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Author Topic: HELP! photos disappeared when moving folder  (Read 12520 times)

HickersonJasonC

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HELP! photos disappeared when moving folder
« on: March 22, 2009, 04:10:43 pm »

I was working on a photo this morning. After round-tripping to PS to stitch a panorama, I couldn't find the stitched TIFF in LR. After viewing previous imports, it appeared to have been placed in an alias folder (see screen shot).

I tried to drag and drop the image from the alias folder, but it kept getting a message saying the photo already existed in the target folder. But since I couldn't actually view the photo in the original folder, I tried to drag and drop the alias folder into the original folder. . . then ALL images in the original folder and the new stitched TIFF disappeared. LR can't find them. Searched my drive and the folder containing these images is gone. Checked trash just to be sure, not there either.

These are, of course, backed up on a separate drive. I've spent weeks on these images, though, over 20 photos I was planning for a new series. Please someone tell me that there is a solution to this. I can't imaging starting again on this after so many weeks. . .

If it helps, I'm on a one-year old macbook pro intel 15" running OS X 10.4.11 and LR 2.3. The alias-folder creation when reimporting from PS seems to have stemmed from me renaming the folder after original import (it has never happened before, this is my only idea). Any help GREATLY APPRECIATED!
« Last Edit: March 22, 2009, 07:10:43 pm by HickersonJasonC »
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john beardsworth

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HELP! photos disappeared when moving folder
« Reply #1 on: March 23, 2009, 04:09:41 am »

I don't think it's "been placed in an alias folder" - those question marks on the folder indicate that it was in a folder which you then renamed outside LR. In future, when you rename folders including pictures, do so in Lightroom, not Finder.

Have you tried using Spotlight to see if it finds the picture on your laptop? The best solution will be to find the renamed folder, and then use that Locate button to tell LR where the file now is.

John
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HickersonJasonC

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HELP! photos disappeared when moving folder
« Reply #2 on: March 23, 2009, 10:52:54 am »

Quote from: johnbeardy
I don't think it's "been placed in an alias folder" - those question marks on the folder indicate that it was in a folder which you then renamed outside LR. In future, when you rename folders including pictures, do so in Lightroom, not Finder.

Have you tried using Spotlight to see if it finds the picture on your laptop? The best solution will be to find the renamed folder, and then use that Locate button to tell LR where the file now is.

John

I renamed the folders within LR not Finder. And I did do a Spotlight Search. It finds nothing, not even the photo I had still open in PS. It's like a magic trick.

I was calling the folder an alias because it was named identically to the original and LR claimed that it contained a photo that was located in the original folder.
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john beardsworth

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HELP! photos disappeared when moving folder
« Reply #3 on: March 23, 2009, 11:05:03 am »

Quote from: HickersonJasonC
I renamed the folders within LR not Finder.
Your screenshots do indicate otherwise, and I've not seen any cases of Lightroom losing a folder in the way you seem to describe. Anyway, go to the Library panel, All Photos, make sure you have all filters off (Cmd L), and then see if you can trace the image by the Filter Panel (set File Type to TIF) or by setting up a smart collection - eg looking for keywords contains Potosi, file type=TIF etc. That should narrow down whether it really is in the catalogue but has somehow got in twice. Also, optimize the catalogue - just in case it needs a kicking.

I don't know Spotlight well enough, but have you done a Cmd-F search where you specify things like last modified / opened dates?

John
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HickersonJasonC

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HELP! photos disappeared when moving folder
« Reply #4 on: March 23, 2009, 12:56:15 pm »

Quote from: johnbeardy
Your screenshots do indicate otherwise, and I've not seen any cases of Lightroom losing a folder in the way you seem to describe. Anyway, go to the Library panel, All Photos, make sure you have all filters off (Cmd L), and then see if you can trace the image by the Filter Panel (set File Type to TIF) or by setting up a smart collection - eg looking for keywords contains Potosi, file type=TIF etc. That should narrow down whether it really is in the catalogue but has somehow got in twice. Also, optimize the catalogue - just in case it needs a kicking.

