Missing Photos Already in Catalog

Photos in one of my Collections are shown as Missing, and I can not update them because Lightroom thinks they are Already in Catalog. In fact there are two versions of all these photos in the Catalog grid view: one is shown as Missing and the other is not missing. How can I update the Collection photos without manually recreating the Collection?
In detail: I had some photos in my Lightroom Catalog. I added them to a Lightroom Collection. All was well.
Later, outside of Lightroom, I decided to copy the photos to a new folder on a new hard drive. Then I deleted the original photos and folder.
The LR Catalog now shows two instances of these photos, a good one and a Missing Photo. When I ask to Locate in Finder the good one, LR accurately shows it s location on my hard drive. Both instances of the photos have identical names and thumbnails. The LR Collection shows only one instance of the photos and they all show Missing Photos icons.
When I try to Locate the Missing Photo, I get this message "Already in Catalog. the file "xxx" is associated with another photo in the catalog. Each file can only be associated with one photo." In other words, I am unable to get the LR Collection to recognize the new location of the digital file.
If I delete the photo duplicate with the Missing Photo icon, the photo is removed from my Collection. This is not acceptable for two reasons: I have now 449 "Missing" images in this Collection and I do not want to manually list, delete and then replace each one. I think this is the job of an asset management database like Lightroom, and I depend on it to keep accurate track of everything.
It has been 17 days since I opened a Customer Support case and I have had numerous exchanges with the Adobe reps, including a 1.75 hr. phone conversation, and still no solution. Sometimes there seems to be a language problem but at other times a lack of product knowledge. Is there anyone out there that can help?

Ok, thanks for clarifying.
Lightroom does not create duplicates on its own. They arise usually because the user did something, perhaps accidentally. By any chance, did you ever tell Lightroom to "Synchronize Folders..." ?
Lightroom does not follow or find your photos if you move them outside of Lightroom. My recommendation for newcomers to Lightroom is to always move or rename files and folders from inside of Lightroom.
If I understand your situation properly, I think the solution to your mess is as follows: First ... in Windows or Mac Finder (the only time I ever recommend moving things in WIndows or Mac Finder is to fix or unfix previous moves in Windows or Mac Finder) ... move (cut and paste, not copy and paste) the photos back to where they were. This should connect the copy that is now "bad", and fixing the problem in your collections. Second, in Lightroom, delete the copies on the new hard drive, which should now be disconnected. Now, you should have one copy of everything (including in your collections) that is connected and usable in Lightroom. Finally (optionally), if you want your photos to reside on the new hard drive, then inside Lightroom, move them to the new hard drive.

Similar Messages

How can I remove large numbers of missing photos from the catalog at one time?

I was frustrated PSE8s slow speed and decided to try anther photo organizing program for a while (Picasa). After a few months I have decided to go back to PSE8 for limited things (tagging and rating) but now I have over 1,000 photos that are "missing". I am pretty sure that I actually deleted about 90% from my hard drive and the other 10% I moved around or renamed as I started to organize my 29,000 photo catalogue. I realize this is a user error since I was using another program but rather than try to remove each of these 1,000 files manually from PSE, is there a way to search for "all missing files" and remove them from the catalogue? Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

I searched myself for a long time and could not yet find a "select multiple and delete" function to delete from the camera roll.
The quick and dirty way way would be to connect your iPad by USB to your computer. It will be seen as a camera by Image Capture or iPhoto or Aperture, if you have it. Then select the photos you want to delete from the iPad and import them to your Computer (you can delete them immediately afterwards again) and enable the flag "Delete from camera after importing".
This will erase all imported photos from the camera roll at once, Only I hesitate to recommend that, because it is usually safer to let the camera erase the card, for each device knows its filesystem best.
Regards
Léonie

Is there a way to filter for only the missing files in a catalog folder or collection?

I don't think there is anything more to be said on this one.

