Import problem. Lighroom Not Seeing Drives!!

[Scrap]

Hi..

I have an external drive "F" with all my photos and my Lightroom catalogues on. When ever I would import photos from a memory card I would be given the option to choose where I could import/copy my photos to and my external drive "F" was always my choice. No problem

Recently I am having a problem in that Lightroom no longer gives me any choice at all except my C: drive only and my standard folders.. My external drive where I have previously always imported and copied more then 45.''' photos to no longer is available as an option or any other driver for that matter.

This is all that Lighroom offers me now..

[img width=6'' height=594]http://i5'.tinypic.com/donk2e.jpg[/img]

Where have all my other drives gone? Even the "My Computer" link too for that matter? Anyone have any ideas on how to fix this?

More problems...
My Lightroom was set up to back up daily on launch but I have just noticed that I when I try to choose my usual backup location drive "F" again is not even visible any more but Lighroom wants to dump everything in the My Documents folder.

So Lightroom opens my F drive fine and sees all the 45,''' images it also uses the master catalogue which also resides on that same external drive, but It no longer lets me even see it to save import, or backup to this drive.

I tried the backup again just now and Lightrroom now wants to do the back up to drive "E".. I DO NOT EVEN HAVE A DRIVE "E" !!!

 

[clee01l]

The "Browse for File or Folders" Popup that you see when you click on {Choose} is a Windows process that LR calls and uses. So, what you are seeing is controled by the OS. (in your case Windows XP). I see the same dialog Popup, but in mine, I also have {Computer} and {Network} listed below my user folder. I'm guessing that any other program that uses the File Open Dialog from Windows will see the same list that LR does.

Do be awate that Windows can and often does change drive letters on removable drives if you plug them in in a different order. The lightroom catalog is set initailly and if the drive letter changes, it can get 'confused'. Perhaps this is part of what is happening to you.

 

[Scrap]

Thanks for the reply but that makes no sense at all really... All my original files are and were always on drive F... When I open Lightroom room it uses the same catalogue which is on drive F...

Then in the library that it loads I can see my 45,''' photos fine... they are ALL on drive F...

But.. when I try to import from a memory card and copy imaes to that same drive F all of a sudden Lightroom not only cannot even see this drive F but it cannot see my C drive even or "My computer" or anything at all...

And No I have not renamed any drives at all.. Even if I did rename my external drives that can non explain why Lightroom cant even find my computer or the drive where my operating system and Lightroom itself resides.

 

[clee01l]

[quote author=Scrap link=topic=8943.msg6'2'4#msg6'2'4 date=1263749938]
Thanks for the reply but that makes no sense at all really... All my original files are and were always on drive F... When I open Lightroom room it uses the same catalogue which is on drive F...

Then in the library that it loads I can see my 45,''' photos fine... they are ALL on drive F...

But.. when I try to import from a memory card and copy imaes to that same drive F all of a sudden Lightroom not only cannot even see this drive F but it cannot see my C drive even or "My computer" or anything at all...

And No I have not renamed any drives at all.. Even if I did rename my external drives that can non explain why Lightroom cant even find my computer or the drive where my operating system and Lightroom itself resides.
[/quote]OK, since your drive letters have not changed, your are left with one other possibility, your problem is not with LR but with the OS. Remember the Popup dialog is a windows OS dialog and LR just calls it. If the dialog window does not show "My Computer", then you will need to find out what Windows issue is causing this.

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Hi Scrap, welcome to the forum!

Is your profile correct? That looks more like Windows 7 than Windows XP?

It's not a problem I've seen personally, but we had a recent thread which included a possible fix... http://www.lightroomqueen.com/community/index.php?topic=8665.msg59'5'#msg59'5'

And could I suggest you report it to Adobe via the bug report link on the toolbar above, as this is a few times this has cropped up now.

 

[Scrap]

Hi again folks and thank you for your replies.

Sorry yes it's Windows 7..

To simplify things I renamed the F drive to E and disconnected all other external drives. I pointed Lightroom to the new drive E and it successfully opened the catalogue there and sees again my 4' gigs plus of photos with all edits intact. No problem

Normal windows explorer sees it all correctly too as below..

