Missing files really missing!

I have a dumb question.... by any chance does Lightroom preserve a copy of an image file, NEF or JPEG?
I apparently erased several photos from my hard drive by mistake. Lightroom still displays the thumbnail, but obviously can not locate the associated file. To make matters worse, my back-up drive crashed on the same week, so no help for me there either.
So I am trying to determine if there is any help finding a copy of the file in Lightroom.
Thanks for your help..
RR

No, the files are not in LR. However, previews might remain. Extracting them may depend on which OS you are using.

Similar Messages

Missing Files not Missing...

I have all my media on an external 4TB drive which is directly attached to my Mac Mini via USB 3.0 and which my MacBook accesses through Sharing on my home network. At the moment, both computers have WiFi turned off and are directly plugged into the router. Both the iTunes library on my Mac Mini and my MacBook are set to see this drive and all of its folders and files as the source for their media in the Advanced tab.
Previously, I had all my media on two external 2TB drives with this same set up, having used TuneSpan to allow both machines to find the files I put on the second drive. Previous to copying over everything from both drives to the new 4TB drive everything was fine with both machines seeing everything they were supposed to both before and after using TuneSpan.
I will note that the two machines are using different iTunes .itl library files, with the MacBook having less content in general but also a number of songs which are not included in the Mac Mini's .itl file.
On my Mac Mini which is running the most recent versions of Mt. Lion and iTunes, everything is good, all files are seen, no problem. On my MacBook which is running Leopard and iTunes 10.5.8, there are a number of movies which have exclamation points next to them. When I try to direct iTunes to locate the missing files, it sees the files just fine but the Open button is always greyed out so I cannot select the files; these same files are found and play fine on the Mac Mini and the file sizes are the same on both the old 2TB drive and the new 4TB drive. When I recopy the file from the old 2TB drive to replace the existing copy and then again direct iTunes on the MacBook to locate the file, it will now allow me to Open it even though it's the exact same file. When it asks me if I want to use this location to find the other missing files, it goes through some process and tells me this was not possible.
If I grab a bunch of the folders for the films that this is happening with at a time and recopy them over to the 4TB drive, the MacBook's iTunes continues to refuse to see the files. Only if I individually go through and recopy only the exact file it is refusing to use will it then agree to Open and Locate the file.
This is effecting about 65 movies which vary in size from 700MB to 3.5GB. They are films from every genre, some converted from VHS, others extracted from DVD, others re-encoded from .avi or .flv and some which originated as .mp4s.
The only other thing which seems worth noting is that the video files which the MacBook refuses to Open are depicted as music files with a music note on them despite them all either ending in .mp4 or .m4v and on the Mini they are shown as they actually are with the album art as the icon.
What is going on?! Why is it doing this?! How can I force the MacBook's iTunes to use the files it sees?!

I tried something almost like you suggested, John.
The problem was, as I perhaps didn't explain properly, that the files were in places and exactly where LR thought they were (and still listed as missing!). Because I can right-click and select "Show in explorer", and the file will be shown in the correct folder.
But you gave me an idea to the simple solution:
Select All -> Delete Photo.
Instead of Delete I chose Remove, so that the files only would be removed from LR but not deleted from the disk.
Then I could synchronize the folder with the files. They showed up again and is no longer listed as missing.
Not that they ever really were missing, but still ...

Missing file and missing pages

Really I have 2 questions here but they're related:
1. I downloaded a PDB file (converted from a Text file) from my computer using Missing Sync. The log says that it was downloaded successfully but I can't find it.
2. I successfully downloaded some PDF files (converted from Text) to my handheld and was able to open them with Adobe Reader. However, I can only read the first 50 pages as the rest are blank.
I have a Palm TX under Palm OS and Leopard.
Post relates to: Palm TX

Thank you for your very quick reply.
I do in fact have both eReader and Mobipocket and have successfully downloaded and read many an ebook both in PDB an PRC format (over 50). I simply can't find the file that my Missing Sync log says was downloaded.
I agree that neither the layout nor the quality of Adobe is brilliant but it's better than printing out the document when you're travelling and at least it's free. I was hoping not to have to buy Docs to Go as it's not too often that I would have to use it. But as it's not too expensive (especially at the moment as I'll be paying in Euros!!) I'll probably buy it.
Now if I could just find my file....
Post relates to: Palm TX

ITunes 12 artwork missing but really missing

As you can see here. The file has artwork attached but it's not showing up in iTunes. It's sporadiac which albums appear not to have the artwork and these albums will also not transfer the music file with artwork to my iPhone. I'm obsessive with tagging so I know what I am doing. Anyone else having this issue?

