My photos disappeared from the catalog when I was about to export!!

[Carolow]

I spent hours working on the catalog, then when I was about to export the photos, the catalog showed it HAD no photos! At first I thought I had mistakenly left one of the filters on, but I checked and that is not the problem.

The catalog is still there.  but when I open it, it has "0" photos. I have Windows 10 and an older LR product for this computer (I have the newest LR for my Mac but not this one

Does anyone have any idea if my catalog changes on which I spent hours and hours are all lost? Or hiding somewhere?  (It says "0 photos" on the left.  I checked older catalog, and their work is intact)

Any ideas humbly appreciated!!!!!!!!!!

[dj_paige]

It sound like you opened the wrong catalog. Go to File->Open Recent and select each catalog in that list until you find the catalog that shows your photos.

[Carolow]

No it¹s the right catalog! The catalog opens but shows ³0² folders. I

checked on my hard drive and it looks like the edits are there but LR has

lost the connection. Aaargh!

[dj_paige]

  wrote

No it¹s the right catalog! The catalog opens but shows ³0² folders.  I

checked on my hard drive and it looks like the edits are there but LR has

lost the connection.  Aaargh!

You can't just say it's the right catalog. You have to try File->Open Recent and select each catalog shown there.

[Carolow]

Yes I did that. I have been using lightroom for years, this never happened

before.

[cmgap]

Please post these screen shots

1. Your Lightroom folder so we can see your .lrcat files

2. Your Lightroom catalog in Library module on grid view - the whole screen with your folder panel expanded

3. Your trash bin

[Carolow]

Thank you I will do that later. I started a new catalog in the meantime, having spent 2 hours trying to figure out what happened. I have been using LR for 8 years, this never happened before. Thank god, I use smaller catalogs or I would be freaking out even more than I am. It is very nice of you to write. Carol

[cmgap]

Let us know if you are able to get back on track. While in this instance having multiple catalogs seems to have helped you may want to consider the merits of managing one master catalog.

That said if you want to work with multiple catalogs (not recommended) you can make a change to your preferences to force Lightroom to ask you which catalog to load so that every time you open Lr you can choose the one you want. Pull down the menu to see what your choices are:

[Carolow]

Any help in re-linking to the catalog it lost the connection with so I can retrieve my edits would be so appreciated! This never happened to me before.

[Carolow]

Correction,l checked inside the LR folders my hard drive found and they are all empty.

[JP Hess]

Unfortunately, there isn't a way for me to retrace the history of what you did. But it would seem evident that you either switched catalogs or inadvertently chose an option that deleted the images from your catalog. Do you have a backup of the catalog that you can revert to?

[dj_paige]

Carolow  wrote

Any help in re-linking to the catalog it lost the connection with so I can retrieve my edits would be so appreciated! This never happened to me before.

If the photos have exclamation point icons, or the folders have question mark icons, then these instructions explain how to fix this: http://www.computer-darkroom.com/lr2_find_folder/find-folder.htm

[Carolow]

Thank you for being kind enough to respond, but....No.  there are "0" photos and therefore no question marks. It looks like they are just gone. Lightroom ate them!  Not only that, looks like the original photos are gone too. Not a calamity there, i have backups of the photos themselves, the whole thing is just weird.