Import Catalog vs. Find Missing Files

I had my primary image storage hard drive fail. I am switching to my full backup, however I have hundreds of folders containing 118,000+ files and want the best way to access them.
I can have the existing catalog Find Missing Files, and that preserves the History from teh Develop panel, but it seems that I can only find files within a subfolder, which means that I have to do that for every individual subfolder in the sack.
I can also Import Catalog, but my question is: Will that preserve the History from the Develop Panel or will it simply import the files, as edited, but without showing the step-by-step edits previosuly completed?
I imported a couple of individual subfolders (not the Import Catalog option) and the files came through with edits intact, but no History (History began with the new Import).
Any ideas? Finding Missing Files folder by folder is a potential time suck of epic proportion, but I want to preserve my work history.
Thanks,
David Feldman
LR5 on an iMac running 10.8.5

Thanks for the suggestions. But here's more details...
The Find Missing Folders so far (I will see if I am missing someting) has not worked from the parent directory. I will look again to see if I glossed over an important step.
As for the drive, it is a Drobo S 5-disk array. The disk experienced a bad sector reorganization, which was successful (all partitions readable and writeable). I prepared to swap out the newly-classified "bad" disk and install the new drive. My major blunder was to accept the Drobo firmware update because IMMEDIATELY after doing to upon reboot the Drobo now showed that ALL OF MY DRIVES WERE NOT INSTALLED, not just the one empty bay waiting for the newer, bigger backup drive.
Needless to say, I'm out of the 90-day "we'll help you" period, but they are trying to get a one-time papel dispensation to allow me to receive assistance via e-mail.
So, for now, I ain't doing squat to the Drobo array until they come up with a way to access my data. I would, however, like ot keep working, hence the need for a new catalog.

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Lightroom catalog backup find missing file location- please help!

Hi,
Before I start, if anyone can answer this question I would be so grateful. I would cry!
Ok, so let me start.
Recently I cleared my whole entire mac and backed up everything on a hard drive. when I reinstalled lightroom on my clean mac, I also imported the catalog that I backed up. It all worked fine, and this post isn't about a lost catalog, or accidentally deleted photos.
So, what is hapenning is. When I imported my catalog I got an error message, for all the photos and folders. this:
So I found re-finding the folder, or finding the "missing file location" (which is so annoying because I wished Lightroom just backed up the pictures along with the catalog). But when I found the folder, only some photos showed up and some still displayed the exclamation mark.
Now I do have all the photos with the exclamation marks in folders on my backup hard drive, BUT they are all unedited raw versions. I honestly cannot go back and edit 2000 photos, especially after me having to clean all of the photos when my camera had over 30 spots of sensor dust on the photos. So those backup photos are what lightroom backed up, but I want to know how I can recover the photos in the lightroom catalog with the edits APPLIED.
May I PLEASEE get help on this. I am SO STUCK and do not want to mess up ANYTHING at all!
I would appreciate so much for ANY help! PLEASE!
Kind regards,
Josh

Please post on the Lightroom Forum.

Why can't Lightroom TRY to find "missing" files?

It's so frustrating--can someone please tell me why Lightroom can't even TRY to find "missing" files? Years and years ago, iView (now Expression Media) did it so it shouldn't be that difficult to offer "missing file suggestions"!

CSS Simon wrote:
Vienna_Sydney wrote:
If you move and rename your files from within LR, your outside programs can't find them, unless you export them. This creates quite a mess in the end
What outside programs do you have in mind?
By outside programs I meant Adobe Bridge and CS5. The only filenames that remain unchanged are the raw files. I eventually rename files as part of the workflow. I work with 3 different cameras, all creating different filenames. As LR is limited in what it can do, but not without its merit, I have to use other programs.
Anyway, I don't have a problem - as I had mentioned in my first reply. Synchronising folders does the job for me very well

Find Missing Files Automatically

Is there a way to make itunes find missing files automatically?