1. Go through each of the sources Music, Movies, etc. and select Playlists. Use the ellipsis ... to enable the sources you want to see. Apps, Tones, and Internet Radio don't have a Playlists button, the others do and remember your selection. Not quite the same as it used to be, but not too different. Other view controls are available from the drop down at the right-hand side.
2. The search features on this forum are somewhat inscrutable, particularly the initial quick search tool. Google may serve you better although I can usually find what I want here. This is a search on the terms iTunes 12 sidebar limited to the iTunes for Windows community space.
https://discussions.apple.com/search.jspa?type=discussion&q=iTunes+12+sidebar&pl ace=%2Fplaces%2F5955001&sort=updatedDesc
3. Apple don't generally monitor these boards for feedback or bug reports. You can report problems via the relevant feedback form, e.g. iTunes Feedback, or sign up for a free Apple Developer Connection account and make use of Apple Bug Reporter.
I would draw your attention to the terms of use at the foot of the page, in particular 1.2.4 "Do not post polls or petitions or links to same." It is one thing to tell someone where to post feedback if they ask, quite another to seek out threads just for the purpose of encouraging feedback and with no other constructive message.
tt2

Files disappeared from library, "missing" files not really missing

I had a folder with 3 files in different formats for each image. These were imported several days ago, grouped into stacks, captioned, tagged, etc. and synced to the files. They continued to exist in the library some time afterward, but today when I opened lightroom all of the jpg versions of all of the images and all 3 formats of one image in particular had vanished from the library. It did not claim that it could not find them on disk (and in fact the files *do* still exist on disk right where they should), they just didn't show up. I was able to re-import all of the jpg images without trouble, but for the other two formats of the one missing image, importing one of them fails because it "already exists in the library," and the other one is willing to import but then doesn't show up in the folder or the recently imported files list. When I try to synchronize the folder, it suggests that I import that file, but it never actually does. Since importing the jpgs, it also suggests that I remove 53 "missing" files, the number of jpgs imported. When I view the missing files in the library, it shows only 2 of the jpgs, one of which belongs with the files that will not import and neither of which is actually missing--they can both be synchronized just fine by clicking the little synchronize icon on the actual photo.
Does anyone know what's going on here and how I might be able to get the files that won't import back into the library? And how to be sure that files won't just go away on their own again?
Edit: to be clear, missing versions of files were definitely not stacked with the other ones and the "don't import duplicates" box was not checked when re-importing the ones that won't re-import

I managed to get the photos that wouldn't import back in by deleting them directly out of the database and then reimporting them into lightroom. I'm a little concerned that they disappeared in the library view in the first place, though. Does this sort of thing happen often, and under what circumstances? I'm still in the free trial period and was very close to buying the program, but now I'm not so sure. If I'm using an application to manage my photos, I want to know that it's actually managing all of the photos I put into it and not randomly forgetting about them.
I'm still having the not-really-missing files problem, though. I think it may actually be because they got associated as "sidecar" files somehow and are now in there twice, once as the sidecar file and another time as a separate jpg image. I'm not really sure why only one of them shows up in the missing images view, I think it might be because I edited that one so it's in a slightly different state from the others? If there are any tips on how to resolve that state, I'm all ears, I'd like it to stop telling me I have 53 missing files when I don't.

I can't update Fiefox since update 10.o1 or 10.02. Every time I try to I get the same message, "7 - ZIP File is missing" I don't know how or where to correct this problem. I'd really appreciate any help that corrects this problem. Thanks sovery much,

Missing "7-Zip File"
Hello,
I haven't been able to update Firefox since 10.01 or 10.02 because every time I try I get the same message the "7-ZIP File" is missing. Then the update fails. I've submitted this problem to Mozilla Firefox and, got an immediate reply of " they are researching your problem".
Well, you can tell how long that has been. Is there anything I can do, or any where I can go to get the file I need?
Any constructive help would be very much appreciated! I'm not sure If I'll ever be able to find where this is located. But I do appreciate help just the same.

