Trouble reconnecting to folders

[JohnHK]

I recently purchased two external hard drives intending to have both saving identical photographs that were on a third EHD. As LR does not copy, I settled on Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my older drive to one of the new ones, and it worked very well. However, this program was run outside of LR, I know the never rule, but I couldn't see any other option, now LR can see two files it wants to merge, and that would defeat the object, and still it doesn't know where they are. Will I have to move each file to a new folder separately (it will do it) or is there a better way to sort this out? At the moment I have all my work in LR, and LR knows it's there, but I am unable to use any of it.
Regards, John.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

Please describe exactly what you're trying to do, and exactly what happens. Lightroom does not 'merge files', but it can ask you if you want to merge two folders when you reconnect a folder. Usually that's no problem and you can just click 'Yes'.

 

[Tony Jay]

Hi John

Did you do this copying with Carbon Copy Cloner to the new drives as a back-up or with a view to using one of the new drives as the primary source of images for Lightroom?
This is really important because the advice we give will differ rather dramatically depending on the answer.

As Johan has also mentioned Lightroom will never merge files, folders yes, but never files.
In addition Lightroom is never meant to "see" multiple copies of your image collection simultaneously - the catalog is expecting each image to be in a unique location, yes, the image collection as a whole can be spread across as many drives as needed as long as each image is unique.

It seems as if you may be attempting to do something that Lightroom was never intended to do but with clarification I am pretty sure we can sort out the confusion.

Tony Jay

 

[JohnHK]

Hello Johan and Tony,
I have used one EHD to hold my photographs and used LR with that system for some time. After reading lots of advice about back-ups I decided to purchase 2 more EHD's and clone my original drive to one of the new drives, (as a start) and it worked perfectly, albeit, outside LR! When I went back into LR all my photos were showing up on my original drive, but 'missing' so I attempted to locate them without success. I tried locating Files & Folders - no luck. LR found older files that had been used to sort photos into some order that resulted in what is now on the EHD, but a lot of those pictures were supposed to have been deleted during the process, so where they have emerged from I don't know. When I could find one of those photos that was still current, I could locate it along with associated photos, but LR put them into another Folder.

I have not been able to get anywhere following the 'Merge' prompt, it's either merge or nothing. As far as I can understand 'Merge' it means I will end up with a single folder again, if that means I will have one folder showing in LR but still retain two identical EHD's I would be happy, however, with LR's 'Copy' meaning 'Move' I'm reluctant to try 'Merge'. BTW: I do have 'Time Machine' connected to other EHD's. I hope this explains my situation.

Life was better when I and LR were totally unorganized.
Regards, John.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

I'm sorry, but I still don't understand what you're trying to do. Cloning a disk with Lightroom photos to make a backup is fine and is the correct thing to do, but Lightroom should stay out of the equasion. You should not try to connect Lightroom to the cloned disk. That disk is just a backup, so you only need to connect Lightroom to it if and when you need the backup because there is a problem with the master disk.

You say that Lightroom suddenly said that the photos were missing, but there is no reason for that. Cloning the master disk does not change anything on that master disk, so there is no reason why the photos should suddenly be missing.

There is one possibility that I'm thinking about however. Did cloning the master disk create a cloned backup disk with the same name as the master disk? And did you leave both disks mounted when you started Lightroom again? That could explain the problem. The Macintosh knows the difference between two disks, even if they have the same name. Lightroom does not however. It uses a simple system of paths, for compatibility sake with Windows. That creates a problem on the Mac when two mounted disks have the same name: Lightroom does not know which disk the path leads to, because it could be both.

So the first thing to do (if what I assumed is correct) is unmount the cloned backup disk, or give it another name. Then start Lightroom again and see if that (partly) solves the problem. Because you have already tried to reconnect folders, your current catalog is screwed up, at least to a certain extend. If possible, replace it by a recent backup from before the troubles started. That will be a lot easier than trying to sort out this mess.

 

[Tony Jay]

I think that if you follow Johan's advice about removing the cloned drives from the equation by either unmounting them or changing their names (both need to be done actually), then that will more than likely solve the problem.

With respect to Lightroom saying that all the images are missing, once you have removed the cloned drives I would check the original drive where the master image collection is - those images should be exactly where they always were before this whole episode started.
(Cloning that drive shouldn't have changed anything on that drive.)
If the master images are still where they should be, then, if Lightroom is still confused, it should not be too difficult to redirect it back to this drive.
It may be an idea to provide us with screenshots of the folders sub-panel in the Library module and a view of the same drive with its folders in Finder to compare.
If the folder structure from both the folder sub-panel and Finder's view of that drive are identical then it should be a trivial exercise to re-acquaint Lightroom with reality.

There is nothing wrong with backing-up your drives.
We all do it - in fact it is a integral part of digital asset management.
However, this part of the process is not directly a Lightroom issue, and, as I said before, Lightroom itself does not want know that are multiple copies of your image collection.
So, unless you need Lightroom to specifically access images on your back-ups, the rule is to explicitly keep them apart.

Tony Jay

 

[JohnHK]

I appreciate your help, but I think you are both misunderstanding what I said.
In my very first sentence of my original post I said I had just bought two new EHD's intending to have both saving identical photographs that were on a third EHD, so yes I was going to back-up my photographs.
This is what took place:- LR was showing the identical contents of my older EHD in it's Library, and was working properly. No attempt was made to clone any part of LR or the internal drive of the computer. LR was shut down.
Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC) was then used to clone the contents of the older EHD to one of the new EHD's with complete success.
LR was then turned on and the Library was as it had been prior to this task, but all photos were marked as missing. This surprised me because nothing had changed/happened between the EHD and LR at all. My attempts to locate the pictures failed, hence my cry for help.

The question as to "Merge" had me baffled - if I had clicked 'Yes' would it only merge the two folders it could see or would it destroy one of the contents from a EHD as well?

I ask this because I think, depending on your advice, I will try that route first and if it fails my next option will be 'Time Machine', which I have never used before so I will have to do some reading before I start from scratch.

Regards, John.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

I think you misunderstood what I said. I suggested that Carbon Copy Cloner has created a clone with the same name as your original photo disk. And I explained that it leads to troubles if Lightroom is confronted with two disks that have the same name. You haven't reacted to that yet.

Everything else, including your 'merge' problem, could be a result of this.

 

[JohnHK]

Johan, I'm sorry I didn't address that earlier. I had tried disconnecting one and then the other, I also changed the names, all to no avail. Now I'm not sure where I am because I did not make notes of every move. I have just tried again and all I get is the same screen no matter what drive I have connected, and it looks like the mess I had before I organized the folders. I will not waste your time again, as now my Organized LR Library has disappeared.
Thanks for trying to help me, but it looks as though I'm past help at this point, and will have to think it through myself.
Regards, John.

 

[JohnHK]

Thank you Johan Elzenga, Tony Jay, along with Victoria Bampton's book "Lightroom CC/6, Missing FAQ.
Your advice and help is very much appreciated. I have been able to locate all but one file by carefully reading your responses to my requests for help, and reading the appropriate parts of Victoria's book. It turned out to be stupid mistakes on my part that I was able to locate and correct one by one. It took a lot of time and frustration, but the end result has been very satisfying, to say the least.
BTW, Victoria, your massive book is a pot of gold for any Lightroom user.
Thank you all.
Regards, John.

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Thanks John! Hopefully you'll be able to avoid these kind of issues in future.