File Folders and Subfolders

[Potus5]

I am a MAC OS X El Capitan and LRCC 2015 user. I have some images with what appears be be 'odd' directory/folder/subfolder behaviour.

In LR my images all show as being listed in their respective main folders and sub-folders; for example I have a set of images displayed in LR as being lodged on an external hard drive within a directory/folder/subfolder "Drobo Drive Photos/Photos/2012/February/Florida". This folder/subfolder was created on in the directory on the Drobo external HD by me via LR's Library import module when I originally imported the images.

However, when I go into my MAC OS "Finder" application and examine the directory structure for that external HD I find some of the images are not actually lodged in the above folder/subfolder, but rather are listed/displayed as being lodged in the uppermost level of the drive's directory "Drobo Drive Photos". It appears they were deposited at this directory level rather than in the actual folder/subfolder. And when I scroll down in that directory I find only some, but not all, are displayed as being lodged in the folder/subfolder "Photos/2012/February/Florida" - despite LR displaying them as all being lodged within that folder/subfolder.

This odd disconnect is not limited to the one folder/subfolder example above - it is occurring with several hundred images across some 15 folders and several dozen subfolders.

What do you think has caused this disconnect? And what would you suggest I do to correct the problem. The current situation makes it very difficult to move images between folders - trying to locate a particular image to move to another folder means I have to search through an extensive listing of images at the primary directory level.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

Can you post screenshots of what Lightroom shows and what the Finder shows? You may be the victim of what is discussed here regularly, namely that Lightroom is case sensitive and MacOS is not, but usually that manifests itself differently.

 

[rob211]

By "directory" do you mean volume? specifically, the root (lowest level, i.e. not in any other folder) level?

Does it look like this problem: Volumes and drives display as folders in Lightoom

 

[Potus5]

As requested here are a series of snapshots of the directory/folder/sub-folder display in the LR Folders Panel and snapshots of what the MAC Finder is displaying for the similar structure level. You'll note the host of RAW. PSD, etc files listed in the Finder window as being at the top of the Drobo Drive Photography volume, while in the LR's Folder display they are lodged within the respective folders and there are no images lodged at the top of the volume and folder.

 

[rob211]

I'm not sure if it's the photos-at-root problem I linked to above (you see the similarity; did you try that fix?), or a case sensitivity problem.

But note that you have a FOLDER called volumes; normally Lr displays volumes differently. "Volumes" in this case is a folder at the root "/" of your system drive; somehow Lr has been using that. Again, some of this is explained in the help article I linked.

This problem can also arise when there are issues with the naming in paths, since Lr can distinguish "photo folder" from "Photo Folder" while the Mac filesystem treats those as the same. If you search on "case sensitivity" you'll see someone here had similar problems recently.

It should look more like this:



Ernie, Marcus and Ingersoll are all volumes; that's how they should be listed, not as folders.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

Have a look at this: Volumes and drives display as folders in Lightoom

Update: I see this link was already given, but that is definitely what is causing your problem.

 

[Potus5]

Thank you Rob and Johan - it was indeed the issue as per your recommended article. MAC OS had 482 images recorded at the "volumes" level in the directory structure while LR had them lodged in respective folders/sub-folders. Am in the process of reimporting them from the MAC recording into the LR folder structure.