Restore catalog using PSE 2024

[Al_Cof WSFL]

After 8 years I'm moving form an iMac to a Mac mini. I backed up a catalog on an external drive on the old iMac and then mounted the external drive on the Mac mini. The path to the backup file is

/Volumes/TTS-3TB/Alan/PSE-backup/(lots of files including Backup.tly). In organizer when I try to run Restore Catalog, after browsing to the appropriate location, it tells me there is not a valid backup file in /Volumes/TTS-3TB. (I told it to look at  /Volumes/TTS-3TB/Alan/PSE-backup).

I really need to get this to work. This is the first of 5 catalogs (150,000 photos) that have created using 2 or 3 versions of PSE and heve stored photos in at least 2 locations. Suggestions?

[hatstead]

Move Elements Organizer catalog (adobe.com)

[Al_Cof WSFL]

My error. I only entered the directory where the Backup.tly was located. Once I selected the Backup.tly file in the directory where the backup was made, the restore seems to working correctly.

[Al_Cof WSFL]

I spoke too soon. Organizer crashed after copying files to the new location. It did not create a catalog I can open to see my photos.

The photos are now 6 levels deeper than I wanted.

I wanted /PSE-pictures/Travel/(my photos)

I got /PSE-pictures/Travel/Volumes/ExtMacOS-10.12.4/Users/alan/Pictures/Travel/(my photos)

Any thoughts?

[Al_Cof WSFL]

Summary for those who follow in my footsteps.

In general a full backup was created on the old computer to an external drive. The external drive was moved to the new copmuter and Restore Catalog attempted. (old Organizer version 18, new Organizer version 24)

Attempt 1- full backup

   Result- An unexpected error has occurred ...

Adobe support suggested to Optimize catalog, reconnect missing files, then full backup. Also try making a new small catalog to migrate.

Attempt 2- Optimize caatalog, reconnect missing files, delete from catalog missing files that could not be reconnected, ran full backup.

  Result- An unexpected error has occurred ...

As suggested I created small catalog (~1000 files, 2GB), optimized catalog, ran full backup.

   Result- Restore Catalog was succesful

Acobe support suggested installing a trial version of PSE 2022 and see if a version 22 backup would restore on version 24.

Attempt 3- Restored Catalog in version 22 was successful, the ran full backup on version 22 catalog and tried to Restore Catalog on version 24.

   Result- An unexpected error has occurred ...

Aside all (5 catalogs) of my version 18 backups restored successfull in PSE2022. None of the 2022 backups would restore in version 2024.

Contacted Adobe again abd was told PSE 2024 could not handle large catalogs (over 50GB) and all of the catalog should be on the primary drive for best results. (Very disappointing response).

Attempt 3- As requested I shrank one of my version 18 catalogs to 25 GB and ran a full backup an attempted version 24 restore.

     Result- An unexpected error has occurred ...

I QUIT.

Copied all my photos to an external drive on the new computer and am in the process of creating new catalogs. So far (2 new catalogs created) all has gone well. I lost my albums, but that is not critical for me. I will have to rename all the people which will be time consuming but doable. The good news is that the new computer analyze about ~30,000 faces per hour.