Missing (or un-recognized) files - how do I fix this? PLEASE

Question

I  imported a number of old jpgs into my catalog (into seperate folders labled by year) but lightroom is not showing them in the library.
IE: The folder for 2006 siys it has 583 files in it in the library.
     But when I navigate to the same folder using the finder (MAC OS10.6) there are 3047 files in it.
I have 'optimized' the catalog.
I have tried to 're-import' the files (add - 'do not import duplicates', in the import dialog) and lightroom shows no new fils to import!
If I search for a specific file by name it does not show up in the Library. But if I try to re-import the same file it 'says' that it is a duplicate.
Does anyone know what I should do to get correct access to the 'missing' files?
LR4
MAC OS10.6.8

Answer 1

I'm not wanting to get in the way here, but before you go to the point of starting over with a new empty catalog, there is one thing you could try first. The problem may be similar to one that has been seem a few times before, and as I said earlier it usually centres around a problem with case sensitivity. For example a user may have his photos all stored in the path "HD/USERS/jonas/Pictures/ALL PHOTOS", but then either rebuilds existing system or moves to a new system...but in doing so sets up his user account name as Jonas, not jonas. Thus the path for new images in Lightroom becomes "HD/USERS/Jonas/Pictures/ALL PHOTOS", but it still has existing images linked to "HD/USERS/jonas/Pictures/ALL PHOTOS". This "dual path" happens because Lightroom is case sensitive, wheras the OS isn't. Lightroom records new images outside of the "ALL PHOTOS" structure, i.e. if you import into "Photos 2006", Lightroom creates a new sub-folder....but when it tells the OS to put the images into HD/USERS/Jonas/Pictures/ALL PHOTOS/Photos 2006 they get stored in the one and only physical sub-folder. Only Lightroom thinks there are now two paths, the OS still sees only one.
Typically this can be discovered by doing the "Add Parent Folder" thing, that then shows which of the "two" paths that Lightroom sees needs to be corrected, but in your case you're getting that error message. So my suggestion would be to try the "fix" on all of the top-level folders currently showing to see if that can resolve the problem. That would be done like this:
1. Take a catalog backup.....if this fix goes wrong you'd just trash the catalog and restore this backup.
2. Outside of Lightroom, create 3 temporary folders at the root level of your HD (i.e. NOT inside your User path), call them "Dummy Import", "Dummy All", and "Dummy 2006".
3. Back in Lightroom, using the Folders Panel, ctrl-click on "-IMPORT" and select "Update Folder Location". In the resulting file browser, browse to and select the "Dummy Import" folder. This will change the reference in the Folder Panel.
4. Do the same on "ALL PHOTOS", relink to "Dummy All". In the Folders Panel "ALL PHOTOS" will change to "Dummy All" and all the sub-folders below will have the '?' mark to indicate they are now missing. Do not concern yourself with that at this stage.
5. Finally, do the same with the "Photos 2006" folder which currently lies outside the "ALL PHOTOS/Dummy All" folder, relinking it to "Dummy 2006".
6 The "Photos Pre 2006" folder outside of "ALL PHOTOS/Dummy All" has a zero photo count, so just ctrl-click on it and select "Remove".
7 Now starts the phase of putting everything back together. First I would (using Finder), rename that "-IMPORT" folder to get rid of the hyphen, i.e. rename it to "IMPORT".
8. Back in Lightroom's Folder Panel, ctrl-click first on "Dummy All", select "Update Folder Location", browse to and select the real "ALL PHOTOS" folder in your user/pictures folder....that should update the name in the Folder Panel and restore all the sub-folders.
9. Now ctrl-click on the "Dummy Import" folder, select "Update Folder Location", browse to and select the "IMPORT" folder which is inside the "ALL PHOTOS" folder on the hard drive. "Dummy Import" should disappear from the Folders Panel, and "IMPORT" should appear under the "ALL PHOTOS" parent folder.
10. Finally, ctrl-click on "Dummy 2006", select "Update Folder Location" then browse to and select the "Photos 2006" sub-folder which is inside the "ALL PHOTOS" folder on the hard drive. At this stage, you should receive a warning that the folder you have selected already exists, and gives you the option to merge them, Select "Merge" and "Dummy 2006" should disappear and the photo count for the "Photos 2006" sub-folder under "ALL PHOTOS" should increment by 755.
What this procedure does is it allows you to correct any path irregularities caused by this case sensitivity issue, by moving the objects to a different temporary path, then putting them back to the one correct path (i.e. it gets rid of the dual paths that Lightroom sees). Bit of a kludge, but it might work out OK.
And that should do it (takes less to do it than it's taken me to type the instructions)....but if anything fails along the way it may suggest that the problem is worse than I thought....let me know what happens if you decide to try it (no harm in trying it, provided you've got that backup done first).