LR CC - All file names changed after switching to Windows

[Guest]

Hello Community,

This is quite a pickle that I'm chewing on and I'm not even sure what this expression means, and equally incomprehensible is the problem I'm facing right now:

I have multiple collection sets with many, many collections.

Many of those collections have files with Korean letters in them. For example: "힐링_1".

Before I switched from Mac to Win10 I renamed all my files into something like "힐링_1.nef".

The problem: After I switched to Windows all my file names ended up sort of scrambled.

So the original file name turned from "힐링_1.nef" into >> "ㅎ ㅣㄹ ㄹ ㅣ ㄹ_1.nef"

The result was that all my photos inside each set with a korean filename are marked as MISSING.

Things to mention:

1. I did NOT change or renamed my files after switching to Win10.

2. All my raw files remain intact with the original file names from MAC ("힐링_1.nef")

What I tried:

1. Obviously I could go on and rename all my 30,000+ files according to their raw file name ("ㅎ ㅣㄹ ㄹ ㅣ ㄹ_1.nef >> "힐링_1.nef")

This is possible if I had enough time, but my work schedule doesn't allow me that. The files have to be ready pronto.

2. I tried to rename all files by pressing "F2" on my keyboard which prompts the command to batch rename all my selected files. But trying that of course triggered the message that the files couldn't be located or are missing.

3. I tried to then rename my original raw files into the gibberish filenames that my Lightroom catalogue was showing me, but apparently the way in that the filename was scrambled CANNOT be duplicated! No matter how I uses spaces and other ways to replicate the filename in Lightroom I can't achieve that.

4. I deinstalled Lightroom and re-installed it.

5. I optimized my catalogue.

None of my attempts repaired my filenames.

Is there anything I can do to "unscramble" my filenames?

All help is much obliged.

Cheers,

Mk

[99jon]

This may help:

Adobe Lightroom - Find moved or missing files and folders

[ManiacJoe]

My first guess on this is that the "code pages" used to translate character numbers into their graphic representation (65 = 'A') are not the same between your mac and windows computers.

Just out of curiosity, using Finder and Explorer, do the file names look correct when browsing the file system?

(If yes, then this isolates the problem to Lightroom and/or the SQLite database system.)

[Guest]

Thank you for your reply!

When I look at my files through Explorer they are all fine.

So, this would lead to the assumption that it's a Lightroom issue?

Again, thanks for taking on this really odd and weird problem.

Much appreciated.

[ManiacJoe · Accepted solution]

For the fun of it, I dropped your "bad" string into translate.google.com. It did not know what to do with it. When I removed what appeared to be extra spaces, the translate engine still did not like it, but the suggestion box at the bottom now had the "good" Korean.

This leads me to believe that this is definitely a character translation problem.

Not sure if this is a problem at the Lightroom level or further down at the SQLite database.

I would recommend reporting this problem at

Photoshop Family Customer Community

Feel free to include my notes from this thread.

[Guest]

ManiacJoe​

Thank you so much for helping me out here. Really appreciate the support.

Apologies for my late reply. Work forced me to build up my library from ground up. Delete all files from library, keep folder structures, adjust the names and the reimport.

Yes, I do think it is a character translation problem as I have encountered similar problems using other non adobe softwares.

Well, for now at least I can keep working.

Thanks again for all the suggestions and help!

Happy New Year!

[Just Shoot Me]

I have the same question as ManiacJoe. If you use File Explorer do the file names look correct?

Also where exactly are these image file, on what type of drive, internal or external and if external how is that drive formatted.

If copied over from the internal drive of the Mac to the internal drive of your Windows system how did you do that?

[Guest]

Thank you for chiming in! 😃

I didn't copy them over, as I just have them all on an external harddrive! 😃

[Just Shoot Me]

I think this is a Path problem. Mac addresses drives with Drive Names, DriveName/FolderName. Windows addresses drives by Drive Letters, C:\, D:\ and so on, then the Folder Name.

I think you need to do the Find Missing Folders steps to point LR to the Drive Letter and Folder Name that Windows is using for that external drive. Right now LR is looking for a Drive Name not a Letter.