How do I fix thousands of missing files which PSE 2018 thinks are on /Volumes/Recovery/... ?

[benj3]

I have PSE 2018 on Mac.

I'm trying to upgrade to PSE 2020, but before I do that I want to make sure the catalog is healthy.

I ran the "Reconnect missing files" tool and worryingly it found 100s of missing files.

The "original location" it displays for all the files is "/Volumes/Recovery/X/Y/Z" where X/Y/Z is the actual path to the files. So for example it says the original location is /Volumes/Recovery/users/ben/psamac/104APPLE/IMG_4384.JPG and the actual file is happily sitting in /users/ben/psamac/104APPLE/IMG_4384.JPG

So all the files are there, but somehow the organiser has become confused and thinks they should be on the recovery partition.

But I don't even have a recovery partition

Is there a way I can update the PSE database to point to the correct location of all the files?

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I tried using the reconnect missing files tool, but it has a strange bug where it's popping up the same dialog box literally thousands of times telling me every file which it hasn't reconnected. After browsing to a folder with some missing files, it says "File ... was not connected to ...". I click ok, and then it pops up again with a different file name. It's working through an entire folder of 1500 files. I have about 1000 folders. So I'm worried I might have to manually click Ok 1.5 million times if I try to use the missing files tool!! I think I'm going to have to Force Quit the application, but I'm worried that will corrupt the catalog more. Any advice appreciated!

[Akash Sharma]

Hi there,

Sorry that you're facing multiple issues with Photoshop Elements as your files are missing in the catalog.

I'd suggest that you repair your catalog and then try relocating the missing images. Checkout this article for more info: https://helpx.adobe.com/in/elements-organizer/using/troubleshooting-catalog-issues.html#repair_a_cat...

Thanks,

Akash

[MichelBParis]

I am not a Mac user, but what you are seeing seems to be the usual result of using the organizer backup process with Time Machine. Both are incompatible, you have to choose one or the other for your Elements assets.

[Phinny]

If I could hang a somewhat related question on the side of this ... just curious, if using Windows Photo Apo also conflicts with Organizer.

[Greg_S.]

I don't think it does.

[MichelBParis]

"If I could hang a somewhat related question on the side of this ... just curious, if using Windows Photo Apo also conflicts with Organizer."

Let's wait if we get a confirmation about my suggestion.

I don't think there is anything common between Mac Time Machine (which I understand as a real-time backup solution) and Win Photos (which acts as any simple pixel editor/browsers like Faststone, Irfanview, Xnview).

So long as you don't delete, rename or move files outside of the organizer, you can use any of those apps together with PSE. No conflicts with backups.

For catalogs, they are always independent, so what you are doing in a catalog is ignored by the other. That is true with catalogs of the same or different Elements version, Lightroom and PSE catalogs...

[Phinny]

It's good to know that, thanks.