How to simplify finding photos in LR

[FrankU]

Lightroom Version Number

6-14

Operating System

1. macOS 10.14 Mojave

My LR library is date based. I just found out that most of my 4000+ image files from 2016 are "missing" and they carry the ! square in grid view. (I can develop them though ... ? ?)
When I click on the ! icon of one picture, a window pops up for the respective date and all the shots of that day are listed there in random order as far as the last digits (= number of that chosen image for that day) appear. I then select ...7 (July) 20 (day) 0056 (number on image) for example, and click and then another window tells me that there are two identical files under that number and I just click ok and that whole day 's (July 20) set of images gets un-!-ed and none are shown as missing. Very tedious ...
The library knows the day and the complete location of the file re camera, name, digits etc when I click on the image's ! icon and LR gives me all image numbers for that day , but LR cannot find the one I clicked on with the ! window, how weird?

Do I have to do that now by hand for every day of 2016 ( and 2015, 2014, 2013 ...) on which I photographed? What about those duplicate images somewhere?

Can I sync one whole year with "itself" somehow?

A related question: when I looked for missing images in the Library mode, I was shown all "missing images " from all folders for all cameras in LR from 2012 on.
[ All my images from 2012 through 2016 from all my cameras during that time are messed up and ! noted as missing; weird.]
I would like to just look at those misses from one year's folder. Can that be done, one year at a time, when looking for missing ! files?

 

[FrankU]

Ok: Here seems to be the problem:

when I uploaded all my files into the LR catalogue in October, it seems that LR used the file addresses (so called 'previous location" from one of the pop up windows) as /users/FU/Box/Pictures/Archive/SA6300/2016/July 2016/July20/file number .
For some reason these erstwhile /Users/FU/Box/Pictures/Archive/ ... files now have the address on the Macintosh HD of Box/Pictures/Archive/... with the same file data following as before, but now with the prefix of just Box/Pictures/Archive/.. . How to wipe out the old /Users/FU/... front part on 20,000 + image files and leave the rest Box/Pictures/Archive/.. . intact ?

How did their designation change internally in LR from /users/FU/... to nothing in front of Box/Archive/...? That is what I wonder about..... Very weird indeed.

How to do this in one fell swoop for 4 years of images?

 

[johnbeardy]

You do so carefully. First, backup the catalogue so that if anything more goes wrong, you can always step back to now.

The key here is the Folders panel. it may be that what you say about the path is simply that you've shown or hidden the parent folder (also right click), so that information may be misleading. Are the folders being shown as missing? If so, right click a parent folder and Find Missing Folder.

 

[George Burrows]

Thank you for the post.

 

[FrankU]

You do so carefully. First, backup the catalogue so that if anything more goes wrong, you can always step back to now.

The key here is the Folders panel. it may be that what you say about the path is simply that you've shown or hidden the parent folder (also right click), so that information may be misleading. Are the folders being shown as missing? If so, right click a parent folder and Find Missing Folder.

Thanks, John. No folders are missing at all, just the files are in the long path with /Users/FU/Box/Pictures/... ... in front of where they actually are at /Box/Pictures/... How to suppress that silly front part of /Users/FU/, that is the question.

As I said i have done it manually and here are the steps described:
First a look at the boundary of non missing pics (without the ! icon to missing set of pics for the subsequent shoot day with ! icons, screenshot 1 attached)
Oh well, the screen shots are too large to attach. Darn ... [I attach a smaller screenshot of the Folders Navigation view at the end.]
If I click on a missing ! image, it tell me that the file is at /Users/FU/...:



Then I click on "Locate" and it finds the images of that day's shoot with the /Users/FU/... path and I click on the respective file number :



Next it tells me that I am 'double dipping' of sorts;




Once I click on ok here, all of that day's pics get free of their ! icon and so it goes on, day by day. TEEEEEDIOUUUUs. And I have no idea how some of the files in /Box/ are located via /Users/FU/Box/... ... in front, and some just via /Box/...


Here is the Folders view and one such non-missing to missing ! files transition place for the next day ...

 

[johnbeardy]

Focus on your double dipping example - U170306002.dng. That message may be an important clue. Go to All Photographs in the Catalog panel, and then in the Library Filter's Text panel see how many files called U170306002.dng are in the catalogue. Which one seems right? Could one of them have been imported in error - eg by using Folder > Synchronize ?

 

[FrankU]

Oh John,

I did as you suggested: there seem to be just single copies of all ! iconed files:



But those all have the silly /Users/FU/ prefixes. 28,000 now left after a day's work to drop those /Users/FU/.. fronts.

 

[FrankU]

Focus on your double dipping example - U170306002.dng. That message may be an important clue. Go to All Photographs in the Catalog panel, and then in the Library Filter's Text panel see how many files called U170306002.dng are in the catalogue. Which one seems right? Could one of them have been imported in error - eg by using Folder > Synchronize ?

View attachment 13557

and no, I did none of "Folder > synchronize"; I do not even know what that might be for ... or mean.

 

[FrankU]

I have found a way to clean up the front /Users/FU/... nonsense one month at a time so that the ! icons disappear and all images can be developed, i.e., are found in Develop e.g., by just looking for one ! file inside its month and clicking Select and ok throughout the process :



Unfortunately this trick does not work for a full year. For it to work month by month you need to have ticked the "for adjacent pictures' pop up window in the options of that window.

How weird that all is ... LR what is going on here?

 

[johnbeardy]

Oh John,
I did as you suggested: there seem to be just single copies of all ! iconed files:
But those all have the silly /Users/FU/ prefixes. 28,000 now left after a day's work to drop those /Users/FU/.. fronts.

So can you right click this file, and Go to Folder in Library. I'd like to see the Folder panel in a screenshot.

 

[FrankU]

Dear John,

I managed to get 20,000 + pics un-missing in about 45 minutes by doing it one month at a time, rather than one day; this went around 365 times faster, didn't it. Year by year did not work.

Anyway here is another screen shot from the Library screen: