Question Marks in Folders

I started LR5 yesterday and now have some folders with ? marks on the file symbol. What did I do???

Yes, you can re-direct Lightroom 5 using these isntructions: http://www.computer-darkroom.com/lr2_find_folder/find-folder.htm
A better idea in the future is to not move or rename files outside of Lightroom, and even better yet is to develop a workflow where moving files simply isn't part of your workflow (in other words, if the photos are to wind up in a specific folder, you put them in that folder right out of the camera so you don't have to move them at a later time)

Similar Messages

  • My computer has some serious problems, my iphoto only shows thumb size pics when I try to open them, i tried to rebuild my files from folders that had the pics in them. originally all the photos has a large delta with a question mark. also I can't back up

    my computer has some serious problems, my iphoto only shows  only shows thumb size pics when I try to open them, i tried to rebuild my files from folders that had the pics in them. originally all the photos had a large delta with a question mark. also I can't back up the library file because its not there. I went to time machune and tried to find the file but I can't find it or I am looking in the wrong place. I also lost my Idvd file, only have broken chain showing.

    Details please
    What version of iPhoto and of the OS?
    i tried to rebuild my files from folders that had the pics in them.
    Exactly what did you do and how did you do it? this ay be the cause of your issue but without details we can n=ony guess
    my iphoto only shows  only shows thumb size pics when I try to open them,
    where do you see htis? In the iPhoto window? what does "try to pen them" exactly mean?
    originally all the photos had a large delta with a question mark.
    Ok - this usually has a simple solution - do you still have a copy of the library that has this problem?
    also I can't back up the library file because its not there.
    This makes no sense at all - all of your previous statements indicate that you do have an iPhoto library but have some problems with it
    By default your iPHoto library is located in your Pictures folder and is named iPhtoo library - if tha tis not the case the you have moved or renamed it and only you know what you did until you tell us the details
    I went to time machune and tried to find the file but I can't find it or I am looking in the wrong place.
    Again unless you actually share what and how you are doing thing but continue to simply state abstract problems it is no possible to assist you - details on using Time Machine are here  --  http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US   --     and   --    http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html   ---
    I also lost my Idvd file, only have broken chain showing.
    This would be better addressed in the iDVD forum - but again unlesss yu share detailed information no one can assist
    LN

  • My mac will not let me open (what were) folders, and displays only a question mark?

    About two to three months ago, I had a folder labeled "Complete" (random name). I had dozens of videos from my Flip and some documents created from TextEdit inside. I had it in my desktop first, but then decided it would be easier to place in my application bar. So I did that, and then it worked fine.
       Then, I accidentally deleted iMovie (yes, very stupid of me, I don't know how I managed to do that). It did not have anything to do with my Complete folder. It was still working fine.
        I reinstalled iMovie '08, and it took about 4-5 hours to successfully download all of the movies from iMovie (I'm a movie type of person). And when it did, I clicked out and found my Complete folder had a gray question mark instead of the blue folder it usually had. Confused, I clicked on it repeatedly and it did nothing. I held down the mouse and it said, "Open at login" with a check. I unchecked it, and it didn't open.
        Since then, I have had trouble searching for it via Finder. All of the videos inside were lost, as were the few documents. I tried to install TimeMachine, but alas, it is not compatible with my very old Mac OS X v10.4.11 Tiger. I think that I may go to an Apple store to see if they can help me, although I highly doubt they can, since it's been 2-3 months. The TimeMachine only went back 12 hours, anyway. I would have had to have done it then.
        I'm quite unsure what to do now. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! The videos and documents were super dooper important to me and I feel horrible and stupid that I somehow got rid of it.
        Thank-you,
    -Kikisan

    Hello,
    The question mark means it can't find it where it was when you put it in the Dock.
    I'd get EasyFind...
    http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/11076
    Use it to search your whole drive for Files & Folders, case insensitive & show invisibles...
    Complete
    That will show any with that word in the name at all.