It is possible that your anti-virus software is corrupting the downloaded files or otherwise interfering with downloading files by Firefox.<br />
Disable your anti-virus software temporarily to see if that makes installing work.
Download a fresh Firefox copy and save the file to the desktop.
*Firefox 11.0.x: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all.html
Uninstall your current Firefox version, if possible.
*Do NOT remove personal data when you uninstall the current version or you lose your bookmarks and other data because all profile folders will be removed.
Remove the Firefox program folder before installing that newly downloaded copy of the Firefox installer.
*It is important to delete the Firefox program folder to remove all the files and make sure that there are no problems with files that were leftover after uninstalling.
*http://kb.mozillazine.org/Uninstalling_Firefox
Your bookmarks and other profile data are stored elsewhere in the Firefox Profile Folder and won't be affected by a reinstall, but make sure that you do not select to remove personal data if you uninstall Firefox.
*http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox
*http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_backup
*http://kb.mozillazine.org/Standard_diagnostic_-_Firefox#Clean_reinstall

Hi! I'm a Windows XP convert... switched to an imac about 4 months ago and am LOVIN' it As a graphics designer I did use a feature on my Windows machine which I really miss on my mac... beaing able to see a preview of one of the images in a folder on top

Hi! I'm a Windows XP convert... switched to an imac about 4 months ago and am LOVIN' it As a graphics designer I did use a feature on my Windows machine which I really miss on my mac... beaing able to see a preview of one of the images in a folder on top of the folder icon. In other words, in Windows, you can see the first image that is inside the folder as an icon on the folder itself. Is there a way to do this on the mac? Maybe some software program that will do it? Thanks for you help!

It would be brilliant if Apple could make picture folders behave like events in iPhoto. You could see a photo on the folder, and also mouse over it to change pictures.
But no, there's not an application I'm aware of that does this. You can manually make a picture the folder icon, but it's a tedious process.
Unfortunately this is another example of how dated and worn out the Mac's interface is. The concept of using a file folder as the icon for a directory of images is so 80's. You could use coverflow, but that only helps once you're in the directory itself. Or use iPhoto or Aperture, although they just do photos. Or try Lyn as an alternative: it has a sort of iTunes-like interface, and makes it easy to organize photos without having to put them in iPhoto. And it can display photos that are already in Libraries.
But you'd probably need a Finder alternative. I use Leap, which displays any type of document. It also does tagging, which is another huge omission in the Finder. More like Windows Explorer (although still no photo on folder icons).
Another very stylish Finder alternative, especially useful for pictures, is FileBrowse. I don't know why it hasn't gotten more attention. It DOES put photo previews on the folders it shows. And allows one-click expansion to show the photo enlarged. It's super fast, and even allow you to group/sort by camera or flash! It really has to be seen to be appreciated. It works in Lion, although it doesn't seem to be have been updated lately. http://www.filebrowse.com/index.html
Rob

How to fix 'missing files' in Lightroom 4? [was: adobe lightroom 4]

Hi,
I have the scenario whereby all the images, I assumed, on my hard drive were as I imported to my catalogue. but it now appears that all of my images, are showing as previews but some are showing as 'missing files'. Attempts to reconnect are proving futile as the usual click on and find previous file location location point me to the 'c' drive with a request for the file name. On doing this, the 'C' drive doesn't appear to the have file name I require. Have I in-advertately scrubbed something? I have a lot of images of my grandkids, some of which I can delete but there is one particular image of my premature born grandaughter in the hospital I really need to keep.
I can't do any saving, moving of files whilst these question marks are in place, can someone help as this software, is not as user friendly as I first assumed. All I want is a simple walk thru explanation of saving images from a camera and sorting of existing HD files,(many from past shoots on different cameras), to enable me to sort into some kind of format.
Would it be a good idea to completely scrub all of my images from the 'C' hard drive, (I have a backup on my external deskstop drive), and start afresh?
I have a external drive connected to my laptop and all those images are showing ok with no missing file links. It's only the laptop internal drive that is showing the problem.
any help would be a bonus as the online youtbe video instructions don't answer my problem.

