Every other file missing in Lightroom CC 2015.8

[brendapet]

Hi folks, I'm a relatively new user to Lightroom CC.  My LR catalog is showing thousands of missing photos (indicated by !), and I'm trying to figure out the best method of relinking them.  I've read the forums on how to find missing photos, but what is odd about my situation is that every other photo is missing.  It's not like entire folders or groups of photos from a single shoot are missing.  If that were the case, I would assume that I had moved the folder using Finder instead of within LR, and that would explain why they are missing.  But to have different versions of the same shot in the same folder go missing while others are in the catalog has me stumped.  Any ideas on why this has happened and how to correct?  Many thanks.

[dj_paige]

No idea why this happened.

A simple fix is to use your backup photos. If, for example, you are experiencing this problem in Folder A (how's that for a creative name?), then find the backup of the entire Folder A and simply copy that backup to the original Folder A. This overwrites the photos that are present with an identical copy, and then places a copy of the missing photos in that folder. Now the folder has every single photo, and nothing is missing.

[brendapet]

Thanks for your reply.  Are you talking about folders in Lightroom or on my hard drive?  If I copy photos into Lightroom, would that overwrite any edits that have been made?  Thanks for your help.

[dj_paige]

This is done entirely in your operating system, not in Lightroom.

[brendapet]

All of my photos are available on my hard drives - I can see them perfectly fine there.  My issue is that every other photo in my Lightroom catalog has gone missing - so it seems like a catalog issue.  I can find missing photos from within Lightroom manually, but relinking them loses the edits I've made.  I have over 5000 photos that are missing.  Doing this manually and losing edits is not my first choice if I can avoid it!  I can see some of the missing photos in the catalog backups.  I've considered merging these catalogs.  Does merging catalogs maintain edits, and do I run the risk of rewriting if two different photos have the same name?  Thanks again for your help.

[dj_paige]

I can find missing photos from within Lightroom manually, but relinking them loses the edits I've made.

So can you show me a screen capture of one folder in Lightroom that shows every other photo missing, and then another screen capture of the same folder in your operating system? Let me see the issue you are describing.

Re-linking should not cause edits to disappear, so obviously you are doing something wrong. Do not continue down this path at this time. Let's work on the real problem, show me the screen captures.

[brendapet]

Here are some screenshots.  I realized in getting these screenshots that it appears that the missing photos (indicated by !), which are the edited ones, are adjacent to the same file in LR -- see the file names with the mouse hover.  The missing photos are in collections (but not available in the collections - still look as those they are missing).  There are two screenshots showing this hover with the mouse over each adjacent photo.  The last screenshot is of Finder showing that the original NEF file is on my hard drive and backup drive.  Please let me know if you need something different than this.  Thank you!

[dj_paige · Accepted solution]

Okay, this is good, now that I see the screen captures, I now recognize the problem.

You have accidentally imported the photo twice, into TWO different folders (again by accident). The edited one, which is missing and has no thumbnail and shows a grey rectangle, has the edits, and the one that has the thumbnail and is not missing has no edits.

So to fix this, you will need to know the two folders in your operating system (one of which may not exist any more). On each of the two photos in this pair illustrated by your screen captures, hover your mouse over the Folder in the Metadata panel, a tool tip will appear indicating the full folder path. Make a note of this full folder path for both photos in the pair.

Now you know the folder for both photos in the pair. Let's say the missing photo (with no thumbnail but has the edits) is in Folder A, while the other photo is in Folder B. In Lightroom, delete the photo that has the thumbnail and no edits from Lightroom (but not from the hard disk). Close Lightroom. Then, in your operating system, copy the photo from Folder B to Folder A. (If folder A doesn't exist, then create it.) I believe you should be able to do this Folder by Folder, instead of one photo at a time. Then open Lightroom and your problem should be fixed, the photos with the edits will no longer be missing (although Lightroom may need a few minutes to generate the thumbnails).

[brendapet]

This is working!!!  Thank you so much!!