  • Question mark in all folders

    I have a grey question mark in the toolbar of all my folders, even the empty ones, since recently?
    At least never noticed it before.
    Clicking on it results in the message "The item can't be found" or something similar in dutch.
    What item can't be found? (in an empty folder)
    I do have a problem with a file created by FileMaker Pro which in an AppleScript can't be found, although the file is there and the file path is correct.
    A similar question was posted here recently, but the answer was not very satisfactory.
    Anyone with an explanation?

    CT wrote:
    This article is old but still valid, I believe.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/TA20551
    Ancient, actually but still valid if the OP was talking about the Dock...
    *in the toolbar of all my folders, even the empty ones.*
    -mj

  • Question marks inside of my folders?

    I'm running 10.6.8 and just noticed that my folders all have question marks at the top of the windows in between the show items as icons, in a list, in columns or with cover flow AND the show items with quick Look buttons.
    I used Disk Utility to Verify Disk Permissions, Repair Disk Permissions and Verify Disk. It didn't seem to report anything I should take notice of.
    Why is it doing this?

    Is this something I should be concerned about or is it no big deal?  Can there be any damage to the OS?
    I think it may have happened after I started copying files from another Mac while sharing and than I ened the session without copying all of them.
    Thank you.

  • Question mark on windows of folders and hard drives

    I have noticed a question mark in the window of all folders and hard drives after installing Snow Leopard and still there after installing Lion. Is this something new or possibly a problem with my load?
    Thanks

    I failed to include the "traffic lights" in my screen shot, but all is there. When I click on question mark it says....

  • I have a macbookair tried to reboot but only get flasjhing folders icon with question mark

    help! macbook air won't boot up.  screen is white with flashing Folders Icon with quesion mark inside.  any suggestions?

    Hi benami54,
    Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.  This article has steps you can take if your computer boots to a flashing question mark:
    A flashing question mark appears when you start your Mac
    http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1440
    Cheers,
    - Ari

  • Question Mark - "The item cannot be found" at top of folders

    When I open any of my desktop folders and my HD, there is a question mark at the top right-hand side. When I click on it, a message saying "The item cannot be found". Any ideas as to what might be causing this?
    Ohhhh, please don't tell me my HD needs replacing and I'll have to wait a MONTH for my Mac to come back home...
    Thanks!

    These threads might be helpful:
    http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=1529275&#1529275
    http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=3093153&#3093153
    15" MacBook Pro 2.16 GHz (Core 2 Duo) Mac OS X (10.4.8) , Mac Mini 1.66 GHz   Mac OS X (10.4.8)  

  • Help!  Has anyone ever seen a strange question mark  in their folders?

    please help, for some reason there is a strange question mark on the top bar of every folder that i open, to the left of the search box. It's quite large and slightly darker than the folder window color around the edge, and when I click it it pops up a new window that says item cannot be found. It has never been there before, what is it and where did it come from, is this a virus? S.O.S.
    powerbook G4 17"   Mac OS X (10.4.6)  

    Control-click on it and choose Remove Item from the menu which appears. The Finder toolbar allows files and folders to be dropped into it; when the Finder can't find one of these, it displays the question mark icon. It is not a virus.
    (12205)

  • My MacBook has question marks on all folders and won't run ANY program. Help!

    A week ago I was editing some photographs in Photoshop CS 5 extended. My computer has been running slow for a while so I thought that I would finish these files and then clear it of some photos since I know I've recently uploaded several gbs onto it.
    The next day it was frozen. I had to shut it down and restart. It came on and now every folder has a question mark on it and none of the programs will open. They just bounce up and down and then the menu bar says Application not responding.
    I have no idea what I need to do. I was going to update to Lion but I'm unsure if that's what I should do or if it needs some TLC from the apple store.
    Help?