Thanks Jim for your response,
I will upgrade to 5.3
Kind regardsEut van Berkum
Op woensdag 28 januari 17:04 2015 schreef JimHess <[email protected]> het volgende:
how to open NRW-files in Lightroom 4?I
created by JimHess in Photoshop Lightroom - View the full discussionThe only way to use those files with Lightroom 4 is to convert them to DNG using DNG converter 8.3 or higher. The camera wasn't supported in Lightroom until version 5.3. If the reply above answers your question, please take a moment to mark this answer as correct by visiting: https://forums.adobe.com/message/7140310#7140310 and clicking ‘Correct’ below the answer Replies to this message go to everyone subscribed to this thread, not directly to the person who posted the message. To post a reply, either reply to this email or visit the message page: Please note that the Adobe Forums do not accept email attachments. If you want to embed an image in your message please visit the thread in the forum and click the camera icon: https://forums.adobe.com/message/7140310#7140310 To unsubscribe from this thread, please visit the message page at , click "Following" at the top right, & "Stop Following" Start a new discussion in Photoshop Lightroom by email or at Adobe Community For more information about maintaining your forum email notifications please go to https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1516624.

Itunes 9.2 update windows vista missing file: itunes.msi

I was instructed to download the latest update, which I have but now can't install it due to getting the error message saying that the itunes.msi file is missing. I can't uninstall itunes because of the same error. After doing some digging around I know that there used to be a solution that used the "Windows clean up facility" but that has now been retired by Microsoft and shouldn't be used! I have no idea what to do now and its getting very frustrating. Please help!

After doing some digging around I know that there used to be a solution that used the "Windows clean up facility" but that has now been retired by Microsoft and shouldn't be used! I have no idea what to do now and its getting very frustrating. Please help!
Fair enough that you aren't keen on using the utility. Unfortunately, it's the only really effective and straightforward way I've found of dealing with a missing iTunes.msi in the five or so years I've been troubleshooting that particular class of errors.
If you do eventually decide to try using CleanUp, see the following post for some precautions that would be wise to take:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=11800573#11800573

For all of you, who gets "missing file" error on syncing theirs photos

I dont really knows any better way of correcting this error when deleting "iPod photo cache" -file doesn't help, but here is my answer to that. If somebody knows a better solution, plase tell it to all of us.
I was getting an "unknown errorcode -39" and that "missing file" messages every time i try to sync my photos from my Windows 7 based computer to the iPad. It seems to me that there are something wrong on the iPed side but how to corrrect it (and i dont know anything on how apple works)?
Just as i was gioing to give up, i realize that there must be two caches in sync, one for sender (for itunes) and one for a receiver (for example iPade) side. Both must be in sync whith themselfs and in a filesystem on their side. Easy part is on iTunes side, just delete the cache (thats because its contents can and will be recreated using the local filesystem information only).
The other side (iPhone or iPad) is much more harder to do as there are not (or i dont have found it) any simple solution to do it. There are only one solution which i have found to be solve this problem (every time) and it is that you have to get a sync target to think that it is being sync on a different iTunes photo library (even when its empty). If this works, then you get a iTunes message saying that "are you sure?, as if you continue ALL FILES ARE DELETED when your are resynced on different photolibrary". That is just what we wanted. For myself it has worked every time, but it takes time, as you must resync it twice (once in an alien or differentt, and back to the original or updated photolibrary).
Those who knows better, comments please?

Part 2.
Another thing that all Encore users ought to regularly offer up a daily prayer of thanks for is the PSD support for menus.
Let me tell you a little story, all about how bloody awkward it
i can
be, again using Industry Standard "Flagship" applications.
The little saga above about the additional _HL_LB image completely forgot to mention that there is a very nasty scaling issue awaiting the ignorant (like me).
It doesn't scale the letterbox image automatically.
SO, it's a case of as usual, preparing all Widescreen assets in anamorphic mode (create & design in PS using PAR correction, reshape image to Square Pixels)
Duplicate the _HL for the _HL_LB image.
Now, because of the rescaling issue, take this into PS, and resize the image to 720x360, then resize the
i canvas
to 720x480, making certain your background is white, as failure to do this will mean the Letterboxed SPHL are incorrectly scaled, although the button hotspots are in the right place.
Aargh - if it was not for the "Phone A Friend" option, I would still be stuck on this.

Index.xml file is missing...can't open document I created awhile back

I created a document before Christmas on Numbers, saved it, and now cannot open it. It is telling me that the index.xml file is missing every time I try to open it. I opened the contents of the package, and there is no index.xml file there.
I haven't done anything with the file other than converting it to a .pdf to email. It has a lot of important info on it, and my time machine can't recover it....any ideas?