I don't know Spotlight well enough, but have you done a Cmd-F search where you specify things like last modified / opened dates?

John

I always do all my renaming and moving within LR, which is easier and doesn't require a synchronization, etc. I don't know why it appears that I renamed outside LR (or why that would cause the same folder to appear three times inside the catalog as you see from the screenshot), but I assure you, I didn't.

I did as you suggested, turned off all filters and used a smart folder to search my catalog (see screen shot); the images are easily found within the catalog using a number of different parameters. However, they won't open or edit (photo is "offline or missing") nor can I locate them on the actual disc when prompted to do so. Just to be clear here, ALL the images including the original DNGs are missing, not just the stitched TIFF (which was one of only two or three TIFFs in this group; most of the finished images in the folder were still DNGs) from this folder. I see no duplicate images, one working, one missing, or anything like that.

I went ahead and optimized my catalog, though I had just done this a few days ago (LR was crashing when using grad filter). No change, though.

I then ran a Cmnd F search and specified what exactly I was looking for on the disc. Should be fairly easy since I know the creation date for these files (see screen shot). As you can see, all the images listed as existing on the disc are .cr2 files, which are the backups I created when importing these images. The .DNG files (I always convert to DNG upon import, giving me DNG raws on one disc and CR2 backups on another drive) are not present in the search, though they were created on the same day as the CR2 files.

[attachment=12413:Picture_1.png][attachment=12414:Picture_2.png]

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john beardsworth

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HELP! photos disappeared when moving folder
« Reply #5 on: March 23, 2009, 01:22:30 pm »

OK, then I'm rather losing hope that those stitched files can be found. I focussed on them because they're the more difficult problem.

Regarding the DNGs, am I right in thinking that there is an exact match between their filenames and the original CR2's? If so, then I would sort them out by creating vanilla DNGs again (maybe using a temporary catalogue) and put them in a folder on your laptop. You could then go back into the main LR catalogue and point it at that folder. Cmd S and your edits will be written back into the recreated DNGs.

I'm slightly confused about the numbers here - your Spotlight CmdF shows just 33 files, but I thought we were talking about roughly 180 images of which 3 were TIFs.

John


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HickersonJasonC

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HELP! photos disappeared when moving folder
« Reply #6 on: March 23, 2009, 02:41:00 pm »

Quote from: johnbeardy
OK, then I'm rather losing hope that those stitched files can be found. I focussed on them because they're the more difficult problem.

Regarding the DNGs, am I right in thinking that there is an exact match between their filenames and the original CR2's? If so, then I would sort them out by creating vanilla DNGs again (maybe using a temporary catalogue) and put them in a folder on your laptop. You could then go back into the main LR catalogue and point it at that folder. Cmd S and your edits will be written back into the recreated DNGs.

I'm slightly confused about the numbers here - your Spotlight CmdF shows just 33 files, but I thought we were talking about roughly 180 images of which 3 were TIFs.

John

The spotlight Cmnd F shows 33 images because 33 of the 183 images in this folder were created on Dec 29 (which is the search i performed) and the rest of these images were created on Dec 30 (not included in the search). All 183 files are present, however. The reason for the discrepancy is that I renamed all the photos (within LR) as 20081229; the CR2s were not renamed.

That is an excellent idea about creating new DNGs and pointing LR to the new folder. I think I understand how to do this. . . what would be the benefit of creating a temp catalogue rather than just creating a new folder within the same catalogue. I'm asking because I have never had more than one catalogue before, and am worried about further confusing the situation (and myself).

As for the stitched TIFF, no problem losing it. It contained no edits yet except for the stitching itself. If this works, I will lose 2, maybe three finished TIFFs total. MUCH better than losing 20+ finished DNGs.
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john beardsworth

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HELP! photos disappeared when moving folder
« Reply #7 on: March 23, 2009, 02:56:25 pm »

Quote from: HickersonJasonC
That is an excellent idea about creating new DNGs and pointing LR to the new folder. I think I understand how to do this. . . what would be the benefit of creating a temp catalogue rather than just creating a new folder within the same catalogue. I'm asking because I have never had more than one catalogue before, and am worried about further confusing the situation (and myself).