    A professional will image your drive and attempt a bit by bit file recovery method directly from the drive itself.
    You see when you delete something, it's not quite erased yet, but the space the file took is available to be overwritten, so it's only a matter of time before that occurs and the file is really gone.
    So they will recover what they can, and then restore your machine and it's software and return the recovered files.
    The TimeMachine is certainly going to assist, good thing you got it.
    The trick is to hire someone and quit using the computer until they rescue you, show you in person how to rescue yourself .
    Good Luck

  • I'm using a macbook pro, running snow leopard. Yesterday I got around to emptying my trash for the first time in quite awhile and was surprised by how much there seemed to be in there. Immediately after a question mark symbols appeared on all my hard disk

    I'm using a macbook pro, running snow leopard. Yesterday I got around to emptying my trash for the first time in quite awhile and was surprised by how much there seemed to be in there. Immediately after a question mark symbol appeared on all my hard disk folders. If I click on these question marks I get a message saying ' the item can't be found'.

    mpagan47 wrote: a question mark symbol appeared on all my hard disk folders.
    Not sure where these hard disk folders are located that you are referring to?  Finder, Finder tool bar, Finder side bar, Desktop, Dock? 
    More then likely they are  an alias that not longer point to the orginals,  thus the question mark.
    I would reboot.  Delete icons if an alias and just recreate by dragging from the source. Try right click (control) click to remove.

  • Netboot will not working, getting globe, then flashing folder with question mark.

    I just created a netboot image which went off without any problems.  I copied the two .nbi folders to my NetBootSP0 folder, and enabled them within netboot.  My OS X server which is my netboot server and dhcp server.  When I boot using N or Option N, I get the flashing globe for several seconds, the request goes through to the server and gets ACK {SELECT} however a few more seconds after, I get the flashing folder and question mark before it does a normal boot.  I have read the other posts about DHCP and Subnets.  My server and and clients are all 255.255.0.0.  Any suggestions would be very helpful as I need this to work for several buildings. 

    This might work for some:
         I had the same problem of the netboot image not mounting/opening, spinning globe then booting back to the Mac HD on the client and it was only when I remembered that we had manually experimented with jumbo frame rates and the MTU settings for our 32TB RAID in the Hardware settings for Ethernet ports on our servers. I turned the settings back to "Automatic" and 1000baseT on, then the whole NetInstall and Neboot was working perfectly again.

  • 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 MacBook Pro won't start - it just displays a grey screen with flashing icon of a folder with a question mark in the middle. Help.

    It started while I was using Adobe InDesign, and that program froze, then crashed. When I tried to reopen the program, the error message I received was simply "Error: 16".
    I tried to take a screen shot of the error message for reference, and it gave me a message saying I couldn't because I didn't have access to the files where it would normally store the shot.
    Attached to my computer at the time was my Seagate Free Agent Go-Flex for Mac backup drive.
    So, I closed any open applications, and restarted my computer. But it wouldn't restart. It only displays a grey screen with a flashing icon in the middle of a folder with a question mark on it.
    I have no idea what happened - I wasn't using the machine any differently than usual, and it only had a few basic applicaitons open in addition to InDesign (like Preview, Text Edit, Microsoft Word, iCal).
    I have MacKeeper on my MacBook, and I keep it clean.
    Does anyone out there know what this flashing icon indicates, and if there is anything I can try on my own to fix it?
    Thanks.

    ali har wrote:
    It started while I was using Adobe InDesign, and that program froze, then crashed. When I tried to reopen the program, the error message I received was simply "Error: 16".
    I tried to take a screen shot of the error message for reference, and it gave me a message saying I couldn't because I didn't have access to the files where it would normally store the shot.
    For the Error: 16
    http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/827/cpsid_82744.html
    Seems a uninstall and reinstall of CS is in order.
    Attached to my computer at the time was my Seagate Free Agent Go-Flex for Mac backup drive.
    May or may not be a contributing factor,  may have kicked in at a wrong time or running root code.
    So, I closed any open applications, and restarted my computer. But it wouldn't restart. It only displays a grey screen with a flashing icon in the middle of a folder with a question mark on it.
    Computer can't find a bootable volume.
    https://support.apple.com/kb/TS2570
    I have MacKeeper on my MacBook, and I keep it clean.
    Well that explains it, MacKeeper is almost malware.
    http://applehelpwriter.com/2011/09/21/how-to-uninstall-mackeeper-malware/
    Search the forums here for "MacKeeper" they will tell the whole story, crapware.
    Disconnect all drives, follow the "Grey Screen" instructions and hold Shift key down while booting, if you get into OS X , immediatly backup your files to another drive and disconnect.
    In my opinion you should first check to make sure you have a backup of your data, then just erase the entire internal drive (hold c boot off the 10.6 disk, use Disk Utility), reinstall OS X, same user name, update to 10.6.8, c boot off the 10.6 and Repair Disk (to fix a update error) install your programs and finally return files from backup into the same main user folders like before (Music, Docs, Pictures etc.)
    A pain it is, but you've hosed your system and in the process you might as well rebuild everything and have a fast machine again. So happens to clear MacKrapper, uninstall CS5 and any other junk in your system at the same time. Fresh, clean, lean and mean.
    Learn to Carbon Copy Cloner to a external drive that new pristine boot drive, you can hold the option key and boot from it (even update it), which is a real bacon saver when something like this happens.  Also it's free to use, donations accepted.
    http://www.bombich.com/
    Note: if anything above I've mentioned is too complicated or your not sure, seek the services of a local computer specialist.