Hello
I don't know which tool you used to search the Index.xml.gz files.
There is one of them in every document created by an iWork's application.
Don't exchange them between two documents. They ARE the document. In fact they are the description of everything which is needed to build what you get on the screen.
Remember, a file generated by an iWork's component is a package which is a speacial kind of folder.
press ctrl when selection the icon of one of them.
A contextual menu will appear.
Select the item :"Show package's contents" to get what you see on the screenshot.
I really don't know what failed.
To get rid of that, use the preference I described in my late message.
Don't forget that when we use a computer, the most important word is BACKUP (I'm not shouting but I'm not far from doing so).
Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE mercredi 16 janvier 2008 22:07:25)

Catalogs, Missing Files, and Question Marks for Beginners

Hello, fellow non-power-users. I just wanted to post something here that I've learned with my travails and travels using LightRoom 3. In the past, Adobe has paid me to write for them, and I'm a professional writer. So why am I doing this for free? Because I wish to heck I'd understood this stuff before I dove into LR. Somehow, even with reading a book on the program, I didn't really get it.
1) Most of the people who are kind enough to post and help on Adobe support and other forums on the Interwebs are power users of Lightroom. The great thing is, they often know what they're talking about. The bad thing is, many of them don't understand what it's like to be a non-power-user who really has no intention of becoming a power user. Be very, very careful before you try to take their advice about any large issue that might have serious consequences for your photos.
2) LR has about forty million ways to do things, so it can be overwhelming, and you may also receive lots of contradictory information about how to accomplish stuff. If you're like me---not a professional photographer, more a refugee from the annoying land of iPhoto who just needs a *little* more power and customization---you may have trouble streamlining, figuring out the few things you actually need the program to do for you. Try some introductory videos and tutorials, even books, but don't expect them to solve your real problems with the program.
3) Before you begin, grasp a few concepts:
     a. When you're working in LR, you're working with a "catalog." It shows you images of your photos, but these aren't really your photos. Your actual photos are *files* that live on your computer somewhere. Think of it as a slideshow projected on a wall: you can see the photos on the wall, but they aren't the "real photo." If you walked up to the wall and painted on the projection of a slide, the "real photo" file would not be changed. What LR does is keep track of those wall paintings for you, so if you wanted to print up a version of that slide and include your brush strokes, LR could do that for you. The catalog is a type of database.
     b. So where are those real photos, those files? Probably all over your computer in different places. You may want to consolidate them all in one place before you start using Lightroom. Here's why: once Lightroom thinks your "real photo" is in a certain place, it doesn't want you to move the "real photo" file. Say you have a photo called that someone sent in email. You put it on your desktop. Now you are tempted to drag-n-drop it onto Lightroom. DO NOT DO IT. Because someday, you might want that photo to not clutter up your desktop. You'll drag it to another folder on your hard drive, and BOOM, now Lightroom cannot find the photo.
You can't work on the photo from within Lightroom. You can't print it. Lightroom will show a question mark ? on its wall-projector slide of your photo file. Often when someone moves files on their computer, it's not a single file on a desktop. It's a bunch of things they are trying to organize. Adobe knows this, which is why they have a "find missing photos" command. They know you are likely to screw this up. The command will show you those missing files. You have to select them individually by hand and search your computer for them to relink. You can spend a lot of time relinking photos. It sucks. Really sucks.
     c. If you do need to move stuff, Lightroom does let you do it, but only from within the program. So, open up LR, and look in the left-hand column for an item called "Folders." (You will be in Library mode to make this happen.) You can move your "real photo" files around from within this area. It is a clunky process and an enormous pain in the butt.
     d. Rant time: For some reason, one of the most sophisticated and long-lived software companies in history, the developers that completely changed the worlds of art, design, photography, and publishing--you got it, Adobe--have not been able to solve this problem and chase down your real photo files if you moved them from within the Finder, the way you normally move files on a computer. Go figure. (Irrelevant note: I've been using their products since Pagemaker 1.0 and it's sort of astonishing that they've never solved this problem, in LR or InDesign or elsewhere. It's like publishing a magazine using Quark in 1995, rushing to find the messed-up links before you hand-carry your ZIP drive over to the printer. Hee hee.)
4) Decide whether you want to divide your photos into a few separate catalogs, or whether you want one enormous catalog ("master catalog"). Then try not to change your mind.
Here is my story:
Summary: I started with multiple catalogs and regret merging them into one.
I hired a photographer/supposedly-LR guy to set up my LR and he suggested multiple catalogs, each easily saveable (catalog AND its photos) to a single external hard drive. I only made two: one for family photos, one for a big art project. Whenever I asked questions online about using LR, everyone told me to combine all photos into one big master catalog. Eventually I did, and I regret it. As a non-power-user, I screwed up something in the merging process, and ended up with a lot of question-mark, missing-photo problems, and a bunch of duplicate photos to boot. What a waste of time.
If you're not a pro, you probably don't need a gigantic single database to deal with. If you're someone who uses Dropbox or another non-Adobe cloud method to store and work with your photos, and you don't have unlimited storage, you may find it way more convenient to have a few different catalogs.
Power users probably don't screw up the process of merging all their catalogs into one. Power users have, from what I've read online, many complicated ways of making a big master catalog work the way they want, say for working on small numbers of files while traveling with a laptop, and then getting that work into the giant master catalog when they get back home to their studios.
But I am not a power user, and if you're reading this, you probably aren't a power user either. So perhaps my experience will be useful to you.
5) Paying for plug-ins to help with all this nonsense.
You can buy plug-ins that help you do things this application should already do by itself. For example, "Duplicate Finder" goes through and finds all the photos that you've accidentally imported more than once into your catalog. Then you can painstakingly go through, figure out which copy to keep, and delete them. Often, these "duplicate" photos are not duplicates of your "real photo" file. But at some point you moved your "real photo" file while you were tidying up your computer files, and later accidentally re-imported that photo into your LR catalog. Since LR doesn't follow your files around when you move them from within your computer/Finder, LR thinks it's a whole brand-new file. It's like your projector is projecting three images on the wall at the same time. You have to figure out which one to keep, which one will save your wall-painting changes, etc. And it is a huge pain in the butt.
Note that you can click a box when importing photos, a box that says "Do not import suspected duplicates." This can be really helpful for avoiding duplicates in the first place. It is not, however, infallible.
OK, I hope this helps someone somewhere. I'm going to go back to the horribly time-consuming task of relinking files and trying to make my brain work the way LR's brain works.

