Catalog Import Problem / Ok, I'm stumped!

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disottawa

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I've imported my catalog from my desktop pc to my notebook via an external hard drive. Before so doing, I selected the entire catalog and ran convert to 1:1 previews.

After importation, most the images are fine but a significant minority of the images give me the following message: the file named "........" is offline or missing". Sometimes the image is still sharp and viewable and other times it's just a blurry mess. My suspicion is that this means that some of the previews that were imported were not 1:1. Is there a way to re-import the missing previews from the hard drive to correct this problem? I've tried but LR says that there are no new images to import. I've selected the metadata update but that doesn't fix the issue.

The catalog was quite large, if that makes a difference. About 75 GBs.

Thanks for any help!
 
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OK, I'm stumped!

I've imported my catalog from my desktop pc to my notebook via an external hard drive. Before so doing, I selected the entire catalog and ran convert to 1:1 previews.

After importation, most the images are fine but a significant minority of the images give me the following message: the file named "........" is offline or missing". Sometimes the image is still sharp and viewable and other times it's just a blurry mess. My suspicion is that this means that some of the previews that were imported were not 1:1. Is there a way to re-import the missing previews from the hard drive to correct this problem? I've tried but LR says that there are no new images to import. I've selected the metadata update but that doesn't fix the issue.

The catalog was quite large, if that makes a difference. About 75 GBs.

Thanks for any help!
 
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Re: OK, I'm stumped!

OK, here's the deal. There seem to be a couple of mistaken impressions in what you're saying. So, I'm just gonna explain some stuff, and if you already know it, sorry. But we'll eventually get to the bottom of your problem.

Your catalog, I expect is not 75 GB. That would be big enough for about 2 million images, and that would be a bit bigger than 'quite large' in my opinion. Fundamentally, an operating Lr configuration consists of 3 major components:

  • [li]a) the catalog file, generally less than 1 GB in size, although a bit larger is not unheard of. This is a file of type *.lrcat. [/li]
    [li]b) the preview cache: On Windows, this is a folder called your_catalog_name Previews.lrdata. It contains a huge descending tree of nested folders, with folders identified as ' thru F, (the 16 hexadecimal base digits) in the root. With normal retention policies this tends to run around 1'GB or so, very roughly. [/li]
    [li]c) the original image files in whatever folder arrangement you placed them for/during import. (This is reasonably expected to be in the 1'-1''' GB range.)
    [/li]
The vital things to copy when copying/moving a catalog are the *.lrcat catalog file, and the original image files, in their original folder structure. The previews will be automatically recreated as necessary. Of course, if you copy the Preview folder, that amount of reconstruction time will be saved.

When Lr says "offline or missing", it means that it can't find the original image file where it expects it to be. If the files (or folders) exhibit a question mark icon, this is almost certain that the original image file is misplaced. More on this later.

The previews created and stored in the preview cache are used primarily in the Library and output modules. They are not used in the Develop Module at all. So if you have lots of develop adjustments to make, the value of the preview cache is diminished. It's used primarily to expedite scrolling and image review in the Library module.
You don't say which module(s) the problem is appearing in, which would help with the diagnosis.

If the problem images are showing question marks, click on the ? which will enable you to look for the missing images. If the folders are showing question marks, you have to right-click.

It's also possible, if the linkage between the preview cache and catalog is broken somehow, that Lr is actually working on producing your previews, and the problem will clear up over time, but I think that's unlikely from the symptoms.

In re-reading your post, I note that you use the terminology of 'importing'. If you exported the catalog as a catalog from the source machine, and imported it as a catalog on the target machine, then that's yet another kettle of fish, and we'll need to discuss the technique you used there.
 
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Re: OK, I'm stumped!

Brad,

Thanks for taking the time to help. Much appreciated.

I followed the instructions in Julieanne Kost's video on the Adobe site, in which she recommends exporting the previews (if I've understood correctly) as a catalog and importing them as such.

What I'm trying to do is to have the previews for my catalog on the notebook pc and have the actual raw data remain on my main desktop pc. I understand that I cannot use the Develop module for the previews. I do have some images with raw data on the notebook and they work fine.

For the previews that I've imported, in the library module the drive letters and all of the file folders are greyed out and have question marks on each folder icon. I assumed this was normal as only the previews were imported. I imported the Lrcat file, which is 254,376 KB in size and the lr catalog preview folder (lrdata) which is 72 GB in size and contains approx. 24,''' files or image previews. The majority of the previews are fine, but there are some that have the message I mentioned in the earlier post, to the effect that the image is offline or missing.

I hope this clarifies what I've done a bit more. I'm a complete neophyte when it comes to Lightroom and may well have made some rookie errors along the way.
 
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Re: OK, I'm stumped!

[quote author=disottawa link=topic=79'3.msg53982#msg53982 date=1253717671]
I followed the instructions in Julieanne Kost's video on the Adobe site, in which she recommends exporting the previews (if I've understood correctly) as a catalog and importing them as such.[/quote]

I'm not familiar with this particular video, but your terminology still doesn't make sense. You can't export previews as a catalog.