If you go to the catalog tab and choose all photographs and then run the menu command you will see the number of missing photos in the catalog (image below)
You will still need to re-connect them. But if you have moved an entire folder the folder will have a question mark against the name. You can right-click on the folder name and choose Update Folder Location. Then navigate to where you put the folder and LR will update the links for all the images in that folder.
See the link below for further information.
http://www.computer-darkroom.com/lr2_find_folder/find-folder.htm

LR/4 - Two computers, one catalog: missing photos

I generally run Lightroom 4 off of my desktop computer, however, I've decided to download my second copy to my laptop.
Unfortunately, when I try to use my catalog (that I run from my portable hard drive), Lightroom tells me that 7,000 of my 13,000 photos are missing.
I've followed all of the general steps to find the missing photos, but nothing has worked.
Thanks~

I generally run Lightroom 4 off of my desktop computer, however, I've decided to download my second copy to my laptop.
Unfortunately, when I try to use my catalog (that I run from my portable hard drive), Lightroom tells me that 7,000 of my 13,000 photos are missing.
I've followed all of the general steps to find the missing photos, but nothing has worked.
Thanks~

Missing photo

hi
i'm on the last of 10 lessons on lightroom 3. i imported the four photo's for the lesson, but they all have the "missing photo" icon instead of the "metadata file needs updating" icon. i managed to convert one photo to the "sidecar has conflict" icon, but still i cannot continue. everything i have tried says file is empty, or path not found. yet i can see all four photo's quite clearly. does it really have to be as complicated as this? its taking all the pleasure out of it.
any advise please.
from jan

Hey Jan,
If you bring up LR, and go to Catalog Settings, the top lines in the window will tell you where the catalog resides, and what it's name is.
To delete the catalog entirely, you want to delete the .lrcat and .lrdat files/folders. Just trash them. The test images you imported are where ever you left them, since you used Add. Delete as appropriate or not, they aren't that big.
Thre is no need to uninstall LR, and uninstalling it does not delete the catalog anyway.
The most important part of putting together a new catalog is figuring out where you want to put your photos. Think about it carefully, then make a home for them. Once you create the catalog, you can put all of your images in there. That would be your "main place" to store your images. I recommend an internal drive, one that isn't near being full. If you only have one drive, then your choices are a _little_ more limited.
As I said before, my images are located under a single folder, called CanonPhotos. That way I know where they all are, and it makes it easy to back them up, or move them. Just move that one whole directory if needed...
Start with only a _few_ images! Do NOT make copies of 4500 images! That's just silly... I would take no more than 100 of them.
Then, when you are happy and think you have the structure all settled in your mind, THEN you can import the rest of them, but use the Move command instead. That will move them into the same locations as all the rest of the images, and you're on your way!
As for raw... Yes, working with raw is a bit more limiting, in that you have to use a "raw converter" to edit them. You have several choices: your program that came with your camera, LR, or PS (via ACR). When you install LR it will automatically connect you to PS, if PS is already installed. So that's one down.
Later, when you import your raw images, the only difference you will notice in LR is when you want to edit in PS, it will make a new file, because PS can not (and should not) write to the raw file. Other than that, all things will be basically the same.
Most people will tell you: Never delete your raw images.
There is a good reason for this. If you think about film negatives, and printing photos... destroying your raw file is the same as printing a photograph from your film, then throwing away the film. You just don't do it. If you keep your raw image, then later on, when you have a new idea on trying something (converting to black and white, making it all magenta, doing strange things with noise, etc), then you have your original to work from.. Otherwise, you are stuck with how you did it the first time.
Eventually your workflow will turn into something like this:
copy the images from your memory card into a temporary folder on your computer.
Import all of the images into LR
Play and Print
That's it!
So, think about where you want to store all of your images over the long haul, and then how you want the folders organized...
Cheers!

Can't reconnect 'missing' photos

After importing all my photos from PS Elements 8, taking the suggested defaults, I was presented in the Library grids many cells with the broken icon in the upper rh corner. Upon running the 'Find Missing Photos', I received a report saying there are some 13,678 'missing' photos. I then followed the procedure outlined in a help file to Locate the missing photos, which described their last path. However, there was no reconnection done once I completed this procedure. I then went into PS Elements 8 and performed a Search for one of the filenames that were reported 'missing'. The result showed two different photos, in two different locations, but having the same .JPG name. I recognized both photos as being valid, but wonder how to proceed with what seems to be a reason why the 'missing' notation, as I figure the software can't deal with dupicate filenames. I surely didn't expect this many images reporting 'missing', so seems there's plenty of recovery work to be done, maybe in the realm of renaming one of the duplicated images; eg. filename_1.jpg.
Have you seen this problem, and what would you recommend to fix it?
Thanks very much.
Fred