I generally don't recommend more than one catalogue either. But recreating the DNGs in a new folder in the same catalogue would mean your main catalogue would then have two thumbnails for each DNG - the adjusted one with the question mark, and the recreated one - and that would be more confusing to sort out. My temp catalogue approach means you just put fresh DNGs in their Finder folder, then open the main catalogue and use that Locate button to tell it where the missing files are (ie no Sync or Import in the main catalogue - just Locate or Find Missing Folder).

Try it with one or two CR2s to see if you get what I mean.

John
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HickersonJasonC

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HELP! photos disappeared when moving folder
« Reply #8 on: March 23, 2009, 02:58:40 pm »

Quote from: johnbeardy
I generally don't recommend more than one catalogue either. But recreating the DNGs in a new folder in the same catalogue would mean your main catalogue would then have two thumbnails for each DNG - the adjusted one with the question mark, and the recreated one - and that would be more confusing to sort out. My temp catalogue approach means you just put fresh DNGs in their Finder folder, then open the main catalogue and use that Locate button to tell it where the missing files are (ie no Sync or Import in the main catalogue - just Locate or Find Missing Folder).

Try it with one or two CR2s to see if you get what I mean.

John

OK. I will give this a try tonight when I have time. Thanks for all your help on this. I'll let you know how it goes.
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john beardsworth

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HELP! photos disappeared when moving folder
« Reply #9 on: March 23, 2009, 03:01:08 pm »

Rather envious of your trip - is there any silver left in them there hills (or however it's said in Spanish)?
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HickersonJasonC

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« Reply #10 on: March 23, 2009, 04:01:20 pm »

Quote from: johnbeardy
Rather envious of your trip - is there any silver left in them there hills (or however it's said in Spanish)?

Sí, hay un poco de plata en Cerro Rico, pero no mucho. We actually took a "tour" into the silver mines, though none of those photos are going to be included in this series which I'm calling One Day, Potosí (it will include only street life images shot in a 24-hour period). The mines were terrifying, exhausting and had us blowing black grime from our noses for three days— very much worth it, though!

I'm living in Santiago, Chile at the moment, seven months down, five to go. So it wasn't so far for me to travel. I spent two months in Bolivia and another month in Perú recently, but nothing compared for me to Potosí. Highly, highly recommended.

As soon as I get these finished, and up on my new website, I'll send you a link. I would love to hear your feedback.
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HickersonJasonC

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« Reply #11 on: March 24, 2009, 01:37:17 pm »

Quote from: johnbeardy
I generally don't recommend more than one catalogue either. But recreating the DNGs in a new folder in the same catalogue would mean your main catalogue would then have two thumbnails for each DNG - the adjusted one with the question mark, and the recreated one - and that would be more confusing to sort out. My temp catalogue approach means you just put fresh DNGs in their Finder folder, then open the main catalogue and use that Locate button to tell it where the missing files are (ie no Sync or Import in the main catalogue - just Locate or Find Missing Folder).

Try it with one or two CR2s to see if you get what I mean.

John

OK, i'm making my first attempt at this now. The first issue that comes up is that after importing I tag blurry or just plain terrible photos as rejects, delete them, then rename the contents of the folder to get sequential file names. Because the file names of the new imports differ from the original, sorted (missing) files, LR wrongly updates about half the files in the folder (apparently LR only uses file names to "locate nearby missing photos?") and can't find the rest.

So, it seems that I will have to either A) somehow sort and rename the new imports of these files to match identically the original, missing files so that LR can "locate nearby missing photos" and update those as well (which I think will be impossible as I can't view both catalogs at the same time), or  turn off "locate nearby missing photos" and point LR to each file separately (which will take a long time, but should be possible).

