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Entire catalog shows files not found

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LRussoPhoto

LRussoPhoto

Active Member
Joined
May 16, 2012
Messages
137
Lightroom Experience
Intermediate
Lightroom Version
Lightroom Version Number
Lightroom classic
Operating System
  1. macOS 10.15 Catalina
So I store my entire Lightroom catalog on a portable drive. This way I can bring the portable drive back and forth from my MacBook to my iMac. The other day I uploaded a new set of images to the portable from my iMac, then took the drive over to my MacBook to do some editing. The next day I went to plug the portable into the iMac, I opened Lightroom and the catalog opened all the filters and files from the entire catalog ad there but it now shows question makes next to every folder and its saying files not found. When I go into finder all the files are still located in the same place on the portable drive even the execution file to open the catalog. If I go back to my MacBook with the portable drive, catalog is totally fine, everything works. I go back to the iMac.....and everything has question marks.
What did I do? Did I unknowingly move a file? When does it show all the folders and files in the right locations but back in Lightroom ut can't find them? It has to be something that got move?
Please help lol
 
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Can I just confirm that both the catalog (the .lrcat file) and all the image files are on the one portable drive, yes? If so, that sounds very strange. A couple of screenshots would help, in the Lightroom Library module a screenshot of the Folders Panel (we don't need the entire set of folders, but do need to see the top of the Folders Panel showing the drive and the top few folders), and can we have that screenshot from both the iMac and the MacBook? A Finder screenshot showing the image files folder structure on the portable drive would also be useful.
 
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Are both computers on the same release level of Mac/OS and LrC?
 
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So, not sure i understand how its fixed, but it is.
To answer some questions, yes both the .lrcat files and all images are on the same drive. Every folder starting with to top most (root) folder on down had ?. I compared both computers and looked at files and all looked the same.
Both computer are on the same version of LR but different os systems. But again all has been working fine for a few years then all the sudden bam, ? on the iMac.
Anyway so what i did was started at the root folder, right clicked show in finder. It pulled up the portable drive but the drive had a red circle with a minus sign, meaning from what ive read, i didnt have permissions to access parts of the drive. So I clicked locate file and navigated to where the root folder was and chose it. I got a pop up saying something to the effect that file already exists and do i want to merge files, I chose yes and that fixed the problem. Again I have no idea what merging the files meant or did but its working correctly now.
If anyone understand what happened id like to know, just curious, lol.
 
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Not a Mac person, but could be an occurrence of capitalization issues in folder names. Like I said, I don't really understand the issue but have read that some Mac OS's are case sensitive on folder names. So, if one OS is case sensitive and the other one isn't when LR says to the OS "Go find folder "all my images" and the OS has it as "All My Images" it won't be found. Again, just a guess and I'm sure people more familiar with Mac's and this particular issue will correct me if I'm mistaken.
 
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Califdan said:
Not a Mac person, but could be an occurrence of capitalization issues in folder names. Like I said, I don't really understand the issue but have read that some Mac OS's are case sensitive on folder names. So, if one OS is case sensitive and the other one isn't when LR says to the OS "Go find folder "all my images" and the OS has it as "All My Images" it won't be found. Again, just a guess and I'm sure people more familiar with Mac's and this particular issue will correct me if I'm mistaken.
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Nope, that is not how it works. MacOS can format a drive as case-sensitive, but then of course that drive will be case-sensitive on each computer you connect it to.
 
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Johan Elzenga said:
Nope, that is not how it works. MacOS can format a drive as case-sensitive, but then of course that drive will be case-sensitive on each computer you connect it to.
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Thanks for the clarification. I just recalled several discussions about case sensitivity in folder/ file names with Mac computers causing people grief and thought it might be relevant.
 
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Califdan said:
Thanks for the clarification. I just recalled several discussions about case sensitivity in folder/ file names with Mac computers causing people grief and thought it might be relevant.
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I don’t recall any of such discussions, but you may be confused with the ‘capitalisation problem’. That problem is not Mac-specific and is the precise opposite. It is caused by the fact that MacOS and Windows are case-insensitive, but Lightroom Classic is case-sensitive.
 
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Capitalization is the same thing as case sensitivity. That is "A" either is treated the same as "a" or it is not.

Windows/10 file/folder names are not case sensitive. If you have a folder called "DAN" and you try to add another under the same parent called "dan" Windows/10 rejects it as a duplicate name. In other words, at the OS level "DAN" = 'dan" in terms of folder and file names.

My understanding is that this is not the case with some (all?) Mac's but not owning one I can't test it.
 
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Califdan said:
Capitalization is the same thing as case sensitivity. That is "A" either is treated the same as "a" or it is not.

Windows/10 file/folder names are not case sensitive. If you have a folder called "DAN" and you try to add another under the same parent called "dan" Windows/10 rejects it as a duplicate name. In other words, at the OS level "DAN" = 'dan" in terms of folder and file names.

My understanding is that this is not the case with some (all?) Mac's but not owning one I can't test it.
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Please read my message again. In MacOS it is exactly the same. MacOS is case-insensitive by default. It does not make a difference between a folder called "DAN" and a folder called "dan" either. But Lightroom does, because Lightroom is case-sensitive. That is what can cause a special Lightroom Classic problem, known as the "capitalization problem". But in this case that does not seem to be the problem. The catalog is on the external disk and so are the images. If the capitalization problem would occur, it should occur on both computers.
 
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