Glad to help!
Another good thing to do from time to time is to boot from your install CD, then choose "Disk Utility", then do a check (and repair, if necessary) of your boot disk.
You can't verify or fix a disk you've started from, thus the need to boot from a CD. You can boot from a second hard disk to do this test if it has MacOS on it.

My Satellite A notebook does not start due to missing files

I have a Toshiba Satellite and at the start of every month is ***** out.
I brought it brand new about 2 years ago and at the start of every month it will not go into windows.
It wont even let me into safe mode or anything and it is not a virus as I expected it to **** out tonight.
So I did a virus scan and nothing showed up and then half an hour later it died, right on schedule. Im sick of this as each time it dies I have to use the recovery disk and it wipes everything. I have on there and after 2 years of having to restart everything all over again each month. Im ready to "accidentally" drop it in the pool and claim insurance on the dam thing. I dont get me wrong its great till the first of every month and without warning it just goes really slow, and when I restart it, it says a file is missing and wont boot up.
The weird thing is........... it is always the same time of the month and since today is the 4th it died so at Im on my 8s computer typing this while my Toshiba is restarting all over again.
IF U THINK, YOU CAN TELL ME WHY THIS IS HAPPING I will love u forever.
Im just so sick of having to reload everything and like last month I expected it to kill itself. So I did all the scans and cleaned it up.
But no it still died right on schedule..........hmm plz help

Hi sorry can't actually give you a solution to your problem but would say sounds as if you never thought to buy extended warranty on it, also if it did this within the first year what did Toshiba say about it as surely you asked them to look into it and if not, sorry but why on earth not? I can see why you thought it was a virus but sounds to me(not technically trained but using logic) that if it does it at the beginning of each month then its something wrong with the actual computer that deals with the clock and might be worth emailing Toshiba themselves and explain it to them and see what they say or take it to a computer shop and explain and ask them to look at it and see if they can find out what is causing it as sounds as if it's been doing this from the time you first bought it.