The "missing file" thing happens if the file is no longer where iTunes expects to find it. Possible causes are that you or some third party tool has moved, renamed or deleted the file, or that the drive it lives on has had a change of drive letter. It is also possible that iTunes has changed from expecting the files to be in the pre-iTunes 9 layout to post-iTunes 9 layout, or vice-versa, and so is looking in slightly the wrong place.
Select a track with an exclamation mark, use Ctrl-I to get info, then say no when asked to locate the track. Look on the summary tab for the location that iTunes thinks the file should be. Now take a look around your hard drive(s). Hopefully you can locate the track in question. If a section of your library has simply been moved, or a drive letter has changed, it should be possible to reverse the actions. I can provide a step by step guide if you give me the two paths.
In some cases iTunes may be able to repair itself if you go through the same steps and locate the lost track. It may then offer to attempt to automatically fix other broken links. This feature should work if the files are in the standard iTunes layout but on a different path from that expected by the library. Alternatively, as long as you can find a location holding the missing files, then you should be able to use my FindTracks script to reconnect them to iTunes.
tt2

Finding missing files that are a different file type?

I had several folders of jpegs that i converted to dng with lightroom. I lost the dng files and now i only have the original jpegs. when i introduce them back to lightroom it no longer recognizes them because of the different file type. When i "find" and individul file it works and the missing dng is replaced with the jpeg.
The find nearby files option does not work and finding thousands of files individually is just not going to work. I don't want to reimport because i will lose all the work i have done to these files.
Any ideas? Maybe I should wait for 3.0?
thanks,
Braden

... the dng converter wont convert a jpeg to dng only camera raw files...
Didn't know about that.
In this case, you can use Lightroom to convert to DNG:
Start a fresh catalog.
Import all your JPEGs.
Use the Convert to DNG command in Library module to convert all JPEGs at once. It will place the new DNGs in the same catalog as the source JPEGs.
Open the original catalog where the DNGs are missing — the old catalog should be fine finding the newly created DNGs now.
You can now trash the "new" catalog.

Photoshop elements 11and finding missing files

I had a problem with an account on my photoshop so had to open a new account on my imac. I had spent quite a bit of time editing my Alaska pictures and somehow now they wont let me move them to my new downloaded photoshop. it says they are missing files and if I try to find them it will search forever and not find them.. is there another way to get them to my other photoshop or even if i could put them on my external hard drive. that is where the problem started in my old account is when I bought that. I kept getting the beach ball spinning and couldnt get it to stop so apple just suggested I open a new account.

I am sorry: There was a word misprint that could be confusing. Please ignore my previous post. Here is the corrected version:
The Missing Files thing is very difficult. I found a pretty easy way around it.
My newest photos are in a folder (windows folder) called 2013. I have other folders, such as 1990s, 2000-5, etc. The trick is to make a new empty folder called Temp, in the same location as your other folders. For me, this temp folder, and those other folders, are located within a folder called Adobe, which is within another folder called "my pictures". I import all new photos into this temp folder. Then I add them to the catalog by selecting File, and choosing search and finding the temp folder. Then I choose "get media" which seals the deal.
When you choose Get Media, the organizer only displays the new photos you've just added to the catolog. Once you see these new photos, immediately add them to any albums within photoshop. The next thing I do is move the photos to a folder where you really want them, say 2013 for example. This gets them out of the temp folder. YOU HAVE TO DO THIS WITHIN PHOTOSHOP ITSELF--IF YOU MOVE PICTURES THE TRADITIONAL WAY FROM FOLDER TO FOLDER, THIS CONFUSES THE ORGANIZER. On a windows version of photoshop, I highlight these photos within photoshop and choose file/move on the organizer menu and select the folder. This moves all of the photos from the temp folder into the folder that you really want them to go into. You're done.
I've done this hundreds of times with no missing files problem until yesterday! A glitch happened, whereby I chose to delete the photos and selected the option to also delete them from the temp folder. When I tried to back up elements, it warned me that there were missing files. Since they were originally in the temp folder, I knew where to look. The beauty of the temp folder is that if you ever get the "missing files" notification, it will be easy to find them. If you hadn't used a temp folder and instead had thrown the pics in a folder with a thousand other shots, it would be really tough to find them.
Since I knew the temp folder was involved in all this, here's how I found the "missing files": I used the "my folders" area of photoshop, which is directly under the albums and has a yellow icon. I clicked onto the arrow to the left of this folder, found the temp folder, and all of the missing pictures were suddenly seen in my organizer. However, I knew that the temp folder on my computer was empty. This was confusing to me. Why would the organizer think these photos were in the temp folder, when they were actually in my recycle bin? I clicked on all of the photos that were supposedly in the temp folder, even though I knew they weren't there. Clicking highlighted the photos in blue. Then I right clicked and chose "delete from catalog". Problem solved. No more missing files.
All of this stuff took me 8 hours to figure out on my own. I hope I save you some time.

