Big Mistake

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Andre Ney

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Dear Lightroom Forum,

I have a problem that I created. I accidentally trashed the catalogue from the Lightroom icon in my dock. i was getting rid of files so I would have more room on my hard drive. I thought the catalogue was on the external drive. I did recover the backup from the external drive. Something is missing. When I am not in import the external drive only shows the previous down load. When I click on import everything shows as normal. When I import a file it loses the name and only shows the date. I can go into the external drive and add the name. They I can move it into the regular year file.

I get a screen notification that says: Non raw files were not converted to DNG. Not all of the files being imported were raw. Only raw files were converted to DNG

Does anyone have any idea what I need to do to get my program to back working properly?

Thank you,

Andre ney
 
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Not sure how much help I can be, but these are the steps that I would do.
  • Go through Preferences and Catalog Settings, taking a look at every parameter and checking that they are sensible, i.e. nothing points to a non existent location/drive
  • Make sure you have Backups activated
  • Do a database optimisation
  • Resync the entire database, by selecting the top folder
Bear in mind that LR6 no longer gets updates, so some of the latest cameras' raw file formats are not recognised. In my case this is a Fujifilm X-T3. (Bummer, I know). Such cases, you might have to use an external program to convert raw to DNG before importing, or look to another alternative (I am playing with ON1 Photo Raw 2019).

Let us know how you go...
 
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In looking at the external drive, it appears that all the image files are saved there. I couldn't see anything that was wrong. I kind of feel that starting a new catalog and moving the files from the external drive into the new catalog might work. Could I ask for instructions on how to move the files into the catalog. Also can I name the new catalog?
Thank you,
Andre Ney
 
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Andre,

There are two files that comprise your catalog. They both begin with the same string and by default I think this is "Lightroom". They are in a folder by the same name. And I believe that the default location for this folder is your Pictures folder in your home directory. However, you can make the catalog name anything you want. So if you used the string "My Catalog" when you created a new catalog in the example below Lightroom would be replaced by My Catalog.

Lightroom/
Lightroom.lrcat​
Lightroom Previews.lrdata​

Note that the first letter of the file extension (the part after the dot ".") is a lower case L. The default font face in Finder does not make that clear and people often confuse it with an upper case I.

These are the two files that you want to find in your backup to recover. Of prime importance is the Lightroom.lrcat file. You want to find the very latest version of this file and restore it. If you have an associated Lightroom Previews.lrdata also that will help but is not necessary as this file can be completely rebuilt from scratch once you have a valid catalog file.

-louie
 
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Dear L. Sherwin,

Thank you for your reply. Sorry I am not sure where my pictures folder is. I have checked the backup on the external drive. They read:

Lightroom Catalog 2 Previews.lrdata

Lightroom Catalog 2.lrcat

Lightroom Catalog 3 Previews.lrdata

Lightroom Catalog 3.lrcat

Lightroom Catalog 4 Previews.lrdata

Lightroom Catalog 4.lrcat

Lightroom Catalog 5 Previews.lrdata

Lightroom Catalog 5.lrcat

Lightroom Catalog 6 Previews.lrdata

Lightroom Catalog 6.lrcat

Lightroom Catalog 6.lrcat-journal

Lightroom Catalog 6.lrcat.lock

Lightroom Catalog 7 Previews.lrdata

Lightroom Catalog 7.lrcat

Lightroom Catalog Previews.lrdata

Lightroom Catalog.lrcat

Lightroom Catalog.lrcat.zip

Temporary Import Data.db

Temporary Import Data.db-journal

I have opened all of them and they all act the same. They don’t show what’s in the external drive until I click on import. Then everything looks correct. Of course each one is showing more files as the Cat. number gets larger. Does this help?

Thank you again,

Andre Ney
 
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Don’t import anything. What you need to do is check if one of these catalogs shows the images that are on your external hard drive, but without showing the hard drive itself in the folder panel. A Lightroom catalog is a database. It's like an address book. The situation you are in right now is that all your images are on the external hard drive, but Lightroom does not know that yet. As if all your firends have moved, but didn't let you know, so your address book is still showing their old addresses. Lightroom should show 'missing folders' where it thinks the images should be. The way to solve this is not to import the images from the external drive, but to 'reconnect' the missing folders. Lightroom thinks my photos are missing—how do I fix it? | The Lightroom Queen
 
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Hi Andre,

All those files with the sequential numbers are likely left over from previous catalog updates as you upgraded Lightroom major versions. For example when upgrading LR from version 5 to version 6, Lightroom would copy the version catalog while applying any necessary changes to the database. The new catalog file would get the next available sequence number. These numbers do not correspond to the version.

you wil want to figure out which is really the latest one. Look at the Date Modified in Finder and locate select the one with the newest Modified date. This is likely the most recent catalog. So you can double click on that one and that will start Lightroom. Then follow the instructions that Johan pointed to in order to reconnect the catalog to your image files.

-louie
 
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LouieSherwin said:
Hi Andre,

All those files with the sequential numbers are likely left over from previous catalog updates as you upgraded Lightroom major versions. For example when upgrading LR from version 5 to version 6, Lightroom would copy the version catalog while applying any necessary changes to the database. The new catalog file would get the next available sequence number. These numbers do not correspond to the version.

you wil want to figure out which is really the latest one. Look at the Date Modified in Finder and locate select the one with the newest Modified date. This is likely the most recent catalog. So you can double click on that one and that will start Lightroom. Then follow the instructions that Johan pointed to in order to reconnect the catalog to your image files.

-louie
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As he opened all catalogs, the modification date won't mean anything. The catalog with the highest number is probably the latest one, but you can now only check that by looking at the total number of images in each catalog.
 
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Thank you John and Louie,
I have looked at what you instructed me. I have found several grayed out file. I also noticed that when I look at backups, when I close them the number increases. I am now up to 9. I am not doing anything at the moment.
Thank you again,
Andre Ney
 
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