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Lightroom Classic CC import problems and anomalies. Help!

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Bathgate

New Member
Joined
Mar 5, 2018
Messages
12
Lightroom Experience
Intermediate
Lightroom Version
6.x
Operating System:MacOS Sierra
Exact Lightroom Version (Help menu > System Info): LR Classic CC release 7.2

Just got back from a photo trip with a few thousand images on SD cards. Been importing and organizing. I work with a file structure that I've used for years with no problems, arranging files into folders and sub-folders with lots of keywords. All was going smoothly but the last few imports, luckily only a handful of images each, haven't worked. LR seems to repeat the import of previous images rather than the new ones. Example -- I try to import 6 new images, select only those I want imported, add my keywords and hit import. LR then starts repeating the images from the or a previous import. Sometimes it overlaps the previous with a few of the new.

With a few thousand left to import, I've got to get this figured out. Any help will be MUCH appreciated.
 
Il you rename files in import, one way to be sure to have a unique file name is to include <ImportNumber> and <FileNumber> in the file name.
 
This may not be your issue, but I just solved a similar problem. I had set a custom import to re-name the files on import. When I tried to import 2 different cards from the same date, that created duplicate files (with the same filename i.e. 20181104-untitled-2.DNG ) that continued to reference the first import. When I looked into the folder, both sets of photos were there with the same filenames, even though in lightroom only the first import was visible.

Here is an example of a test I just ran. 2 different objects photographed on to 2 different SD disks, 4 photos each. SD disks were reformatted before photos. This is on one camera, but the same issue happened on 2 different cameras.

FIrst Import 2018-11-05 at 10.46.46 AM.png


After Import of 1st Set 2018-11-05 at 10.54.56 AM.png


2nd Import 2018-11-05 at 10.57.49 AM.png



2nd import Folder View 2018-11-05 at 10.59.09 AM.png


Screen Shot 2018-11-05 at 11.02.35 AM.png
Screen Shot 2018-11-05 at 11.08.21 AM.png
 
How could two files be in the same folder on disk with the same name?
I saw in the process that the files had the same names, but not the same extensions. It may be that when it got to the point of writing the files with the same names, and the OS file system stopped it, that is what messed up the LR script that runs the import.
 
I think that Tim did not include the file sequence number or something similar in the rename template to give the unique names.

My question is not about lightroom but what's on disk. If there's no unique name, neither Mac nor Windows, so far as I know, will let you have two files of the same name in the same folder. Makes me think I did not understand the question.
 
@Ferguson Seems that they have the same base name but different extensions CR2 vs DNG.

@timpr : Per @Philippe Coudé du Foresto you should consider including something in your rename template that will generate unique names for your files. I think that using the camera generated sequence number is the easiest.

-louie
 
I think that using the camera generated sequence number is the easiest
Unfortunately,it's not a garantee. Usually, the camera counter has 4 digits. When it reaches 9999, the camera restarts it at 1, which mays leads to duplicate file names.
Also, if you use several memory cards, or use a memory card coming from an other camera, depending of the camera settings, the camera can use the next number from the card which might overlap the numbres from the previous card. For exemple, if in card A the counter was left at 665 and you use card B with a counter left at 354, the next file name will have 355 as counter, not 666. Again, this might leads to duplicate file name.
 
Yes I understand that it is not perfect, however, I have found that when using the the full date YYYYMMDD and the camera sequence number in the new name that I rarely have a name conflict. I regularly import from three separate cameras. Only once in the last 10 years have I had two cameras use the same sequences on the same day.

There may be other workflows where this does not work.

-louie
 
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