missing offline previews

[pbarnz]

Hi,

I only see a few image previews in offline folders. Initially I blamed to the upgrade to Classic CC, as it was soon after that I first noticed the problem, and Classic uses a newly created catalog.  But it could have happened earlier.   It happens in both folders and collections where the images are offline. Online drives work perfectly. Most offline previews are missing, although a random selection does show up.

This is typical, for collections and actual folders on offline drives. The metadata is all there for each image. The message that comes up when you click on the exclamation mark is the same (file cannot be found) for files with a preview and those without. I am running the latest version of Classic CC on MacOS High Sierra. Any ideas?

[Rob_Cullen · Accepted solution]

Your Preview file may have some corruption, and it may re-build the previews if you re-connect the off-line drives. When connected, click a folder or an image in the grid and wait to see if the previews re-build.

The more drastic step would be to 'hide' the Previews file (by a rename or move) and, with all drives connected on-line, allow Lr to fully re-build previews.

If the entire grid of previews was grey, I would suggest a monitor profile problem-

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/how-do-i-change-my-monitor-profile-to-check-whether-its-corrupted/

This might still be the case as you screen-clip is showing  PSDs but not DNGs.

[pbarnz]

thank you, I will try that when I get back to the offline drives. Some DNG files are shown, some are not.

[pbarnz]

Thank you WobertC! - rebuilding the previews file (Lightroom <Catalog> Previews.irdata) with all drives online did the trick. I had to rename and hide the old file first as suggested.

[99jon]

Also check any folders with question marks. It looks like you could have moved things outside of Lightroom. Right-Click to find missing folders and navigate to the new location on your hard drive or external hard drive. Then choose the new location and Lightroom will update the catalog links. The collections will then be fixed automatically.

[pbarnz]

99jon - I think the question marks indicate that the drive is offline (not necessarily moved outside Lightroom). One of the great things about LR is that you can see images that are stored on offline drives (great when it works )