimistic that the program will now work properly but am reluctant to start added photos until I'm more confident that things are OK.  Having so many new folders and files created that I'd never had before and then getting the error message made me uneasy.  Here are some of the folders and files that the install created:

1.  A folder “adobeTemp” which contains folders ETR5C7.tmp and ETR7D47.tmp was created in C\.  Each of these folders has a folder named core as well as a few other folders. 

2.  Three folders were created in Users\Valerie\MyPhotos - a folder I created to hold the photos for PSE24. ( I specified this pathname when doing the restore.) The three folders are My Catalog 1 2,  My Catalog 1 2 1, and Users.  Folder My Catalog 1 2 contains folders BreezeData and syncdb, plus a PSE10DB file named catalog.pse10db.  Folder BreezeData contains files named breeze, breeze-1, breeze-2 and so forth up to breeze-17326.  These are listed as type Microsoft Edge HTML docs.

Folder syncdb contains two PREF Files.

Folder My Catalog 1 2 1 contains folders FaceAnalysis, WaldoData, and Watch Folder, plus about 14 other files, one of which is named PSE24DB.

Folder Users contains folder Valerie_2.  Folder Valerie_2 contains folder Pictures which appears to have all the folders that contain the photos from my PSE10 program.  NOTE that on the old computer housing PSE10 my user name was Valerie_2 and this was the pathname for the photos.  On the new computer my user name is Valerie.  

3.  A folder named catalog.pse24db was created in C:\ProgramData\Adobe\Elements Organizer.

If you see nothing alarming with all this data, my next step will be to locate a user's guide for PSE 24 and start learning to use it.  That's the only way I'll be able to see if everything works. 

[Greg_S.]

I see nothing alarming in what you have. 

1. I believe you can safely delete the adobeTemp folder.  It was probably used during the restoration and conversion process for your Elements 10 catalog.  The failure of the restoration process to delete the temp directory may have been the cause of the crash error.
2.  The My Catalog folders are your catalog folders.  My Catalog 1 2 is the catalog folder for Elements 10.  My Catalog 1 2 1 is the catalog folder for Elements 2024 (which has been converted from 10).  I would move these two folders out of the My Photos folder and place them in a new My Catalogs folder.  If you then double-click on the catalog.pse24db file it will open the catalog in the Organizer and this custom location will be set by the program.
3. You said:  A folder named catalog.pse24db was created in C:\ProgramData\Adobe\Elements Organizer.  I assume you meant to say there was a file by that name.  But maybe not.  I'm guessing that there was a folder named My Catalog with the catalog.pse24db file in it.  If so, this is a probably a new empty catalog.  If it is actually a folder, then please show a screenshot of the contents.