Time Machine and Excel Missing File

Hello, this is my first posting here and I would appreciate some help.
An important Excel file of mine just disappeared both on my hard drive as well as on my Time Capsule backup, which is really puzzling me. Here are the facts:
1. I am using an iMac, running Mac OS X 10.5.8, with Excel:mac 2008 version 12.2.7. I religiously update both my OS and applications, so they are both up to date
2. Within Excel, if I go to File/Open Recent, there is a dropdown of recently opened files. The missing file is shown there but the "xlsx" tag is missing on that name, oddly. The other files (which are all still there) still have the "xls" or "xlsx" tag. When I click on that file, I get that error message that the file cannot be found
3. I then opened up my Time Machine on my Time Capsule and went scrolling back in time, and really weirdly, this file is missing in every version of backup. My Time Machine has the default backup of hourly for the past 24 hours, daily for the past month, and weekly before. I went into the folder where I kept the file all the way back to July (when I got the Time Capsule) and this file is missing from EACH backup. All other files are there.
I work on this file every day and I tend to keep it open on iMac. Usually when Excel crashes or something, it reloads with a recovered version but Excel hasn't crashed recently. I worked on this file as recently as yesterday and saved it in the same place where I've been saving it for the past several months.
OK, what's changed from yesterday to today? Last night when I updated my software there was an update from Microsoft for a security patch. Could it have detected a virus in this file and deleted this file from my hard drive and then from each and every backup in Time Machine?
The second change was that I selected "Back Up Now" for the first time on Time Machine last night after that patch. I usually had Time Machine run automatically, but while I was updating, I decided to do a forced backup. Could this forced backup have deleted all prior instances of this file if it was missing on my hard drive then?
This file is important to me, does anyone have a suggestion as to how I can retrieve it? I thought having Time Capsule would save this kind of headaches. I did a search within the backups, in case the file mysteriously "moved", but the file is just plain missing on all backups and on my hard drive. To make things worse, I Emptied my Trash last night, so I can't see if it is in there. Though, I didn't delete the file.
Thanks for any help!

NewMacxUser2010 wrote:
Hello, this is my first posting here and I would appreciate some help.
Hi, and welcome to the forums.
Could it have detected a virus in this file and deleted this file from my hard drive and then from each and every backup in Time Machine?
Seems very doubtful, especially since there are no viruses that run on OSX.
There is a small amount of malware, but you have to actively participate in getting it onto your Mac.
But . . . are you running any anti-virus software? Some of it does cause all sorts of problems on Macs.
The second change was that I selected "Back Up Now" for the first time on Time Machine last night after that patch. I usually had Time Machine run automatically, but while I was updating, I decided to do a forced backup. Could this forced backup have deleted all prior instances of this file if it was missing on my hard drive then?
No. A backup is a backup is a backup; they're all the same, no matter how they're started. And Time Machine only deletes things when it "thins" backups. Basically, it keeps all backups for 24 hours, except the first of each day, which it keeps for a month, and the first of each week, which it keeps as long as there's room.
So it's a bit unpredictable, but if a file is on your Mac for at least 24 hours, its backup will be kept for at least a month.
This file is important to me, does anyone have a suggestion as to how I can retrieve it? I thought having Time Capsule would save this kind of headaches. I did a search within the backups, in case the file mysteriously "moved", but the file is just plain missing on all backups and on my hard drive. To make things worse, I Emptied my Trash last night, so I can't see if it is in there. Though, I didn't delete the file.
I don't use Excel, so can't help much with specifics. Is it possible this is some sort of temporary file that's either never actually saved to disk, or is saved with a different name each time?
Are all your other, similar files in your backups?

How to get back missing files - time machine problems

3 weeks ago, I bought a new iMac (let me call it A) and put everything from my old iMac onto it using Migrate Assistant via WLAN. It worked fine, but when I found out 2 days later that my 'new' iMac (A) had just been replaced by the 2013 iMac, I was really annoyed and contacted the store. They agreed to change it and so today, after the hourly time machine backup, I disconnected the external hard disk and deleted what I could off the machine that was going back to Apple. Plugged in the brand new iMac (B) today and when prompted, got it to transfer data from my time machine backup. However, although the programmes are there etc. the 'last backup' it used was the one from 20 September, the day before I first connected it to the (A) iMac. And so a lot of documents are missing. When I go onto time machine, it just has a lot of blanks inbetween 20 September and today, although it had been backing up on that 'new' iMac (A) every hour it had been on, but it seems that none of these have been saved. Now it has done a couple of backups today, so there are some new backups under today, but before that, just blanks until 20 September. Firstly, can I get the missing files back? And secondly, what has gone wrong and what should I do to time machine to make sure it doesn't do this again? Thanks!!!

Hi Guys,
I would really like to know, if anyone has an answer to this because I would like to be able to re-download some of my podcasts that I deleted to clear up some disk space.
Thanks very much,
John

Missing files really missing!

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