Having trouble upload photos after I moved Lightroom to new computer

[marknovom]

I have successfully moved Lightroom CC to my new iMac.  I did have a little trouble at first as while I copied my photos over easily, I forgot to copy the Catalog.  This problem has been fixed as I copied over the Catalog and all is good.

However, I just tried to upload new photos and the below error box popped up:

I keep all my photos (yes, all 40,000 or so) in Dropbox so that I can have access to my photos on other computers, but also so that my photos are backed up on dropbox.  But I put my catalog in "Macintosh HD > Users > marknovom > Pictures > Lightroom".  Do I need to put my catalog in Dropbox as well?  I didn't have it in my dropbox when I was using my old iMac.

Now, while I type this, I noticed another possible problem.  See the two images below.  The first image is from my old iMac.  The second image is from my new iMac.  Notice that the home folder on the old mac is called "mnovom" and the home folder in the new mac is called "marknovom".  Could that be the problem?  Is the catalog on my new mac looking for "mnovom" and not "marknovom"?

Old iMac:

New iMac:

So, I have two questions:

1)  Can someone fix this problem, so I can upload photos?

2)  Should I continue doing what I'm doing by keeping my photos in Dropbox?  If so, should I move the catalog to dropbox as well?

Thank you,

Mark

[Just Shoot Me]

You say you put your images in User/Markmovon but the Error is for User/mmovon not Markmovon.

And you screen shot of the new Mac is Markmovon and the old is mmovon. Change that folder from markmovon to mmovon.

[John Waller · Accepted solution]

So, I have two questions:

1)  Can someone fix this problem, so I can upload photos?

I think you've already fixed it yourself. Just Shoot Me has confirmed your diagnosis.

marknovom  wrote

2)  Should I continue doing what I'm doing by keeping my photos in Dropbox?  If so, should I move the catalog to dropbox as well?

Totally up to you. There's no right or wrong about where you store your catalog provided it's on a local drive where Lightroom can see it. In your case it's in a Dropbox folder (which is fine - that's where I store mine too) and you've got the added advantage that it's automatically backed up to Dropbox and whichever devices you've connected to the same Dropbox account.

The only downside of using Dropbox is the risk of a file conflict if you try to access Lightroom on one of the computers connect to your Dropbox account before Dropbox has finished sync-ing. If that happens, Dropbox creates multiple copies of the catalog and you may not have a single catalog which contains all your edits. You've then got to merge them in Lightroom.

If you decide that the risk of file conflicts is minimal then go ahead and store your catalog in Dropbox. If it works for you then all's well.

[cmgap]

What happens to all of your photos if there is a problem with Dropbox? Do you have a second backup of all of your photos on an external drive? Are you using Time Machine to make backups of your system?

Consider a workflow that looks something like this:

1. Use Time Machine to regularly backup your Mac

2. Use Dropbox to back up all of your documents

3. Use a cloud based service to back up your photos (Back Blaze, Super Duper, Carbon Copy Cloner, Mosy....)

4. Store your photos on an external hard drive and make smart previews and use synced collections to continue working on images even when you are not connected to the EHD

5. Move your Lightroom catalog files  (not your photos) to Dropbox so you can access your catalog from any of your computers

Keep in mind that with a little planning you can create collections and access Lightroom Mobile via a browser window and continue to edit there as well.

[marknovom]

I attempted to do what "Just Shoot Me" suggested (I even contacted Apple Support and they screen shared with me).  The person that I was speaking to at Apple suggested that I change the name of the home folder from "marknovom" to "mnovom" as a last resort.  He suggested that I write back to this form to see if I can change the destination folder.  In the screenshot of the error message below, how can I change the path from "/Users/mnovom...." to "/Users/marknovom" as my home folder on my new iMac somehow was named "marknovom"?  Is this possible?

[Just Shoot Me]

The Home folder (better known as the User Name folder) takes on the Username you used when you set up your Mac. So on your old mac you used mnovom and on your new mac you used Marknovom. Try creating another User Account using mnovom as the user name.

Also that error is from the Import dialog. Go to the Destination section, right hand panel. and select your current username.

[marknovom]

So, in order to change the name of my home folder, I had to create a temporary user, log into the temporary user, then I was able to change the name from marknovom to mnovom.  However, when I logged back into mnovom, it was as if it was a brand new computer with all my documents, music, and photos not there. 

Is there no way to deal with this in Lightroom, so that I don't have to change the name of my home folder?

Mark

[cmgap]

Move your Lightroom catalog folder to Dropbox. Keep in mind that if you work on your iMac and then your laptop, when you open Lr it will take a little time to sync.

[dj_paige]

marknovom  wrote

So, in order to change the name of my home folder, I had to create a temporary user, log into the temporary user, then I was able to change the name from marknovom to mnovom.  However, when I logged back into mnovom, it was as if it was a brand new computer with all my documents, music, and photos not there. 

Is there no way to deal with this in Lightroom, so that I don't have to change the name of my home folder?

Mark

Change the name of the Destination folder in LR to the folder name that actually exists.

[marknovom]

How do I change the name of the destination folder?

OR

Another option would be to create a new catalog on my new computer.  Is that possible?  I would obviously want to keep all my old photos and the metadata that is the old catalog.  Can I do that?

As you can tell, I'm a pretty novice user of lightroom.  I use it to organize my photos and to do some light touch-ups.  So, please give me detailed directions if you're suggesting something...

Thanks again for all the help!

Mark

[dj_paige]

In the Lightroom Import Dialog box, you change the Destination folder name on the right hand side under the word Destination.

New Catalog is a terrible idea. A better idea is to fix the problem.