dj,
I'm impressed you're up so early responding to Forum folks like me!
OK, my Olympus DSLR is the E520 model with latest firmware installed. My version of Lr4 is 4.4.1, updated right after I installed the program.
Leave the disconnected photos to me, as I think there will be lots of work ahead of me to go through my plethora of saved media cards (my secondary backup sources) to bring in those missed photos.
As for the .ORF extension photos, here's what I've found (prety interesting).
Initially, I did a search of the new Lr4 catalog for '*.ORF' files, and got the report that no files existed of that type.
Today, I inserted a USB key on which I had placed several photos for processing at Costco, some of which were .ORF files.
I had Lr4 open in the background, when suddenly it came onto the screen with cells filled with all those photos on the stick.
It identified both .JPG and .ORF files, and here's the kicker;...after awhile, it "grayed out" all the photos, saying there was already a duplicate of ALL those files in the Lr4 catalog. This was in the COPY panel I saw this.
So, it seems Lr4 does recognize my .ORF files after all, however, strange the SEARCH function reported nothing existed.
Sorry for all these notes, but hopefully I'll be cured and OK very soon, with your help :-)
Regards,
Fred

"Missing Photos" in Library section of Library

Hi,
Mac OS X 10.5.2, Lightroom 1.3.1.
Somehow, I have an entry in the Library section of Library (this is not in the Folders section) which says I have about 6,000 missing photos. I'm trying to understand what this means. The photos are there, and I can right click on them and see the photos in the Finder.
What do these 6,000 "missing files" refer to? Are they missing from the catalog? I was recently tinkering with the "Synchronize Photos" function as it looks like I have some cruft in the library where I tried to delete rejected photos, but only deleted them from the library and not from disk (I'd love to be able to easily doing this now... but I can't find how to do that either).
Note these are NOT files that were moved outside Lightroom. These are not red folders... the files are there but Lightroom is calling them "Missing" for whatever reason. I can't see any reference to it in the documentation... but I haven't purchased a LR book so don't know where a good document for this is.

Have a look at these two threads:
http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.3c06476f/0
and
http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.3c05eed5/0
It looks like this is a database problem/bug; the files are not really missing but Lightroom thinks that they are! If all the files reported as missing, still exist then you can correct the problem by removing them from the catalog. (If you try to re-import them (or a few of them), and check "Don't re-import suspected duplicates" on the Import Photos screen, Lightroom should not import any files; instead it should give you message saying that they already exist in the catalog.)

Searching library by missing photos

I would like to be able to search my entire library for missing photos and be able to narrow the search by date, type, etc, which I can already do. The only way I can think of to find missing photos besides looking at each one to see if there is a question mark is to rename them or export them. Then lightroom will bring up a list of missing photos that cannot be renamed, exportorted, etc. What would also be nice is if the text in that list of missing photos could be selectable so i could copy the file names and paste them to my notepad so i can proceed to search for them.
Im a professional photographer and these features would be really helpful.
Thank you.

I may be misunderstanding what you are wanting to do, but the find missing photos command from the library menu will find all missing photos in the entire catalog.

How to reset paths (NOT missing photos)

I have created a new folder with all my photos. Within it are individual folders named by year (2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009...).
I have several old catalogs with photos pointing to different files on several external HDs. I want to relink them nice and neatly so that they all point to the photos on my newly created folder on a dedicated external HD.
How can I relink all the photos? I've searched all over the internet but the only information that I can find are those related to "missing photos and question marks in the corner (and not just "resetting paths" as in Expression Media/iView). I have attempted to FORCE the question mark and relink it that way but Lightroom will not find nearby files. It only finds photos taken on the same day.
There must be some easy way like in Expression Media/iView to simply reset the path, i.e., manually relink in big batches (all photos in one folder).
I'd be so grateful for any insight and solutions anybody could offer me.

