Missing Years after Upgrade V13

[sheloh80504]

After the V13 upgrade last month, I have lost all photos and edits in Lightroom from years 2020-2024.  I tried importing from my Backup catalog, but I either get an error message or I'm still missing folders.  I organize all my folders by dates.  Also, my Albums are gone (anything after 2019) and my Sync isn't working correctly.  It's stalled out.  My mobile Lightroom DOES have the up-to-date Albums, and I just don't know what to do.  I've tried multiple things and nothing is working.  Please help?!?

[dj_paige]

Sometimes this is caused by (accidentally) upgrading the wrong catalog file. Use your operating system's serch feature to search all folders on all disks for all files whose name ends with *.LRCAT (probably in lower case). These are your LrC catalog files. Open each in LrC until you find the one with the folders you want.

[Califdan2]

I agree with @dj_paige. 

One common cause is that at some point in the past (perhpas in 2020) you opened a backup catalog and have been using it ever since (probably without knowing you are).  Then, when you upgraded to LrC/13.x  it upgraded your master catalog (the one you stopped using when you opened the backup catalog) which exxplains why years were not misisng before the upgrade (i.e. in the backup catalog you'd been using) but are misisng after the upgrade (which reverted you to your original catalog which hadn't been used for years.  

Just a thought

One important piece of information you didn't mention is if the missing years of photos still exist on the disk drive and are just missing from the catalog or are they also misisng from the disk drive?

[sheloh80504]

Thank you for your ideas... I upgraded the catalog that I have always used... my Back-up catalogs were still in their Back-up folders.

The images are still on my hard drive, but none of the thousands of edits are.  

Using the back-up catalogs, I have been able to recover some of the edits... but many are sporadically still missing.

What's even stranger, is that my Lightroom Mobile still has my collections/albums and edits throughout all the years.  I was hoping that they would sync and work correctly, but they don't match and I don't want to lose what I do have on my Lightroom Mobile (I have backed that up several times, just in case.)

I'm incredibly frustrated and am almost to the point of NOT using Lightroom at all anymore... and possibly quit our small photography business.

I don't even know how I can get this fixed.  

Thank you for your help!

[john beardsworth]

I agree that the most likely cause is selecting the wrong catalogue at some point. There are no other reports of updates causing loss of images.

"What's even stranger, is that my Lightroom Mobile still has my collections/albums and edits throughout all the years. "

In the catalogue that is missing these years, see, if it is syncing with LrMobile. I suspect not. The clue is that LrM still has those years, which imploes it will be syncing with another catalogue.

Take a look at File > Open Recent which may give clues about what's happening.

[dj_paige]

Using the back-up catalogs, I have been able to recover some of the edits... but many are sporadically still missing.

Somehow the loss of folders/edits for those years actually happened BEFORE the upgrade, but you are just finding this issue now.

I upgraded the catalog that I have always used...

We have seen occasionaly examples of people in this forum who insist they only have one catalog ... and after much discusssion they actually look for another catalog and guess what? They did have another catalog and didn't even remember this existed.

All of your symptoms can be explained by having multiple catalogs.

I think you should use your operating system's feature and search all folders on all hard disks for files whose name ends with .LRCAT (probably lower case). Then we will know for sure.

[sheloh80504]

I appreciate your feedback, however, I know the different catalogs that I have and have worked with them for years. It is not that I have mixed up any catalogs.

I use Lightroom weekly, if not daily... so I would have noticed if I was missing years of edits before the upgrade. I lost edits that I was actually working on the day before the upgrade (and yes, it was backed up.)

[dj_paige]

My last comment is that my suggestion about searching for multiple catalogs is to learn something. Other people have learned something by doing this. If the search finds no other versions of this particular catalog, then we have learned something and I don't ask any more questions about multiple catalogs. And if you find another version, then we have also learned something, as other people have found.

[sheloh80504]

I do appreciate your help... and I apologize for my snarkiness...I'm just extremely frustrated.  I have done all the things that you have mentioned.  Unfortunately, the only thing that I learned is that I haven't yet been able to fix it or figure out what went wrong.  I literally opened Lightroom, using the same catalog... it forced me to upgrade it... and then years of edits were just missing.

I have tried all of my other catalogs... just to make sure, but nothing has worked.  I've tried using my Back-up Catalog, which only partially worked.  I tried importing from other catalogs (just to see if I could find all the other missing years/folders/collections) and I get an error and it just kicks me back to the beginning of the import process.

I think that I will just have to figure out how to get someone to physically work on my computer and fix it for me because I don't know what else to do.

[john beardsworth]

Focus on this:

"What's even stranger, is that my Lightroom Mobile still has my collections/albums and edits throughout all the years. "

In the catalogue that is missing these years, see if it is syncing with LrMobile. I suspect not. The clue is that LrM still has those years, and that does imply it is syncing with another catalogue. So go looking for other catalogues. You may be wrong about not mixing them up.

I also made the point - in the catalogue that is missing these years, see, if it is syncing with LrMobile. That was a question - is it syncing with LrMobile?

[sheloh80504]

John,

It appears to be syncing, but it seems to be stuck on some photos.  I try to go in to the Sync section to try to solve the problem, but nothing is really working.

I am worried that my LR Classic will sync with my LR mobile and it will somehow dominate the mobile and delete the LR albums/collections that are still showing on mobile... if that makes sense.  I don't know what else to do.  Usually I can fix all of my LR (and other computer) issues (I am fairly tech savvy) but this situation just has me at a loss.

Thank you!

[john beardsworth]

My worry would be that the stuck sync is only meaning that the deletion of those years in LrC hasn't itself synced up to Lightroom Cloud, as if it's stuck in the queue. Let's put that aside for now.

Can you go go All Photographs in the Catalog panel, then enable Library Filter and set the first column to Date. Then look down to where the missing years may be. What I'm hoping here is that the photos are in the catalogue (which would keep them syncing) but are not in the folders or drive where you thought. Do you see the photos via Library Filter? If you right click and choose Show Photo in Folder in Library, do you find them?

[john beardsworth]

I should explain that my thinking is that your catalogue being synced (forget it's stuck) argues against the (highly probable) idea that more than one catalogue is involved in the problem. So the photos may be in the catalogue but you don't know where (eg you'd imported them to the "wrong" folders) or you'd somehow deleted those folders from the catalogue after syncing them.

Are the photos somewhere on your hard drive? Look with Finder or Explorer. If so, do they  have xmp files? If necessary we may have to reimport the folders, and that would save some of the work done on them. But that's a step or two down the track.

[cmgap]

Please post a screen shot of the folder which contains Lightroom Classic. That should be in your pictures folder.