Move to New Computer (and New Version) -- Special Problem?

[jclarkw]

Lightroom Version Number

Classic (whatever the current version is)

Operating System

1. Windows 10

I just downloaded LR Classic and plan to move my catalog, photos, etc. from an old Win7 machine running LR 4.1 to a new computer with Windows 10 Pro on which Classic will then be installed. I'm reading through Victoria's excellent booklet on "MOVING TO A NEW COMPUTER," but I already have a question in Chapter 2 about missing photos:

Because of limited disk space on the old computer and my simultaneous desire to archive on more permanent media, I have offloaded most of my (JPEG) photographs onto a series of DVDs. (This ability to catalog offline photos was the main reason I got interested in Lightroom in the first place!) The photos are catalogued to reside on a particular DVD on the DVD drive (D and carry keywords so indicating, so that I can tell when I need to load one of these DVDs. (I went to considerable effort to devise this scheme. This was achieved by importing the photos originally into this file structure, so that they appear to be on D:\Photo DVD nn, etc., in the catalog. When moving them offline, I "update folder location" to point to the DVD drive after burning a set of photos.) In spite of ample disk space on the new computer, I'd still prefer to keep this organization unless it causes problems that I haven't already solved on the old machine.

The result, of course, is that the photos that are stored offline all indicate "missing" in LR 4.1. (I can make them not missing simply by loading the relevant DVD -- no problems operationally in LR4.1 -- but only one DVD at a time.) I have set the new computer so that its DVD drive is also D:. Do I have to worry about this during the move, or should I only worry about locating and fixing any photos that have not yet been moved offline? -- jclarkw

 

[Zenon]

So to understand to shoot in Jpeg, not RAW? I'm only saying is because you said you offloaded most of your Jpegs to DVD's and now LR can't find them. Typically most shoot in RAW and the exported files are in Jpeg which have no connection to the catalogue.

Before proceeding if you are shooting Jpegs they take very little storage space. Even if you shoot Raw storage space is is so inexpensive these days purchase two powered external drives, keep all your files on and back it up to the second drive. Now you have access to all your files all of the time and a happy catalogue. You can back up to DVD's as one more step to protect your files.

When you install LR Classic it will create a new catalogue and merge LR4.1 into it. The end result will be two catalogues, LR4 and LR Classic. LR Classic will work the new catalogue. I'm not sure what will happen when you do this. The catalogue is just a database so it may just do the merge and LR Classic like LR4 will indicate missing. Maybe one of the gurus can answer that.

I would rethink your approach to this. IMO your would be better off to have access to all your files, all of the time. Having them on DVD's defeats the purpose of cataloguing. The next time there is another major upgrade and LR creates a new catalogue the same thing will happen.

 

[Philippe Coudé du Foresto]

In the catalog, the reference to to the original file is the full path ("D:\...". As long as the path hasn't change (and it won't since you've assigned the same letter D to the DVD reader on the new machine), the catalog will reconnect to the files. So nothing to worry in your case.
However, I second Zenon in the remark that using DVD to store photo is no longer the best mean. External hard disks are really cheap now, and can store a lot more than DVD, allowing to have all your photos one one media. Once the media is connected, all your photos are accessible from LR, no longer a need to swap media like with the DVDs.

 

[Paul McFarlane]

When you install LR Classic it will create a new catalogue and merge LR4.1 into it. The end result will be two catalogues, LR4 and LR Classic. LR Classic will work the new catalogue. I'm not sure what will happen when you do this. The catalogue is just a database so it may just do the merge and LR Classic like LR4 will indicate missing. Maybe one of the gurus can answer that.

To clarify, the new catalog (which will be named catalogname-2) is simply a replica of the Lr4 catalog but in the new format for Classic to use (there's a lot more fields in the database now with the added functionality)

Lr has always done this when there was a major update (so from Lr1 to Lr2; Lr2 to Lr3,...)

Lr doesn't delete the old Lr4 catalog, meaning you're safe to do it! Here's a blog that explains:

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/lightroom-upgrade-catalog/

 

[jclarkw]

Thanks very much, Zenon, for your patience in working through this problem with me!

So to understand to shoot in Jpeg, not RAW? I'm only saying is because you said you offloaded most of your Jpegs to DVD's and now LR can't find them. Typically most shoot in RAW and the exported files are in Jpeg which have no connection to the catalogue.

All my cameras are low-end and shoot only in JPEG -- I'm not a professional photographer -- so I'm talking about the original image files here.

Before proceeding if you are shooting Jpegs they take very little storage space. Even if you shoot Raw storage space is is so inexpensive these days purchase two powered external drives, keep all your files on and back it up to the second drive. Now you have access to all your files all of the time and a happy catalogue. You can back up to DVD's as one more step to protect your files.

You are right, of course. This partially offline architecture was developed years ago (LR2) when storage on my PC (actually I use only laptops) was limited. The new machine has two large SSDs -- reputedly more reliable and longer lived than HDs -- with plenty of space, so I could eliminate offline photos if necessary. But I've been burned before by internal drive failures, and that concern would extend to external HDs. I'm not willing to set up some kind of RAID storage bank to eliminate that concern. Probably I'm being overly cautious...

When you install LR Classic it will create a new catalogue and merge LR4.1 into it. The end result will be two catalogues, LR4 and LR Classic. LR Classic will work the new catalogue. I'm not sure what will happen when you do this. The catalogue is just a database so it may just do the merge and LR Classic like LR4 will indicate missing. Maybe one of the gurus can answer that.

I hope so...
Thanks! That's more detail than I had seen so far and very helpful. Do you know if, after the merge, one can just delete the old 4.1 catalog?

