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LrC Catalog on Ext HD doesn't Match on 2 Computers

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nIkedoni1a

nIkedoni1a

Member
Joined
Oct 7, 2008
Messages
63
Location
Orchard Park, NY
Lightroom Experience
Intermediate
Lightroom Version
Classic
Lightroom Version Number
12.0.1
Operating System
  1. macOS 13 Ventura
  2. iOS
I'm having difficulty utilizing LrC on 2 computers. I keep my LrC catalog and images on a 4tb ss ext. hd. I thought it would be easier to work with my macbook traveling and switch the drive to my macpro desktop at home rather than going through the export/import catalog process each time. Lately I have been shooting with my iphone and have the Lightroom app on my phone set up to sync all the photos from the camera roll to adobe cloud. I have LrC on the macbook set to download those images from the cloud. I then create a folder in my normal hierarchy and drag the images I want out of "Synced Photos" and delete the rest and remove the empty synced photos folder.

Upon returning home i switched the ext. drive to my desktop macpro and I'm having 2 issues. The first is that the macpro it seems is attempting to sync all of my iphone images again and I'm seeing lots of exclamation marks. I'm not sure if this is because I have deleted images from the camera roll while away or if it is because while working on the macbook I dragged images out of the "Synced Photos" section and into the normal folder hierarchy and then deleted the ones I wasn't going to keep. At any rate the macpro is creating a mess in the "Synced Photos" section with lots of exclamation marks and since I had already culled images on the macbook I do not need the home computer to do any downloading of images at all. I think the answer here is that I should be syncing down from adobe cloud on only the macbook and some how turn off the downloading from the adobe cloud on the macpro. How to do this?

The other problem I am experiencing is that the folder I added to my hierarchy on the macbook and filled with the images dragged from "Synced Photos" doesn't appear when the drive is connected to the macpro desktop. Also a folder I created on the Macpro desktop does not appear when I plug the drive into the macbook. Both computers run Ventura and both have been updated and run LrC 12.1. I can see all the folders and images when I look at the folders using finder on either computers so I am not sure what the issue is. I have rebooted both machines so I'm not really sure what is going on here.

I still want to sync certain LrC collections to the adobe clouds so I can have those edited images always handy on my phone to share. I would think that since the catalog and images are on an external drive that I should be able to sync my LrC collections up to abobe cloud from either computer.

Thank you for helping me get a grasp here.
 
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nIkedoni1a said:
I think the answer here is that I should be syncing down from adobe cloud on only the macbook and some how turn off the downloading from the adobe cloud on the macpro. How to do this?
Click to expand...
Click on the small cloud icon in the upper right corner. You can pause the sync from there.

nIkedoni1a said:
The other problem I am experiencing is that the folder I added to my hierarchy on the macbook and filled with the images dragged from "Synced Photos" doesn't appear when the drive is connected to the macpro desktop. Also a folder I created on the Macpro desktop does not appear when I plug the drive into the macbook. Both computers run Ventura and both have been updated and run LrC 12.1. I can see all the folders and images when I look at the folders using finder on either computers so I am not sure what the issue is. I have rebooted both machines so I'm not really sure what is going on here.
Click to expand...
This sounds like maybe you are not using the same catalog on both computers after all. Check in the Lightroom preferences on both computers that you do use the same catalog.
 
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Thanks Johan, of course you are correct. So I have done the catalog update on both computers but the macbook which looks the way I want looks like it is running v12.lrcat even though you can see in screenshot that v12-2.lrcat is there as well. When i switch the macbook to v12-2.lrcat I get the same messed up catalog that I was seeing on my home computer (which was running v12-2.lrcat).
Screenshot 2022-11-19 at 3.58.10 PM.png
If I delete v12-2 from both machines will creative cloud recognize that and ask me if I want to update again?
 
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What you should have done is upgrade the catalog on one computer and then start using the upgraded catalog on the other computer as well. You can still start using the first upgraded catalog on the second computer, so you do not have to upgrade again.
 
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I'm still confused. How do i tell lightroom to upgrade the current catalog (v12) when the upgraded catalog is already on my computer but doesn't recognize some folders from v12.?
 
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What you need to do (or should have done) is this:
1: Upgrade the catalog to version 12 on one computer
2: On the other computer, start Lightroom with this upgraded catalog by double clicking this catalog
That’s all. The problem is that you already have two different upgraded catalogs right now. That means you have to choose one of them as the upgraded catalog mentioned in step 1. You would lose the work you did in the second upgraded catalog, so you either have to do that work again, or you can use ‘File - Import from Another Catalog’ and import that second upgraded catalog into the first one.
 
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Thank you for your patience. I think I may know what i did to foul things up. Right now if I open catalog v12 on either computer things are exactly as they should be however if I open with catalog v12-2 on either machine it's messed up exactly the same way with missing synced photos and folders. My preferences were set on both machines to "Open with most recent catalog" Maybe I upgraded LrC on my home computer to v12-2 before I left on my trip and while away worked on the MacBook using v12. When I got home I connected the ext hd to home and it opened v12-2 and did just a little work before noticing things looked screwy so I put it back in my laptop. Honestly I do not remember when I got the prompts to do the updates.

So my dilemma is I have a v12 and a v12-2 on both machines. I have not done any significant work in v12-2 and so would like to delete the v12-2 catalog from the ext hd and upgrade properly to v12-2. Is it simply okay to delete v12-2.lrcat from my external drive and upgrade again? How do I get LrC to prompt me to upgrade. Once I am prompted to upgrade again can I change the name of the catalog to something like v12-2A.lrcat so if I come across backups of v12-2.lrcat I will know they are okay to discard? Thanks again
 
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nIkedoni1a said:
So my dilemma is I have a v12 and a v12-2 on both machines. I have not done any significant work in v12-2 and so would like to delete the v12-2 catalog from the ext hd and upgrade properly to v12-2. Is it simply okay to delete v12-2.lrcat from my external drive and upgrade again?
Click to expand...
Read my previous message again. I already explained all of it. You do not have to upgrade your catalog again. What you need to do is start with the v12 catalog on one of the computers (it does not matter which one) and then import the v12-2 catalog. That will consolidate both catalogs into one. Then you can trash v12-2 and use v12 on both. That is all.

It’s easy to understand what went wrong. After upgrading to Lightroom Classic 12, you started Lightroom on the first computer. Naturally you got the upgrade catalog dialog, so you upgraded the catalog and got the v12 catalog. Things went wrong when you switched to the second computer. Lightroom on the second computer did not know that you upgraded the catalog already, so it started with the old catalog and asked you to upgrade it. You said yes, so you got a second upgraded catalog: v12-2.
 
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Still makes no sense to me. I can already use v12 on both machines and can work with that just fine on both machines (your post above says to "trash v12-2 and use v12 on both". There is nothing that I want on my current v12-02, just haywire missing images and folders, no edits at all. I would be very happy to upgrade my v12 to v12-02 but I don't want any of the mess I created on the v12-02 that is now on my external hd so I don't want to import that I would rather start fresh.

BTW I see your in the Netherlands, I appreciate all your timely replies.
 
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OK, it seems I missed that you have not done any significant work in v12-2. If you do not want to transfer any work done in catalog v12-2 then just trash that catalog and continue to work with v12 on both machines.
 
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Thank you. I believe I've learned a lot about lightroom catalogs thanks to you. I will pay closer attention the next time there is an update.
 
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