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Lost iPhone identity

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Ash King

Ash King
Joined
Apr 10, 2018
Messages
20
Location
Faro, Portugal
Lightroom Experience
Intermediate
Lightroom Version
Classic
Lightroom Version Number
8.2.1
Operating System
  1. macOS 10.13 High Sierra
I admit to some overzealous clear out of unwanted photos using my laptop (Lightroom Classic). I don't know what I've done or if the two problems are related.
Firstly I've lost the identity of my iPhone in the folder panel. it is now called 'another lightroom cc device'.
Secondly I've now got a bunch of the dreaded exclamation mark, some of which seem to be clearing of their own accord.
Any ideas please anyone?
Screen Shot 2019-05-04 at 19.02.26.png
 
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It looks like you deleted the Mobile Downloads.lrdata file from Pictures/Lightroom? Do you have a backup of that? Don't just replace the whole thing from your backups, as it's a special package file with multiple weirdly named folders inside.

Once we've got this sorted, you might want to think about setting a custom location for the photos (perhaps along with your normal photo storage) in Preferences > Lightroom Sync tab.
 
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I already re-opened a LRCAT backup from December (I haven't done any develop work since then) and everything seems ok. My "other Lightroom CC devices" are now back to being called iPhones. The only issue that remains are the 300+ photos on my old phone have the dreaded exclamation mark. The photos are still on my phone. is there a way to re-sync the phone?

I'll look at a custom setting for the photos. I'm travelling Europe on a bicycle and relying solely on my iPhone so they are my only photos.

Thanks for the input so far. I definitely won't fiddle in future.
 
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When you click on the exclamation mark, it'll tell you where it's expecting to find those photos. Any idea why they're not in that location?

If those photos originals are still in the cloud, you could download them from the web interface.
 
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Regrettably the originals are not in the cloud or on the phone as I thought.

The thumbnails that I am seeing seem to have enough resolution to keep in digital format for memories sake. Are these the Smart Previews that lightroom creates for mobile transfer?
 
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Ash King said:
The thumbnails that I am seeing seem to have enough resolution to keep in digital format for memories sake. Are these the Smart Previews that lightroom creates for mobile transfer?
Click to expand...
If you're seeing them in the Library, then they'll not be Smart Previews but the ordinary Library previews (which will possibly be higher resolution than Smart Previews). If the images thumbnails have the exclamation mark, rather than a white rectangle, in the top right-hand corner, then there are no Smart Previews, only Library previews.
 
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Hi, yes I see them in Library. How do I remove the exclamation mark? Can I create a folder and move these previews to that folder?
 
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You can't remove the exclamation mark.....because the original image is no longer to be found, LR will always show the exclamation mark (which means the image is missing) until you either find and restore the image to the expected location (which it seems that you can't) or you remove the images from the catalog (but when you do that, the Previews are deleted also).

If you want to "save" the Previews before you remove the references from the catalog, you could use a plug-in such as this: Jeffrey's "Extract Cached Image Previews" Lightroom Plugin
 
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I had success with the plug-in. Thanks for the info.

Still I have a problem and hope I can get some more help. I've got to get to the end of this mission.

In the top left of the LR screen I have a blue statement saying "syncing 2 photos". I've left it for some days hoping that it will clear. The photos that have been synced from my phone came to a stop at the same time as the statement showed up and there is a queue in the phone and in Photo Editor of all the photos I've taken since .
Now I discovered that the queued photos are all in my Pictures folder under Mackintosh HD in Lightroom. I've never used the folder. It was empty to my knowledge. Why are my photos now being directed there? Can I change it back to the iPhone - imported photos in LR? Could it be something to do with my internet connection as its terrible at the moment.

Thanks for any help.
 
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Hi, can anyone help with getting rid of "syncing 2 photos" in the top left of my LR screen. It's been there for many days. I can't see what they are to delete them.

Thanks to anyone who can help.
 
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Hi Ash King,
If you open LR preferences, under lightroom sync tab there is a list of files pending. You can check there which files are causing you trouble.

Sent using Tapatalk
 
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