I would rethink your approach to this. IMO your would be better off to have access to all your files, all of the time. Having them on DVD's defeats the purpose of cataloguing. The next time there is another major upgrade and LR creates a new catalogue the same thing will happen.

Well, it doesn't quite defeat cataloging: The catalog still works, tells me on which DVD the "missing" photos reside, and brings them online as soon as I insert the DVD. But I take your point.

Meanwhile I have run Library/Find Missing Photos in LR4.1, and it finds only those that have been deliberately moved to DVD, so I don't seem to have other details to worry about. If I decide to bring all the photos online (and I have enough space on my old internal HD to do so -- probably), I should be able to simply copy the root directories of the DVDs over and then tell LR4.1 to "Update Folder Location" before (or even after) moving the whole file structure to the new machine. Sound right?

Maybe I will rethink my offline process in the future, but I guess it can't hurt (except in time wasted) to try installing LR Classic on top of the old catalog as-is and see whether it works the same as at present... -- jclarkw

 

[Zenon]

I’m an hobby photographer and I haven’t shot in Jpeg since 2006. jpeg is a lossy format and I feel I benefit more from RAW files. Then again there are happy jpeg shooters out there. Whatever works.

Yes you can delete your old catalogue. I kept my old LR6 for about a year in another place. There came a point where I wouldn’t go back to LR6. Also the LR Classic Catalogue is not backward compatible so anything added after switching to LR Classic would be lost.

 

[jclarkw]

In the catalog, the reference to to the original file is the full path ("D:\...". As long as the path hasn't change (and it won't since you've assigned the same letter D to the DVD reader on the new machine), the catalog will reconnect to the files. So nothing to worry in your case...

Thanks, Philippe -- That fully answers my question. -- jclarkw

 

[jclarkw]

In the catalog, the reference to to the original file is the full path ("D:\...". As long as the path hasn't change (and it won't since you've assigned the same letter D to the DVD reader on the new machine), the catalog will reconnect to the files. So nothing to worry in your case.
However, I second Zenon in the remark that using DVD to store photo is no longer the best mean. External hard disks are really cheap now, and can store a lot more than DVD, allowing to have all your photos one one media. Once the media is connected, all your photos are accessible from LR, no longer a need to swap media like with the DVDs.

OPS! -- This didn't work out well. Although my offline photos do still appear in the catalog on the new machine, every time I put the corresponding DVD in the D: drive, LR Classic brings up the Import screen and then throws up an annoying message (see attached). I have to click OK on that message AND cancel out of Import before it will recognize the photos on the DVD and operate normally. I guess this is an "improvement" in the new version?
This never did, and still does not, happen in LR4.1 on the old machine, which picks up the photos from the DVD gracefully. Have I done something wrong, or is there a way to turn off this annoying "feature?" -- jclarkw

 

[Philippe Coudé du Foresto]

This is note related to a change in the new version of LR, but instead to the fact you're on a new computer where some system parameters are back to their default value.

1. When the DVD is inserdted, the OS automatically open it. This is controlled by the Windows AutoPlay parameter.
   To change it, go to Settings > Devices > AutoPlay and set it to do nothing
2. When called by the OS, LR opens the import window. But the last time the import was invoked with this catalog (I presume on the old computer), the destination folder was set as specified in the error message. However, this path doesn't exist on the new computer, hence this message in which LR tells you that since this path doesn't exists, it will use the Pictures folder instead.
   You can manually change the destination folder to an existing folder of your choice (and writable !), the message won't appear again the next time your import.

 

[Jim Wilde]

Also check your Preferences>General tab, make sure the option to "Show import dialog when a memory card is detected" is unchecked.

 

[jclarkw]

BTW -- How do I cancel a reply that I've started on this forum. Page back doesn't work, and neither does logging off and on again. The best I could come up with was to delete the contents of the abortive reply and replace it with this! -- jclarkw

 

[jclarkw]

This is note related to a change in the new version of LR, but instead to the fact you're on a new computer where some system parameters are back to their default value.

1. When the DVD is inserdted, the OS automatically open it. This is controlled by the Windows AutoPlay parameter.
   To change it, go to Settings > Devices > AutoPlay and set it to do nothing
2. When called by the OS, LR opens the import window. But the last time the import was invoked with this catalog (I presume on the old computer), the destination folder was set as specified in the error message. However, this path doesn't exist on the new computer, hence this message in which LR tells you that since this path doesn't exists, it will use the Pictures folder instead.
   You can manually change the destination folder to an existing folder of your choice (and writable !), the message won't appear again the next time your import.

Thanks, Philippe -- Your (1) solved both problems. (I had assumed that turning "Use AutoPlay for all media and devices" off would be sufficient, but apparently it isn't.)

For (2) I had already opened Classic a few times on the new computer, so that doesn't explain why that message kept coming up with each new DVD (although now fixed). I also could not find any way to manually change the default catalog folder. Can you point out that setting?

Best Regards -- jclarkw

 

[B Keljohns]

Hi jclarkw, if I understand what is happening, you could try cancelling the import LR suggests and then

1. identify the 'missing' photos
2. pick one and show LR where it is located - LR should then 'find' the other images in the folder
3. do the same for each additional folder.

This should then solve your problem going forward. I have a laptop with an insanely small internal drive so have to use this approach when I move photos off onto an external drive.
Incidentally, as people have noted there are disadvantages with having your photos on DVDs. However, if they are read only then at least they won't be ruined by ransomeware, etc.
Cheers, Bert

 

[Victoria Bampton]

BTW -- How do I cancel a reply that I've started on this forum. Page back doesn't work, and neither does logging off and on again. The best I could come up with was to delete the contents of the abortive reply and replace it with this! -- jclarkw

Just above your draft is a little save button (right of the other icons) and if you click on its arrow, there's a delete draft option.