Un-able to "find" missing files

Hi,
I’m in the midst of a massive image recovery following a server crash (where the image files lived). I’m having success, but I’m running into 2 situations that I can’t figure out.
I have tiles with file names (I say tiles because there is no preview, or image outline), with “?” but I am unable to click on the “?” to locate. Any idea what that means?
Also, I’m finding blocks of images that I successfully re-linked (based on file name) that now have next to them a tile with the exact same file name but with a “?” and can’t be clicked on. Further, these duplicate tiles, same file name as re-linked image next to them have different, often more comprehensive, keywords or different meta data.
Can anyone provide some insight on what exactly I’m experiencing and hopefully some solutions or approaches to trouble shooting it?
Thanks very much in advance!
-EO
screenshot of #1 screenshot of #2

Was your LR catalog on the server that crashed or was it on the local computer hard-drive? I mean could the catalog be corrupted, too?
You might try and right-click on one of the tiles and see if a Find Missing Photo menu option appears.

Find Missing files command does not allow me to navigate to backup drive

I have just bought a MacBook Pro and am moving my catalog an images from a PC. I have read/watched many videos on how to do this. I have copied all images out to a hard drive along with the Catalog file. I downloaded Lightbook 4 to Macbook and have opened my catalog file. All my tags and folder structure are shown with ?marks. When I highlight the My Picture folder and click "find missing photos", I don't get a Navigate window to choose hard drive folder of the same name. Instead, I see it start task, scan and complete task and all the photos now show in the Missing Photos section of the Catalog. I never get a Navigate window. It just keeps starting task and then saying complete. So the images are blank with ? marks on all files.
Help! I bought the Macbook Pro to do my photography and instead I've spend a day watching videos showing the Navigate window which I never get when I do "find missing photos". What's going wrong?

The answer here might help -
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-networking/windows-7-64bit-network-drive-displays-offline-and/4a50148b-3917-4ff5-bac2-493f63f3b95f

ITunes can't find missing files, though there right there?!

I switched from PC to Macbook air reacently. I have always keept an external HD for all my music. I managed to get my old iTunes Library copied over to the Mac no problem and the HD is running smoothly too. iTunes has found over 6000 files but is still struggling to locate over 1400 tracks...so here is my problem...I can literally see an entire album of missing tracks. Show iTunes where one is and then it asks if I want to find other missing tracks — AND THE REST OF THE MISSING TRACKS ARE RIGHT THERE IN THE SAME FOLDER and it says it cannot find any more of the 1,486 missing tracks. In the past it usually found at least those tracks in the same album. I have to manually click on every single tune to locate its file location now - no fun for over 1400 missing files!! How come that iTunes can read some files fine and others not at all though there are all listed in the external HD as before?
..any suddestions or ideas to find a solution?
Thanks a lot.

Mike - please reply to the post rather than message me direct. Others on here are far more qualified than I.
if it is saying all your photos are now missing then I would guess you have changed a folder/subfolder above where they are stored. So if you have the photos all in ...\Pictures\Mike\Adobe and then at some point you changed the Mike folder to be called Flano then all the links will break. If this is what may have happened rename the folder back to what it was and all the links should be OK again. I would still recommend trying to find at least 1 of the missing photos using a search in My Computer just to ensure they are still there somewhere.

Can't find missing files

When I want to edit, it starts looking for missing files. Then I can't edit. I reconnect and it keeps searching. Now there is nothing it can do until it finds those files. Where did they go? I can I just move on and continue editing photos?

