Unable to view some images

[AntaresFortune]

I bought and installed Lightroom on my desktop computer in 2013.

Recently I got the CC version for my laptop.

I have an external hard drive where I keep my images in both cases.

When working off my laptop, the images that I have saved from my desk top unit do not show up.  I have not working from the desktop with the images I saved while working on the laptop.

Is there a way to view the images saved from the desktop while working on the laptop or the other way around?  I see all the folders, but the images don't seem to

show up.

Is this because I'm using a version I have the disc for and one that is the CC license?

Thank you for any help you can offer.

[Mohit Goyal]

Hi AntaresFortune,

You can install one CC licence on two machines however, there should be one machine in a use at a time. 

So, let's assume you have the same version installed on both machines, you need to keep all the images and use one Lightroom catalog as a master catalog and save it to the same external drive. Whenever you want to work in Lightroom(Desktop Machine), you connect the external hard drive to that computer open the saved catalog from the external hard drive do the editing and close the Lightroom.

Same goes for the Laptop machine as well, by doing this you are using one catalog on both machines which will make things identical on both machines.

Note: You should have the same type of operating system installed on both machine to accomplish the above workflow.(Windows-Windows Or Mac-Mac)

Regards,

Mohit

[AntaresFortune]

I don't have the same version, though they are both Windows OS.  The desktop unit has an old version.  I recently got the subscription version on my laptop, but am away from home for the foreseeable future.

I can see the folders on the external hard drive, just not the images in them.

I expect it is something profoundly simple and I am just being a bit dense about it.

[dj_paige]

When working off my laptop, the images that I have saved from my desk top unit do not show up.

They should not "show up" ... even though it's not clear what you mean by "show up" ... you have to either import the photos into the catalog on the laptop, or you have to export a catalog from the desktop and then import that catalog into the laptop catalog.

[AntaresFortune]

Thank you.  I did a terrible job explaining myself.

For the past 4 years or so I've done all the work on my desktop computer, but saved it to an external hard drive. 

Now that I am using a laptop with the same external drive, the images from the previous 4 years don't show up or allow me to edit them, though the folders do. 

I wasn't sure why that was the case.  I imagined it was something stupid on my end.

[dj_paige]

AntaresFortune  wrote

Thank you.  I did a terrible job explaining myself.

For the past 4 years or so I've done all the work on my desktop computer, but saved it to an external hard drive. 

Now that I am using a laptop with the same external drive, the images from the previous 4 years don't show up or allow me to edit them, though the folders do. 

I wasn't sure why that was the case.  I imagined it was something stupid on my end.

Are there question mark icons on the folders, or exclamation point icons or question mark icons on the photos? (an example of exclamation point icons on the photos can be seen in Figure 2 in this document: Adobe Lightroom - Find moved or missing files and folders ) The solution is also in that document.

If that's not it, then you still have to explain better "don't show up or allow me to edit them". Show us a screen capture. Explain with lots and lots of details what you see and what the exact word-for-word error message is. You're still not really giving us any information, we're still guessing at "don't show up".

[AntaresFortune]

Yeah...I'm doing a horrible job explaining.  My fault.  I'll try to do better.  Not being snarky.  I *am* terrible at explaining things.

I am currently sitting at the laptop with the drive plugged in and this is what I am experiencing.

If I click 'Import' a list of all the folders on the drive show up and I can import to any of the folders, whether it is one I created 3 years ago or one I created today.

When I view a list of folders in the library view, only the images that I have imported from my laptop appear, whether the folder was created 3 years ago or today.

I am unable to pull up any folders in library view that do not have new photos in them.

In the folders that I am able to pull up, because I imported an image into them from my laptop, I am only able to view the images that were imported from the laptop.

I get neither an exclamation point or question mark.  There is simply nothing there.

[Jao vdL · Accepted solution]

The issue is that you're not opening the same catalog file on your two machines. The trick is to save the catalog on the external hard disk and open that on either machine. By default Lightroom will use a catalog file somewhere on the internal hard disk. Simply change that to a catalog o. The external drive and you'll get the exact same behavior on both machines when opening that catalog.

[AntaresFortune]

Ahhh....that makes sense. 

I guess my next question is how do I go about that?

[Jao vdL]

It depends on your operating system but in general what you want to do on the main machine is figure out where your catalog file is stored and copy it over to your external disk, you can generally copy over your preview files that are stored right next to it too. then from Lightroom open that catalog. Close Lightroom on one machine before unmounting the hard drive and then after mounting it on the other machine, open the catalog from the external there. Lightroom will remember the last opened catalog file. There are Some instructions in this link: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/how-to-lightroom-catalog-multiple-computers/  go for the self contained option. You've already got all your images on the external drive so you only need t do par of this.

[AntaresFortune]

Alright.  Thank you.  I'll check out that link.

Am I correct in understanding that I need access to the desktop to copy the catalog onto the hard drive and that until then, I will be

unable to access the images?

[Jao vdL]

You can access the images by importing them into another catalog on your laptop but you won't see any of the edits, keywording, collections, etc. you might have made onthe desktop as that is all stored in the catalog file.

[AntaresFortune]

Alright.  I was afraid of that.  I was hoping that wasn't going to be the case since I'm not sure when I'm going to be back home to have access to the desktop computer, but as long as I know I'm able to recover it at some point, barring loss of the that computer, I can live with it.

Thank you!