Any thoughts before I try plan B? Am I missing any options?
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john beardsworth

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HELP! photos disappeared when moving folder
« Reply #12 on: March 24, 2009, 02:21:18 pm »

Ah, that's why I asked "am I right in thinking that there is an exact match between their [the DNGs'] filenames and the original CR2's?" Lightroom is very stupid here as it only uses the filenames for its Locate Missing Files matching, rather than looking for other similarities such as when it was shot, camera, or even a unique ID etc. Renaming breaks the fragile connection between the file in LR and the backed up images. Hopefully this will get better in the next version.

I suspect A is going to be easier. Do you have any other program able to view images - Bridge? If so, you could then open your main catalogue, so you can see your question marked files, and then go through Bridge deleting and renaming as required.

John
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HickersonJasonC

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HELP! photos disappeared when moving folder
« Reply #13 on: March 24, 2009, 07:24:22 pm »

[attachment=12445:Picture_1.png]
Quote from: johnbeardy
Ah, that's why I asked "am I right in thinking that there is an exact match between their [the DNGs'] filenames and the original CR2's?" Lightroom is very stupid here as it only uses the filenames for its Locate Missing Files matching, rather than looking for other similarities such as when it was shot, camera, or even a unique ID etc. Renaming breaks the fragile connection between the file in LR and the backed up images. Hopefully this will get better in the next version.

I suspect A is going to be easier. Do you have any other program able to view images - Bridge? If so, you could then open your main catalogue, so you can see your question marked files, and then go through Bridge deleting and renaming as required.

John


I finally got this sorted as far as possible. In the end, I reimported the files as DNG a third time and only pointed the original missing files to the 25 or so photos I really spent time on. It worked on 17 of them. I have finished TIFF files for the 8 it didn't work on (not sure why it didn't, but the file did not locate properly, then the missing file disappeared). So, all in all, success.

I felt as if I was playing a chess game with LR throughout this nightmare— and I'm not that good at chess . LR is still playing games with me, though. While I was moving an adjusted file into the new import folder WITHIN LR, another alias folder was created (see screenshot). This folder does not show up in Finder, but as you can see, it is not possible to move a file from the original folder into the new folder as they are the same. I don't know why it does this; it has never happened before. Any ideas? It takes some work to get the file to actually go into the original folder, though LR insists it is already there the whole time.

It looks like LR has some serious work to do before the Locate Nearby Photos feature can be of any real use at all.

Thanks for you help once again, John.
« Last Edit: March 24, 2009, 07:29:51 pm by HickersonJasonC »
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john beardsworth

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HELP! photos disappeared when moving folder
« Reply #14 on: March 25, 2009, 05:02:15 am »

Good. Maybe you should review why you're moving files around? Physically moving files around is rather OldThink, and LR is more about using metadata such as keywords and collections to organize and manage files. Another observation is that a 3 star filter is currently active, so the file may well be in that folder already, but hidden because the filter is on. The filter function can be very annoying - time after time I go back to a folder and have a few seconds' panic when all the files don't appear to be there. Could this be the issue?

But let's focus on your saying "While I was moving an adjusted file into the new import folder WITHIN LR, another alias folder was created". Were you moving an adjusted TIF file into the folder that's currently visible? And in that folder is a DNG with the same name as your TIF file? I can see how this might cause a problem (at one time it ignored the file extension when looking for duplicates), though I thought Adobe had "listened to feedback" and sorted this out.

John
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HickersonJasonC

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HELP! photos disappeared when moving folder
« Reply #15 on: March 25, 2009, 04:13:23 pm »

Quote from: johnbeardy
Good. Maybe you should review why you're moving files around? Physically moving files around is rather OldThink, and LR is more about using metadata such as keywords and collections to organize and manage files. Another observation is that a 3 star filter is currently active, so the file may well be in that folder already, but hidden because the filter is on. The filter function can be very annoying - time after time I go back to a folder and have a few seconds' panic when all the files don't appear to be there. Could this be the issue?