[quote author=disottawa link=topic=79'3.msg53982#msg53982 date=1253717671]
What I'm trying to do is to have the previews for my catalog on the notebook pc and have the actual raw data remain on my main desktop pc. I understand that I cannot use the Develop module for the previews. I do have some images with raw data on the notebook and they work fine.[/quote]

There are two ways to do this.

(1) If you want your entire desktop catalog visible on the laptop, you'd just copy the catalog file and previews database to the laptop. No need to export or import anything.

(2) If you want a subset of your desktop catalog on the laptop, you'd export a catalog from the desktop, and leave the "include negative files" checkbox unchecked. Then copy the exported catalog file and previews database to the laptop. No need to import anything.

Caveat: If you have an existing catalog on the laptop and want the desktop catalog to become a part of it, then you'd import the catalog that you copied from the desktop into the existing laptop catalog. This step is not strictly necessary; you can just open the copied catalog independently. You don't have to merge them unless you want to.
 
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Re: OK, I'm stumped!

Mark,

Your second suggestion is what I've done, i.e. I exported the desktop catalog and left the "include negative files" checkbox unchecked. I then imported this catalog into my existing catalog on the notebook. This all worked fine. The problem is that if I start looking at the images, all will be fine until in going from one image (preview) to the next, the image in loupe mode will have a box across the top which says "The file named "....." is offline or missing." Sometimes this image is still sharp and viewable and other times it's very blurred.

I would like to remedy this situation so that all of the previews are viewable. Do I need to delete the entire catalog I imported and start over?
 
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Re: OK, I'm stumped!

OK, I understand where you're heading now. You can export a catalog with the available previews, but without the 'negatives', the original image files. I've never done that.

I don't yet understand what may have gone wrong, but the blurry/missing preview implies that the pertinent preview is missing or corrupt. When that happens, Lr will try to load the needed data from the original image file, which, of course in this case is deliberately missing, hence the error message.

I rarely (actually never) work that way, so I'm not sure I can offer practical advice about how to fix the muddled preview cache.
Anybody else?
 
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Re: OK, I'm stumped!

Before you export the catalog from the desktop, I would suggest rendering standard or 1:1 previews (your choice) for the files to be included in the exported catalog. Sounds like some of them didn't have large previews pre-rendered. You might not notice this on the desktop, because it'll just render the larger preview as needed because it has access to the original file.
 
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Re: OK, I'm stumped!

Mark,

I actually did select the entire catalog I was going to export and rendered everthing to 1:1 previews, however, my suspicion is that some of them weren't rendered correctly.

I have tried to re-import the catalog but Lr won't do that, it says the images are already in the catalog. I've also tried to re-import the metadata, but that doesn't fix it either.

At this point, I'm contemplating deleting all of the previews (although I'm unsure of the best method of doing that) and re-importing the catalog in chunks, to try and lessen the chances of corruption/mistakes.

Does this sound like it might work?
 
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Re: OK, I'm stumped!

I think that's the best course of action currently. I'd delete the catalog and the lrdata folder on the (new) target machine, and start over with a new catalog/preview cache combination.

It may be possible to just re-render on the source machine, and copy the lrdata folder to the target, but I'm not sure enough of the underlying indexing mechanism to be sure it'll work.
 
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Re: OK, I'm stumped!

That will work. If you want the entire desktop catalog merged with the entire existing laptop catalog, as I wrote earlier, no need to go through the export step. Just copy the catalog and previews from the desktop to the laptop, and then on the laptop import one of the catalogs into the other.

But first, on the desktop, go to All Photographs, select all, and render previews. Then do it again, just to see whether there are some files that just won't render for some reason. If so, then we'll work on debugging that.
 
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Re: OK, I'm stumped!

OK, I have now twice rendered all previews to 1:1 on the desktop and will proceed to copy the catalog to the external hard drive. The last time I did this it took quite some time, so you may not hear back from me for an hour or two. On the notebook, I should delete all file folders that have anything to do with LR, I take it, specifically those with the backups and the lrdata and lrcat file names.
 
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Re: OK, I'm stumped!

[quote author=disottawa link=topic=79'3.msg54'''#msg54''' date=12537285'1]
OK, I have now twice rendered all previews to 1:1 on the desktop ...[/quote]

Did it find any previews to render on the second pass?
 
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Re: Catalog Import Problem

Oooooh, good question. So when you transferred it, did you transfer the images too? Initial thought would be that those files were already offline/missing on the desktop BEFORE you ran the previews and export, which is why there aren't 1:1 previews for those. Can you check the desktop?
 
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Re: OK, I'm stumped!

Brad and Mark,

LR has now finished re-importing all of the catalog/previews and so far I haven't found any images with that message. It looks like the issue has been resolved.

Thanks for all of your help!

David
 
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Re: Catalog Import Problem

Thanks Nik, I'll merge them.
 
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