Shall I delete and reinstall LRCC?

[bubba43]

Returned to LRCC after some months hiatus. Many things are not working. (I have updated LRCC).

1. All 47,000 photos are shown in the catalog but "file not found" if I try to open one in Develop module. The photos are displayed as previously imported (grayed-out).

2. Looking at my external hard drive location in LR shows a few disorganized folders. Some contain photos that do not belong in a particular folder. And the list of folders that are on my hard drive are absent in the LR. These hard drive folders are all of the photos previously imported into LR and previously were properly organized in LR.

2. My ext hard drive appears to be working well.

[JP Hess]

The catalog has lost track of where the images are located. Perhaps the drive letter has changed or the name of the drive has changed. Reinstalling Lightroom isn't going to fix that. You need to determine where Lightroom is trying to find the images and then update the folder location.

[bubba43]

Jim, Thank you for the reply. It is the same external hard drive. The drive name has not changed.

I would update the folder location anyway. How do you do that?

[dj_paige]

Instructions for fixing the missing files/missing folders are here: Adobe Lightroom - Find moved or missing files and folders

Importing will not fix the problem.

Reinstalling Lightroom will not fix the problem.

[bubba43]

dj_, Thank you for the feedback. I left clicked the "!" above some photos

and LR told me that the last location of the missing photos was in drive F.

My external photo storage drive is actually drive G. I do not recall

changing drive names, but it appears to explain the missing pictures. There

are 40,000 + photos. What's the best way to approach this? Do I change the

name of my G drive to F? Will that tell LR where to find them again? I will

then have to change my F drive name. It has no photos. Will this happen

again?

[ManiacJoe]

Yes, renaming the drive back to F will solve the "missing" problems in Lightroom. Use the Windows Disk Management tool to do this.

If you rename the drive to L: or bigger letter, Windows will stop renaming the drive on you. This would then require you to go to the Lightroom Folders panel and do a one-time "find missing" on the top-most folders to relocate them to the new drive letter.

[JP Hess]

If the external hard drive was disconnected for a period of time and then reconnected then that could account for the hard drive letter being changed. If all of the folders are arranged within a single master folder on that external hard drive you could right-click on the master folder and choose to update the folder location. You would do this in the library module. Then you could point Lightroom to the master folder on the G drive and this will update all of the subfolders as well. You could also assign that external hard drive a letter further down in the alphabet. That tends to allow the letter to be more permanently assigned. Then you might not run into this problem again.

If the images are not arranged within a single master folder then you would repeat the procedure of updating the location of each folder as outlined above. It will take a little longer but it really isn't that painful. You would want to do it at the folder level in the library module rather than on individual images. Otherwise it could take infinitely longer.

[bubba43]

So far so good. I was able to change the ext. hard drive to "Q" drive. How

do I get LR to locate those photos?​

[JP Hess]

Adobe Lightroom - Find moved or missing files and folders

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/lightroom-thinks-my-photos-are-missing-how-do-i-%EF%AC%81x-it/

[bubba43]

LR has located the "missing photos"​ that are on my external drive. The

drive is now reassigned as Drive Q. All photos are in the PHOTOS file on

Q. Missing photos shows at the bottom of the LR library page below their

thumbnails. Now please help how to get those re-filed in LR.

[ManiacJoe]

Now that LR knows what drive the photos are supposed to be on, you need to work down through the granularity of the file system: folders then files.

Using the links in Jim's response, go to the Library's Folders panel and do the "find missing folders" procedure on the top-most missing folders.

After you have fixed all the folders, follow the "find missing files" procedure for any files that are still missing.

[dj_paige]

bubba43  wrote

LR has located the "missing photos" that are on my external drive. The

drive is now reassigned as Drive Q. All photos are in the PHOTOS file on

Q.  Missing photos shows at the bottom of the LR library page below their

thumbnails. Now please help how to get those re-filed in LR.

You have to tell Lightroom where the missing photos are, now on the Q drive. The link given explains exactly how to do this, especially see Figure 4 and related text. Have you even read the link? I provided this 2 days ago, and you obviously haven't applied the methods there to fix the problem.

But why did you change the drive to Q? If you had changed it to F your problem would have been solved.

[bubba43]

I changed it to Q randomly because I was told that any letter past F would

remain permanent and would not be changed by Windows. Is that incorrect?​

[dj_paige]

That's correct. But it doesn't fix the problem. You can fix the problem by setting the drive to F: (although then Windows may change the drive letter again), or you can use the methods at the link (particularly Figure 4) to fix the problem.

[bubba43]

dj_, Thank you again for your patience and expertise. I certainly do not

want to let windows change file names again. This is a huge problem for a

tech and LR amateur like me.​

I cannot do the fig.4 exercise. My LR library looks like this on the left

side: Catalog has All photographs (41777), All synced photographs

(zero),Quick collection+ (42),Previous import (zero),Missing photographs

(41415).

Below that, Folders indicates that I have 345 photos. The subfiles are

various small sized files adding up to 345. None of these has the question

mark.

If I open the "Missing photos" file, each photo has the "!" in its upper

right corner. If I right click on Missing photos the message option is

"Remove this temporary collection." Nothing lets me "find the missing

folder."

It is exhausting and I don't know how other non-professionals deal with

this.

[dj_paige]

Show us a screen capture of your Lightroom Library Module, so we can see the Folders.

[bubba43]

With my Q drive disconnected the "?" appears but it offers to find 345

missing files only and those are not the ones I need LR to re-capture.

(screenshot 1)

With Q drive connected, see screenshot 2.​

[dj_paige]

No screen captures appear.

You can't attach screen captures via e-mail, you can only attach screen captures via a web browser.

[bubba43]

Told you I was an amateur. How the heck do I do that? I am also working

today (I am a physician) and so will be away from my photo computer. I will

respond as soon as I can. Thank you again.

MG​

[dj_paige]

you go to the forums using your web browser, you type your text and you insert the screen captures by clicking on the "Insert Image" icon.

[bubba43]

Here they are.

[dj_paige]

Great. Expand the F: drive so you can see the folders underneath. Do you see the question mark icons then? Let us know.

[bubba43]

Yep. Expanded the nonexisting F drive and there it is.

[bubba43]

It shows 35131 photos missing. There are 41415 photos actually missing. Don't quite understand that either.

[bubba43]