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File name associated with another photo in the catalog - HELP!

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tamia

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Help! I was linking images (eliminating !s) and accidentally linked to one with the same filename but very different image. In the early n]days, before I understood renaming files, my camera named them and as a result I have up to 40 files with the same name (yes). In clicking through the list to find the proper one, I accidentally double-clocked and LR 5 linked to the wrong batch of images (example attached). Is there anyway to undo this?? The problem is complicated by my messed up file structure. I seem to have imported the same image a couple of times from different drives when I transferred to hard drives. Ouch!
Can anyone help, please? Screen Shot 2016-05-26 at 11.23.30 AM.png
Screen Shot 2016-05-26 at 11.23.30 AM.png
 
I'm having some trouble understanding.

By "linked" do you mean referenced? you seem to be showing a list of images in a Finder folder, but it's odd in that normally the files can't have the same name (is that OK on a non HFS+ volume?). So what are we looking at here?

Lr can have lots of images with the same name cataloged within it. You can either rename them within Lr, or add other information to the images to distinguish them, like caption, title, keywords, etc.
 
I'm not sure I can be really clear - there's much I don't understand. It would help if I could post a lot of screenshots of my crazy file structure, but I don't want to clutter the forum. Yes, I think you're right, I do mean referenced. I had copied my entire Lightroom setup from a smaller external drive to a larger one. I added many images after that to the larger drive. Then one day I realized there were exclamation marks on many of the images so I started "referencing" them. On one occasion when I was trying to find the right image, I hooked up to an incorrect one (for example, one of the EPV0159 files in the image of my original post) and replaced about 30 images beginning with that file number and running through the successive ones in the incorrect folder. These are images from long ago - I now have a naming convention and am pretty good about keywording when I import. Does that make my problem a bit more understandable?
 
Ah. So you had images in Lr that lost their link, or reference, to external images. Then you re-connected them, but to the wrong image.

I'd suggest you delete the image from Lightroom ONLY. Then re-import it.

A second method, if you have a bunch of info stored for that image, is to "lose" it again. Say IMG1234 points to the wrong IMG1234 in the Finder. Move IMG1234 in the Finder to a new folder. That would cause Lr to give you the "!" and you'd go to reconnect it, but this time reconnect to the correct image.
 
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OK, I think I have it narrowed down to the correct folder - based on images just before and after which are referenced properly. But now LR isn't giving me the question mark or exclamation point to say I have to reconnect. I am finding that with some other missing images also - it tells me "File cannot be found" but there's nothing on which to click to reconnect. Where did that symbol disappear? So maybe the best thing to do would be to delete these images and just take a deep breath and then import the one I now believe it correct and the successive ones.
 
Sorry to keep bugging you - it's only allowing me to reference one image at a time - not a batch of related pictures. What if I try to "synchronize" the particular folder within the Navigator panel. Would that link the whole batch? I really appreciate your help on this!
 
Definitely don't use Synchronize.
Help! I was linking images (eliminating !s) and accidentally linked to one with the same filename but very different image.
Do you have a catalog backup from just before this happened? Restoring the backup and trying again would be the quickest and cleanest solution.

Otherwise, you'd need to temporarily move (in Finder) the "same file but very different image" so that Lightroom sees its record as missing again (back to the ! icon) and then you could link it with the right one.
 
Synchronize might work if you know the particular folder. And it's only a few images. It would open up and ask you to import. But whether this is helpful sort of depends on whether the info in Lr, referenced to a particular image, is valuable to you. That's because reimporting an image through Synchronize might mean starting anew.
 
The most important problem here is that all files have the same name! I wonder how that is possible at all, because MacOS X shouldn't allow this (try renaming a file using the same name as another file in the same folder...). I wonder if the file system isn't screwed up. And because Lightroom uses a path, it too will be totally confused if you try to link it to one of these files. I would place each file in a different folder, and run Disk Utility to verify my disk, before doing anything else in Lightroom.
 
The most important problem here is that all files have the same name! I wonder how that is possible at all, because MacOS X shouldn't allow this (try renaming a file using the same name as another file in the same folder...). I wonder if the file system isn't screwed up. And because Lightroom uses a path, it too will be totally confused if you try to link it to one of these files. I would place each file in a different folder, and run Disk Utility to verify my disk, before doing anything else in Lightroom.
I have a feeling the screenshot showing dozens of files with same name are the result of a search and we're not seeing the column with the path to the file
 
Ah Dave, good catch. If one were to use Finder from that search window to create a new folder with said images, it would automatically give them unique filenames, which might be useful, although Lr would lose them again. But at least they could be reimported and then sorted out from within Lr.
 
Thank you all for your suggestions. It's hundreds of unreferenced images. My basic file structure seems to be quite a mess and I don't know how to clean it up. I think what happened is that many of my images had been downloaded once to an external drive, then that folder had been incorporated into LR, and then that setup had been migrated to another hard drive…so the same file number traces back to various sources. As to why the camera number is the same - that one I can't answer. I am attaching a screen grab of an example -- in this case there are two copies of the image I'm looking for (red arrows) and I think I know how to find out which one is in the the correct folder. But clearly my files are a wreck. Now that I am renaming on import that no longer happens, thank goodness.
I'm also attaching an image of a fraction of my Navigator panel. It's a shambles and I don't even know where to begin - but I'm guessing that's actually the source of a lot of my issues.
Unfortunately I imported some new images AFTER all of this happened the other day - and then deleted them from the SD card, so I'm afraid to go back to an earlier backup.
 

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Ah - I hadn't seen Dave's post earlier. Correct - that's not the path. Does this help? Now, unfortunately all of this mess is on a NEW external drive - no longer the Seagate; so I'm trying to get LR to realize that the files are on the (larger) G-Drive. I'm successful small batches at a time…but there are about 70,000 images.
 

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Let me ask this: what info, besides the images themselves, do you have stored in Lr? did you do lots of virtual copies, image adjustments, keywording, etc? Did you save that metadata to the files? what is your backup?

I ask because if it's that many images and they are too scattered then perhaps you should take Victoria's suggestion of using your backup. Or just reimport and create a sensible folder structure.
 
Lots of key wording and a fair amount of adjustments. Backed up with another external drive but I fear that one has the same issues and it has been disconnected for awhile so it's not current. Don't know about the metadata. I'm really bad at this!
 
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