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Either LR or Catalina APPEARS to have have altered drive structure in LR Library

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Tahoe Dave

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Joined
Aug 25, 2020
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43
Lightroom Version Number
LR Classic 9.4
Operating System
  1. macOS 10.15 Catalina
Brand new iMac (this week) w OS X Catalina 10.15.6. I keep my masters on an external Seagate 8tb drive, and the LR catalog on my internal 4tb SSD. Until this new computer, I used the 8TB for everything, and this structure has been in place for a few years. No problem until this morning. I am in the process of moving folders around (INSIDE LR) so need a clean and correct directory map before I start that process

LR Library SEEMS to think that my 8TB drive is now a "volume" on my internal Mac HD. Not just the folders ON the drive, but the WHOLE drive itself. See first screenshot. It is not now, nor has it ever been anything other than an External Drive and LR has never identified it otherwise. See second screenshot showing Finder sidebar with separate locations for various external HDD's. I did nothing outside of LR . In fact, I did nothing at all this morning except open LR to start the folder project. (Catalina has been changing permissions on external drives on me when I turn my back, but that seems to be a different issue with Catalina's wonky security issues.)

Then to make matters weirder, the LR directory structure in the Library no longer shows other drives (mostly backups) that are connected and which show up with no problem in Finder. But if I try to add themas folders to LR, instead of just adding them as locations in the sidebar, I get an import dialog inviting me to import photos from the various backup drives. Screenshot 3. Not a big deal, but why wouldn’t those drives just show up in the main Library panel? They're backups, so I'm not going to import anything. But they ARE connected drives and ought to show up.

Is this LR off on a frolic and detour on its own? Or is it Catalina sending rogue instructions to LR? Any clue how to correct this?
 

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Right-click on the top folder and choose ‘Hide this parent’. Repeat as necessary to make your real top folder show as the top folder in the folder panel. You may have to restart Lightroom after that.
 
That is probably because ALL drives are volumes listed in the /volumes folder of the root folder (/). At some point you have clicked on “Show parent” to expose your volume folders as childeren. I “think” clicking on “Hide Parent” will correct this. Let me know if that works.


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That's disturbing. Lightroom should not be listing your external 8TB drive as a mere folder on the Macintosh HD volume. This looks like a bug worth reporting over at Adobe's forum.

Hopefully the above suggestions of "hide parent" work, but if it's still listed under the "Macintosh HD" drive then that's a big problem.

You can also try right-clicking on DCW Masters and choosing "Update Folder Location" from the menu. Maybe that will reset Lightroom's understanding of where it is.

But before doing anything, make absolutely sure you've got a backup of your catalog.
 
That's disturbing. Lightroom should not be listing your external 8TB drive as a mere folder on the Macintosh HD volume. This looks like a bug worth reporting over at Adobe's forum.
I don't this this is a bug. As Cletus said, in MacOS, ALL volumes currently mounted, whether internal or external, are listed as children of the computer.
2020-08-28_LRQueen1.jpg
Hiding the parent(s), as needed, will make the unwanted volumes "disappear" from LR. I appreciate how LR allows one to do this, so one can see pretty much only the folders/volumes one wishes to see.
 
I don't this this is a bug. As Cletus said, in MacOS, ALL volumes currently mounted, whether internal or external, are listed as children of the computer.
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Hiding the parent(s), as needed, will make the unwanted volumes "disappear" from LR. I appreciate how LR allows one to do this, so one can see pretty much only the folders/volumes one wishes to see.

Just because macOS mounts all external drives under /Volumes does not mean it is acceptable for Lightroom to list the files on those external drives as being on the Macintosh HD volume. Also note that in your above screenshot your external volumes are listed next to Macintosh HD, not inside Macintosh HD.

Here's the worrisome screenshot from OP:
Screen Shot 2020-08-28 at 9.30.39 AM.jpg


Everyone so far seems to think that hiding parent folders will change the name of the volume that I circled in red. If it does, great. But I'm not convinced.

Lightroom has always been able to distinguish between folders and volumes. The real question is why is it unable to do so in this example.
 
Just because macOS mounts all external drives under /Volumes does not mean it is acceptable for Lightroom to list the files on those external drives as being on the Macintosh HD volume..
The Lightroom Folder pane is a reflection of the fiolder Lisa Ted i. Finder. Finder can and often does the same thing. Show parent folder has a purpose and if you use it in an unusual way, toy will expose the Volumes folder.

Microsoft user do not experience this because Windows never exposes the Volumes folder to users and even hides everything behind drive letters. At some level the Volumes are mounted in a sub folder off of the root directory in Windows too. Just hidden from the user. This causes other problems in Lightroom like when Windows abruptly changes drive letters.

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Wow! Thank you Camner! Yes. That "fixed" it.

But I agree with Kimballistic. ISTM that isn't something that needs to be "fixed" in LR because it shouldn't even be there in the first place. I've been using LR with the same structure for 11 years and have never encountered this. And while I see your point about all volumes being children of the computer, the parent shown in LR here, "Macintosh HD," is not the computer. It's the hard drive in the computer. The "computer" is "David's iMac PN7C," and Macintosh HD is just the startup volume. See screenshot for all drives that are connected to "the computer."
 

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Wow! Thank you Camner! Yes. That "fixed" it.

But I agree with Kimballistic. ISTM that isn't something that needs to be "fixed" in LR because it shouldn't even be there in the first place. I've been using LR with the same structure for 11 years and have never encountered this. And while I see your point about all volumes being children of the computer, the parent shown in LR here, "Macintosh HD," is not the computer. It's the hard drive in the computer. The "computer" is "David's iMac PN7C," and Macintosh HD is just the startup volume. See screenshot for all drives that are connected to "the computer."

More correctly, mounted Volumes are subfolders of the Volumes folder which is a sub folder of the “root” folder named “/“. The root folder is the top level folder of the boot volume which is in this case named “Macintosh HD”
This is perfectly understandable if you have ever used UNIX or a Posix compliant operation system. Microsoft’s Windows Operation system is the oddball in the world of operating systems Most of us that grew up with Windows had to learn a different file directory structure when using a Dec, VAX, Unix or related operation system.


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Fair enough.

The key to that being "if you have ever used UNIX or a Posix compliant operation system." I've heard of Unix. Never used it. Never heard of Posix.

This is a consumer product for photographers, this version being specifically designed for users on a Mac platform. You know, the platform that "just works." ISTM I shouldn’t need to know anything at all about Dec, VAX, Unix, Posix, the tax code, Roman coinage, my mother-in-law's bunions...or any other subject completely unrelated to photography and the nuts and bolts of how to use LR. Nuts and bolts that are already very difficult to learn and stay abreast of. We are VERY fortunate that you're here (for which thank you!) or I would probably be planning to spend this weekend reformatting drives that aren't broken and packing my brand new computer that is also not broken to send back to Sunnyvale on warranty.

I'm with Kimballistic. It's a bug. Or if not a bug, definitely not a feature that should exist.

Thank you again everyone for allowing me to spare what's left of my hair from being torn out.
 
Thank you. Definitely a good thing that Adobe knows about it. [Sarcastic emoji needed.]

(And I love that you say "even to the point of writing a KB about it" But not quite yet to the point of fixing it. ;).)

Oh to live in a world where we spend more time avoiding and/or fixing problems than we do explaining them. And I know that not all tech problems even have a fix, but this isn't time travel. It's just a deceptive label. Or so says the guy who admittedly doesn’t grasp what it likely entails.
 
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