  • Persistent Flashing Question Mark Folder Icon, after Repair & Rebuild-THX!

    Hello All,
    Thank you in advance for any insights.
    For the past week, one/two days after a force re-boot, my Quicksilver Mac (OSX 10.4.11 and OS 9 Classic) starts up with the dreaded flashing question mark folder.
    The start up disk has always been on "Mac OS X, 10.4.11 on main stuff" ("main stuff" is the name of the hard drive.)
    The first time, I ran DiskWarrior and rebuilt the hard drive, which is kind of new as it was replaced in April 2009. Then I ran OnyX and got a clean bill of health. The Mac was shut down at the end of the day as is my habit via turning off the power strip.
    If it helps, here's part of the DiskWarrior report:
    • 13 files had a directory entry with an incorrect text encoding value that was repaired.
    • 340 files had a damaged extended attribute that was repaired.
    • 3 folders had a directory entry with an incorrect custom icon flag that was repaired.
    • Incorrect values in the Volume Information were repaired.
    Disk Information:
    Files: 370,719
    Folders: 85,161
    Free Space: 92.55 GB
    Format: Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
    Block Size: 4 K
    Disk Sectors: 268,171,472
    Media: WDC WD5000AAKB-00H8A0
    The next day, the flashing question mark folder reappeared. This time I used the original system installer CD (labeled Power Mac G4 OS X Install). Disk Utility made its repairs. And this time, the computer was put to sleep instead.
    In the morning, it woke up, the wireless optical mouse worked for a few seconds, the hard drive is humming along then all of a sudden the arrow (mouse) froze and none of the keys on the keyboard functioned.
    After some research, I deleted the energy saver preference (powermanager.list?) and ran Disk Utility again. And again, I shut down b/c I wasn't going to use the Mac for a day or two.
    This afternoon, the pesky icon reappeared at start up. At first Disk Utility didn't see the hard drive then I restarted and the hard drive was selectable though not mounted. It was repaired and verified yet once again. Btw, when I did hard drive test, the message says something to the effect that it appears to be working properly.
    My question is, might anyone know what's wrong? I've been backing up after every use and I have a laptop. But I love working on the desktop and if this issue can be fixed, that would be perfect.
    As an aside, I've read that I should do a clean install. Would doing a clean install mean I need to re-install OS 9 as well as all other all other software programs-Adobe Creative Suite, Quickbooks, Verizon DSL, printer drivers etc.?
    One final question, can I continue to boot up from the CD, repair then restart or will I damage the computer? Once it restart, everything seems to work normally and well.
    Many, many thanks for reading and any help would be greatly appreciated!
    Have a wonderful weekend.
    Sam

    Disk damage can also affect the startup sequence, but I think what you have already done should have repaired any disk damage, or given you more information.
    Once you have ruled out Disk damage, you get the flashing question mark when your Mac cannot find:
    • the preferred operating System
    • of the preferred version
    • on the preferred startup drive.
    All these items are stored in the parameter RAM, backed up by a 3.6 volt, non-recharging 1/2-AA size battery that lasts three years or so, unless you turn off all power at night.
    If you cannot remember when you last changed that battery, now is a good time. Be sure to reset the PMU/PRAM after installing the new battery.
    Message was edited by: Grant Bennet-Alder

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