But let's focus on your saying "While I was moving an adjusted file into the new import folder WITHIN LR, another alias folder was created". Were you moving an adjusted TIF file into the folder that's currently visible? And in that folder is a DNG with the same name as your TIF file? I can see how this might cause a problem (at one time it ignored the file extension when looking for duplicates), though I thought Adobe had "listened to feedback" and sorted this out.

John

no, the filter definitely isn't the culprit. i turned on a 3-star filter before taking the screenshot just to hide the personal snapshots at the beginning of the folder. sorry if that added to the confusion.

i don't normally move files around in LR as part of my workflow, but sometimes it is necessary. i occasionally export images into the wrong folder (lately it has been: Images>Finished>Master Images>2008 rather than Images>Finished>Master Images>2009). careless and avoidable, yes. but surely the same thing happens to hundreds if not thousands of LR users without incident?

i think the question here isn't why my workflow sometimes requires moving a file but why is LR so bad at doing it? however, if you are suggesting that the alias folder that started this whole thing was created because I was moving a TIFF that shared the name of a DNG already in the folder, I don't think that can be the problem because the filename of the TIFF i was roundtripping from PS contained the suffix -PANO (see original screen shot).

[attachment=12477:Picture_3_18_55_35.png]


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john beardsworth

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HELP! photos disappeared when moving folder
« Reply #16 on: March 26, 2009, 05:50:46 am »

Quote from: HickersonJasonC
i think the question here isn't why my workflow sometimes requires moving a file but why is LR so bad at doing it? however, if you are suggesting that the alias folder that started this whole thing was created because I was moving a TIFF that shared the name of a DNG already in the folder, I don't think that can be the problem because the filename of the TIFF i was roundtripping from PS contained the suffix -PANO (see original screen shot).
I'd answer with a question - why don't those hundreds and thousands of other users have the same view about its ability to move files? While there was certainly a bug with LR ignoring file extensions (actually it was by design), it looks like it is fixed as I thought, and your screenshot shows that it probably wasn't relevant here (this screenshot is only really about the file not being where LR thought). It's probably going to be a matter of your watching what is happening, making sure you stick to moving/renaming files and folders in LR rather than Finder,  and just seeing if a silver penny suddenly drops.

John
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tomrock

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HELP! photos disappeared when moving folder
« Reply #17 on: March 27, 2009, 08:39:08 am »

I've had this happen but it was with the beta of 2.3.

I was moving some older headshots to a folder called "Older". The headshots disappeared from the original folder and never showed up in the "Older" folder. Luckily, I was moving them because I didn't need them any more.

But it happened.
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HickersonJasonC

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HELP! photos disappeared when moving folder
« Reply #18 on: March 27, 2009, 12:37:25 pm »

New update. I was continuing work on this folder this morning when this happened:

I did work on file 20091229_0157.dng in LR. Right-clicked and chose Edit in Photoshop. Did simple lens corrections in LR and did a Cmnd+S to save the file back into the original folder in LR with layers intact.

When I went back to LR, the newly saved file named 20091229_0157-Edit is not in the original folder on screen but in an "alias" listed just below it. This is the same thing that happened before in my original post.

It is not possible to move the new file into the original folder as LR says it already exists there. I checked in Finder and LR is correct, the photo is in the original folder (in fact, the alias folder does not exist in Finder). So why did LR create this additional folder? And how do I get LR to display these photos in the same folder?

I took two more screenshots after this showing the information given when I attempt to synchronize these two folders. NOTE: you see it wants to import 167 photos instead of 166 because I removed from catalog one photo in this folder that remains on disc; this is not part of the problem. I'm afraid to do anything that might cause my photos to disappear once again. Any ideas at all about what caused this? I can't see anything in my workflow above that should cause this problem. Should I attempt a synchronize?

TOM, when your photos disappeared, did you encounter this alias folder issue??


[attachment=12532:Picture_1.png][attachment=12533:Picture_2.png]

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john beardsworth

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HELP! photos disappeared when moving folder
« Reply #19 on: March 27, 2009, 12:47:43 pm »

Jason

Does it happen every time you Edit With? And can you try repeating it, but using a new catalogue?

John
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