You've a couple of routes - for individual images, or for folders.
With individual images, it depends on the image being missing. If it has a little question mark or exclamation mark in the corner in grid view, click the missing file marker and point to where the photo is now located. Ensure "Find Nearby" is ticked, and press OK. LR will read the filenames of other missing files and try to find them too. This route is no use if the image is not missing.
With folders, you can right click any folder. You get a question mark if the folder is missing, and right click - "Find Missing Folder". If the folder is not missing, the context menu is "Update Folder Location". In each case you can now point to the new folder location.
To make it easy on yourself, right click a parent folder and update its location. Its child folders will then be updated too.
Does that help?
John

How do I remove multiple duplicate photos in a catalog PSE 10

I have multiple duplicate photos in my Photoshop Element 10 catalog - I have run across the compare a photo tutorials but I have possiblely some 200+ photos that are duplicates.
Has anyone come across a simpler way to remove duplicate photos?

edbarry12 wrote:
If I use Dup Scout or another similar utility, and it removes the duplicates from the hard drive, won't I end up with many links to now deleted files
Yes, but then using the "Reconnect All Missing Files" function in PSE will allow you to abort the reconnection and choose to delete all the missing files from the catalog.
As always, first experiment with a very small subset of the images to see if that method will work for you.
Ken

Missing photos and movies in elements 8.0

Hi all
I just bought element 8.0, convertet my catalog and everything seems to be working fine. I also have auto-analyze on. No crashes.
But I realized that some media is missing (it's not a "linking"-problem. the thumbs dont's even show up - but the file is in the right folder and plays in any other app). when i try to search the folder and add missing content to my catalog nothing is imported. elements tells me all pics and movies are already in my catalog.
I also realized that my catalog is getting smaller and smaller. I started with around 6220 pics. Now (three days in) its only 6190. There seem to be pics/movies being removed over time. I assume this has to do with the auto-analyze option.
anyone?

Update: The problem seems to be connected to the auto-analyse feature. I suspected that from the beginning since the catalog lost pictures over a period of time. this happened cos the auto analyse was still running going through my whole catalog.
So I reconverted my ps7 catalog, switched off the auto analyse and kept an eye on my picture count. nothing disappeard since I turned the new option off.
This seems to be a bug.

Finding missing photos when drive letter has changed

I have over 30,000 missing photos because LR only recognizes drive letters not names. All my drives have a master "Image" directory with folders and subfolders. Going to the LR online directory with name change and right clicking images and finding folder location does not work. LR does not recognize folders or subfolders in the drive with a name change. Usually none of the folder names are high lighted. By going to the "Missing Photographs" in the catalog menu and searching by file name I can find individual files but with over 30k missing files, this approach is not practical. I have an HP computer with Windows 7 and LR 5.7. How do I find the photos?

I think the most straightforward way to sort this out is:
1. Plug in all of your external drives. From the screen shots, it looks like you have at most 5 external drives of interest, 2 that are currently online and 3 that are disconnected. (I'm not counting the one external drive letter that has just one photo on it.) How many external drives do you actually have?
2. If you don't have enough USB ports, order a $12 USB hub from Amazon.
3. Make sure the entire folder hierarchy for each drive is showing in the Folders pane as described here. When you're done, each drive in the Folders pane should have a top-level folder labeled with a drive letter (as with your F: drive in the screenshot above).
4. Expand the entire folder hierarchy on each drive in the Folders pane by clicking the arrows to the left of the folder.
5. For each drive, find one or more folders in its hierarchy that are closest to the top that have a "?" on them. It may be the root folder labeled with the drive letter (e.g. "F:"), or it may be folders below the root folder.   For each such folder with a "?", right-click it and select Find Missing Folder. That folder should be somewhere on one of the drives. Use Windows File Explorer to help find where it is.
6. When you're done with step 5, you should have located all missing folders and told LR where they are currently located. But you may have missed some.   Do Library > Find All Missing Photos.
7. Pick a photo from step 6. Right-click it and do Go To Folder In Library. If the folder in the Folder pane is marked with a "?", right-click it and do Find Missing Folder.   Otherwise, click the "!" on the photo and then click Locate. Use Windows File Explorer to help find the missing photo by filename, if necessary. Repeat until there are no more missing photos.
8. Going forward, try to keep all your external drives connected. To minimize drive-letter confusion in the future, rename the drive letters of the existing external drives to start from the end of the alphabet, changing each drive letter as described here.   When you change a drive letter, you'll need to re-locate its root folder as described in steps 3-5.   (Windows tends to use drive letters from C onward.)