[img width=6'' height=362]http://i5'.tinypic.com/34fidj9.jpg[/img]

Yet the lightroom import dialogue still does not see any of this as in the previous screen shot

I'm not sure if it's a Windows 7 problem as it all worked fine for the last 2 months also in any other program I use my entire computer and all locations are visible and available.. These missing import location and backup choices option has only occurred in the last 2 days.. Very strange.

Perhaps I should re-install Lightroom and see what happens.

 

[clee01l]

Here is how the same dialog looks in my Win7 LR. There is something 'funky' about the dailog that is being displayed. If you notice, Libraries and Homegroup are also missing from your dialog. It is possible that some other program has replaced the Win7 dll with a version of its own and it is this non-standard third party DLL that LR is picking up. I don't off the top of my head remember the name of the file dialog DLL, but if we can get that name, and run a search of your HD, I'll bet we will pick up more than one DLL of the same name.
Are you running 32 bit or 64 bit Win7? I'll try to get the name of the File Dialog DLL and we can try to look for old/multiple copies on your HD. What programs have you installed in the last few days before this problem became apparent? Befor you uninstall LR, I woud uninstall these one by one working backwards from your Uninstall programs applet.

BTW Victoria, Noticing the Aero Windows was a good catch.

 

[Scrap]

I tried the method from the post that Victoria pointed me to...

Very interesting indeed...

I looked at mine and it points to my correct drive E

AgMRUPopupList_AgImportDialog_destinationFolderPath = "s = {\
\"C:\\\\Users\\\\xpirex\\\\Pictures\",\
\"E:\\\\Photographs\\\\2''9\",\

Shall test it now..

Ok I clicked the little black triangle and all it gave me was the option to import to my standard pictures folder on Crive... Sigh..

I guess I'm left with no choice bit to re-install Lightroom from scratch... here goes.

 

[clee01l]

Try looking for comdlg32.dll. See if you have a copy installed in any folder other than the Windows Folder.
In the windows folder, there should be two copies one in \Syatem and one in \SysWOW64 I would be suspect of any other copies of this DLL.

 

[Scrap]

I checked for that file.. and found a single instance in C:\Windows\System32 I'm running 32bit

I reinstalled Lightroom from scratch after bleaching every trace of its existence from my system. It seems to work a lot faster now but that same import problem still exists.

I re-added

\"E:\\\\Photographs\\\\2''9\",\

to the import preferences text file and saved it..

Tested the import process again and am still only offered my standard windows picture folder.

[img width=6'' height=453]http://i5'.tinypic.com/a'9tzt.jpg[/img]

The option to "backup to" is the same.

I then set the option to share my E drive with "EVERYONE" and also added it and all folders within it to my "libraries" and shared them all too. I created a shortcut of this E drive in my documents, placed one on the desktop and also in my standard pictures folder.

Shall test it now..

Ok I clicked the little black triangle and all it gave me was the option to import to my standard pictures folder on Crive

The only way I can now import anything at all into Lightroom is to manually copy a folder of photos onto my external E drive where the rest of my photos live, rename the folder manually in the style Lightroom used to.. then import the photos from this drive selecting the "keep photos in current location" option.

This in the only way I can use Lightroom at all now.

Useless.

 

[pknoot]

Your profile indicates LR 1.' - is that right? Perhaps it's simply no longer compatible with Win 7? Why not upgrade to 2.6? I have that running just fine on Win 7.

 

[Scrap]

No that's wrong I have 2.6 and Win 7

Strange thing is that it has all worked just perfectly for the last 2 months.. I could import from anywhere to anywhere to my hearts content. I have not changed s single think on my system, not installed anything new or altered any security or sharing rights.

I see many others having this same problem too.

Bizarre..

 

[Scrap]

Ok I've fixed mine.

I forgot one small detail. As well as editing the "import from" option I needed to edit the "export to" as well.

The file you need to edit is the Lightroom 2 Preferences text file found here:

C:\Users\your-name\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom\Preferences

Find this line of text and add you external drives and folders then save it as I have done with mine below:

AgMRUPopupList_AgImportDialog_destinationFolderPath = "s = {\
\"E:\\\\Photographs\\\\2''9\",\
\"E:\\\\Photographs\\\\2'1'\",\

Add all your drives and locations that you want. It works now.

This has nothing to do with windows security or or sharing or libraries.

Lightroom used to do this before by itself and give a GUI to all the drives in the export to option and locations the same as Windows explorer does. For some reason this has changed for many users.

Adobe I hope you are listening!!