Mike - please reply to the post rather than message me direct. Others on here are far more qualified than I.
if it is saying all your photos are now missing then I would guess you have changed a folder/subfolder above where they are stored. So if you have the photos all in ...\Pictures\Mike\Adobe and then at some point you changed the Mike folder to be called Flano then all the links will break. If this is what may have happened rename the folder back to what it was and all the links should be OK again. I would still recommend trying to find at least 1 of the missing photos using a search in My Computer just to ensure they are still there somewhere.

Find missing files kinda kludgy

I open a session and it asks me to link missing files but I dont even know what's missing.
AFTER i open the session, I can see missing stuff, but then what? I'd be happy to select
a clip and find the parent, but how? No context menu to do that, etc.
I get the "offline ?" scribe but it doesnt lead to anything & I knew it was offline.
LIghtroom makes it easy to find whats missing cuz it tells you and you can track it all
the way to the find.
Thanks anyone

Steve Zeeeee wrote:
Also, I'm puzzled how audition could recover them,
cuz the files are whole, in the finder, but all cut up
in the show.
That's easy - Multitrack is non-destructive, and everything about where your file needs to be positioned and played in Multitrack is stored in the .ses file. If it had found the file (which obviously it knows of the existence of), it would have applied all of that information to it. The only thing missing was the current file location, hence the place markers.

Find Missing Files

How do I find a missing file?

Hi,
You may locate the folder where the missing files were stored, then right click on that folder, choose
Restore previous versions.
See if this would help here.
Best regards
Michael Shao
TechNet Community Support

I can't find missing files but I see the files on pc but I can't use recconnect feature

Help with missing file ? beside photo ??

Migration Assistant creates a new user with the transferred files. Go to  > Log Out and log in the new user

Exporting catalog, making changes, then importing catalog does not update file movements and deletions

I export part of my master catalog to a laptop. I include the image files so I can edit the files at full res. After managing and editing files I import the catalog back into the master catalog. When importing I check to replace metadata, develop settings and negative files. I have been running some tests to be sure all my work is being captured in the master catalog by this process. I find that if I change develop settings or photo ratings this is detected when the file is imported and the data in the master catalog is updated properly. The surprise is that if I delete files or move files among folders in the exported catalog these changes are not detected and these changes are not updated inthe master catalog. It seems bizarre to me that such changes are not detected but I do not see how to get LR to recognize these changes and include them in the catalog update. Without this capability I don't see how to use catalogs to move part of a catalog to another computer for edits and file management and then move back to the master catalog.

There are various reasons why Lightroom works this way, but you'll need use pick flags to indicate photos to be deleted, and other metadata like colours or collections.

How can I get iPhoto to find missing files?

I lost a hard drive that had thousands of photos on it. I recovered the photos from a different drive, not using time capsule.
iPhoto still has the thumbnails and the only way I can find out whats missing is by double clicking the photo, then it asks me to find "img_1234.jpg" and I do and it links it. But I have thousands to relink, is there an easier way?
Thanks

I originally had the photos organized by date folders on the hard drive, then I imported them into iPhoto.
It sounds like you had a Referenced Library - that is, the photos were not copied to the Library on import. Now something has changed and the path to the photos has altered somehow and iPhoto cannot find them.
iPhoto in this method uses aliases to track the location of the files. You might try repair those aliases with an app like [FileBuddy|http://www.skytag.com/filebuddy>
If that fails there is no fast solution for this, and it's one of the reasons that I wouldn't recommend iPhoto in this configuration.
There's also nothing to be gained from doing so.
You can use iPhoto with Photoshop: You can set Photoshop (or any image editor) as an external editor in iPhoto. (Preferences -> General -> Edit Photo: Choose from the Drop Down Menu.) This way, when you double click a pic to edit in iPhoto it will open automatically in Photoshop or your Image Editor, and when you save it it's sent back to iPhoto automatically. This is the only way that edits made in another application will be displayed in iPhoto.
Note that iPhoto sends a copy+ of the file to Photoshop, so when you save be sure to use the Save command, not Save As... If you use Save As then you're creating a new file and iPhoto has no way of knowing about this new file. iPhoto is preserving your original anyway.
My best advice is to convert that Library to a Managed library.
Regards
TD

Import Catalog vs. Find Missing Files

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