Missing photos in preview

I have a large photo book (100 pages, 647 images) in iphoto 11. I'm having two problems. First, when I export to iDVD or iMovie, 3 photos are missing from the files. The pix are on double spread page layouts, and only some of the small photos (not the one that traverses pages) are missing. The same photos are absent from a slideshow of the book and from the Preview and PDF. So, I can't order the book because I can't get preview to include these photos.
I'm using the latest version of iPhoto (all up to date), but have not upgraded to Lion.
I've checked the photos and they all work (used the "edit" function to check). So, I know they are not corrupted.
I've also removed the .plist file for iphoto and that didn't solve the issue.
Any other ideas??

Are you able to edit or view in full screen those "missing" photos in iPhoto? What do you see when you try?
Make a temporary, backup copy (if you don't already have a backup copy) of the library and apply the two fixes below in order as needed:
Fix #1
Launch iPhoto with the Command+Option keys held down and rebuild the library.
Select the options identified in the screenshot.
Fix #2
Using iPhoto Library Manager to Rebuild Your iPhoto Library
Download iPhoto Library Manager and launch.
Click on the Add Library button, navigate to your Home/Pictures folder and select your iPhoto Library folder.
Now that the library is listed in the left hand pane of iPLM, click on your library and go to the File ➙ Rebuild Library menu option
In the next window name the new library and select the location you want it to be placed.
Click on the Create button.
Note: This creates a new library based on the LIbraryData.xml file in the library and will recover Events, Albums, keywords, titles and comments but not books, calendars or slideshows. The original library will be left untouched for further attempts at fixing the problem or in case the rebuilt library is not satisfactory.
OT

Already in catalog

Hi. I'm new to lightroom. I'm trying to figure out the meaning of the files that are in the "Already in Catalog" part of the library. Are those the duplicate files or are they the files that were there first? I want to delete the duplicates but I'm not too saavy with this program yet and I would hate to do something I might regret.

>I'm trying to figure out the meaning of the files that are in the "Already in Catalog" part of the library. Are those the duplicate files or are they the files that were there first?
"Already in Catalog" is a collection and shows the files that already exist in catalog. If you try to import photos and they are already in catalog, you will be shown an "Import Results" screen. If you click "Show in Library" on this screen, Lightroom will create/modify the collection "Already in Catalog".
If you wish, you can right-click on any thumbnail in grid view, for this collection and choose "Go to Folder in Library". This will highlight the folder where the photos already exist. You can right-click this highlighted folder and choose "Synchornize Folder..." to update/verify the folder contents in Lightroom.
>I want to delete the duplicates but I'm not too saavy with this program yet and I would hate to do something I might regret.
The "Already in Catalog" is a collection that you can delete once you are happy that the photos do already exist in the catalog. A useful check that you can also do is to look at the count of photos in the "All Photographs" collection and ensure that it matches the total of the counts shown next to folders in the folders panel.

Is there a filter for "missing photos"?

Can you search for missing photos from within a folder? I know there's the command that says "find all missing photos" but that delivers results for the entire catalog. I'd like to see the missing photos from just one folder and wonder if that's possible.

jhackworth wrote:
Is there a way to show, in that folder, just the missing files.
Yes.
Approach #1:
1. Find all missing photos - they will be rounded up into a collection, which will become the active source.
2. Filter images to confine to those in folder of interest.
Note: you will need to specify folder of interest, since it won't automatically detect a selected folder...
Approach #2:
1. Find all missing photos, and drag into a regular collection, so collection name can be used in a filter/smart-collection.
2. Select folder, and filter images to confine to those also in the missing photos collection.
Note: unfortunately, folder and collection names are only available in smart collections, not lib filters.
Even so, this sort of thing was super-easy in Lr4-, because selecting a "filtering" smart collection and a folder narrowed (filtered) the photo set. Adobe screwed up Lr5 by removing the ability to use smart collections as folder filters - now multiple photo-source selections can only widen the photo set (you get all photos from both sources). - thus making this sort of thing harder and less straight-forward.
Still, there are ways...
Here is an example using approach #1 and text-meta plugin:
Note: it's the "all missing photos" collection being filtered by folder path.
But now that I've done all this work, why not just select all missing photos and remove them from the catalog? i.e. why do you need to do it folder by folder?
Hint: to remove from catalog whilst viewing collection, use splat-delete:
* Windows: Ctrl-Alt-Shift-Delete
* Mac: Cmd-Option-Shift-Delete
Rob

Missing Photos Already in Catalog

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