my photos are OFFLINE or MISSING !!!!!

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adrian567

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I Woke Up With A Very Bad New

I Turn My Computer On
Connect My External Hard Drive And What......
All My Collections Appear With "?"

"offline Or Missing"

I Have All My Collections In An External Drive As I Don´t Have
A Second One To Backup , Only One.

They´ve Gone !!!!

I Can´t Believe It!!!

Did Someone Else Happen This? Thanks
 
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Is the drive always connected? What OS and LR Version?

Don
 
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Adrian, Welcome to LR Forums, sorry you're having a problem.

1) Can you access the drive and images thru your OS Finder/ Explorer
2) As Don asks, OS? LR Version? External drive type? etc.
 
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thanks for a superquick answer

mac version is OS X 1'.5.2 -2''8-
lightroom version 2

when drive is connected and ligthroom working , I can´t see images trough finder although watching drive´s info I know the images are there because of the size used, and ,in fact, I can see the images in a different computer

hard drive ; Iomega 25' gb.

thanks alot.
 
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Sorry to hear about your problem Adrian. Welcome to the forum!

Take LR out of the situation for a moment - if you can't see the images in Finder, it's an OS level problem.

So which computer CAN you see the image on? Could it be a file permissions problem?

Before you do anything else, do go out and buy another drive or at least write to DVD. Storage is cheap these days, and I'm sure you'd be devastated if you lost all of your photos. Drives do die, so it's not worth taking the chance.

That said, if your other computer can see them ok, it does sound like they're still ok for now.
 
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thanks for your help

thanks a lot for your help , you´re actually very nice !!

I wanto to say sorry for my terrible english

I´m reading the forum more acurately in order to find another person who may had happened my situation, I don´t know WHY it happened to me .
I´m not worryed about missing my photos because I know they´re still there but it took me toons of hours to make my catalog .
about 6''' photos correctly ordered as they´ve been shoot.
by year, month , day etc and I can´t explain why they suddenly apear with an "?" and the text "offline or missing" I think I haven´t done anything wrong and my external drive is dedicated to photos ,only photos, I want to know if it happened to another person . I´ll go on searching, thanks for your help I really apreciatte it.

thanks,adrian.
 
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Don't worry Adrian, we can sort your catalog later. As long as you don't start changing the directory structure outside of Lightroom, we'll be able to link them up again.

Let's just find your photos on that hard drive first! The most important thing right now is to figure out why that computer can't even see that hard drive in Finder.
 
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I'm having the same problem. I was exporting some photos to my email folder, then selected some to make a new catalog and all of a sudden my pics have the question mark. how do I look for them in the finder? I think they are there because the LR catalogue is taking up 11.8 mb (9'' pix). I have them backed up on my ipod but if I restore them from there I'll lose my changes. I downloaded the free demo and then bought LR 2 but just entered the serial #-did not re install using the disc.
 
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Debby, Welcome to LR Forums.

Can you tell us more about exactly what you did. You say Finder, so I guess you're on a Mac.

The catalog, and the image files, are two separate things, in two separate places. It's quite possible that you've moved the actual image files, and the link into LR is broken.
If we can find the files, it's easy enough to fix.
 
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brad, yes, I'm on an Imac using 1'.4. First, I exported some files to a folder for email. after I exported them, I renamed them (outside of LR) about 15 files. Then I created a new collection and moved some files into the collection. then I selected those files and tried to export them to the email folder. and I can't remember what the message was but it said it couldn't be done. then i noticed I couldn't export anything because all the files (9'') had question marks. how do I go about finding the files? debby
 
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Try clicking on the question mark, it should bring up a file browser to navigate to the file. If you haven't moved them or renamed them externally to LR, finding one should trigger a mechanism which identifies them all. If that doesn't do it, let us know.
 
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brad,
when i ask it to locate the image, it just takes me to the hard drive. from there I can go lots of places but I don't know where to look
 
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Debby, that's probably the preview cache folder.

There're three pieces here.

1) The catalog file. "something".lrcat, where something is probably Lightroom 2 Catalog
2) The preview cache folder "something Previews".lrdata
3) The actual original image files, either NEF, CR2, or some other raw type, or JPG, or TIFF. You should have been asked where to import these from, or where to copy these to when you imported the images.

It's the number 3) files we need to find.
 
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I don't think they are here. I searched for cr2 as all the images are raw and only turned up one in my downloads folder. it was emailed to me. so now what? do I need to re=import them from my ipod? should I create a new catalogue? do you know if this is a bug or if I did something to cause it?
debby
 
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You have raw files on your iPod?
How much time and effort do you have invested in editing and adjusting the 'lost' images? If it's not a lot, then yes, it's probably best to create a new catalog and reimport the original raw images. To do that, you can click 'New Catalog ...' on the file menu, which will create a new catalog, and automatically restart LR, or you can hold down cmd/ctrl, while starting LR and it will give you the option of creating a new catalog.

If you have spent a lot of time with the original 'lost' files, there's a chance we can get them back for you, if you have the originals stashed somewhere (iPod?). I'm getting the feeling that you're not a computer power user? Not a problem, but it may take some hand-holding, so let us know.
 
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I solved the problem. I had failed to select a location on my hard drive when I imported my photos-that's why I couldn't find them. I re-imported from my ipod and saved them to the hard drive and everything is fine now. thanks for your help.
 
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Missing or Offline Message

I am using Win XP Pro and I can see the images on the hard drive in Explorer. I can even see them in Lightroom2. But it will not let me edit them, saying they are off line. They are actually on my D Drive which is an internal drive and of course always on. When I try to load them again in LR it says they are already in the catalog. I also have them in a Collection and still I can see them but not edit them and the develop sliders are all grayed out.

I am ready to pull my hair out! Thanks for your help,
Marcia
 
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What version of LR? What kinds of files, raw, jpg, etc?

Do the images have question mark icons on them in Grid view? Are the folders displayed in red, or have question mark icons on them?
 
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Lightroom 2, raw files, no red on the grid view but there is a question mark in the corner of the images in the grid view.

Marcia
 
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mfasy said:
Lightroom 2, raw files, no red on the grid view but there is a question mark in the corner of the images in the grid view.

Marcia
Click to expand...

Hi Marcia, welcome aboard (sorry it's belated) take a moment to fill in your signature so we don't have to ask questions to ascertain your system etc. Thanks.
Now Brad was asking if the folders are in red, form your reply I am not clear about that.
If they are not you can right click a folder and synchronise it, give that a go and let us know please.
 
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Lightroom missing folders are grey, not red in LR2, so we won't worry too much about that.

Marcia, if I haven't already welcomed you, let me add my welcome.

If you click on one of the question marks, it'll ask you where to find the photos now. It most often happens when people have been 'tidying up'. ;)

Here's a bit more blurb: http://www.lightroomqueen.com/lightroomqueen/2'samples/missingphotos2'.pdf
 
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Thanks so much for the welcome. I did add to my signature, hope I did it correctly.

Thank you both for the helpful information. I was able to find the files which were as you thought, misfiled.

I do have one more question, and that is why in my Folders List do I have 2 folders with different photos in them called Local Folder D? I have one of all the other folders.

Thanks again,
 
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Hi Marcia

Signature looks perfect, thank you!

Are you able to do a screenshot of the folders panel? I think you're referring to the volume browser showing the same drive twice, is that right? If so, it sounds like a known 2.' bug which should hopefully be fixed soon. Are the photos in the second copy of the folder all -Edit files?
 
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