Reconnecting Collections to a new Catalog

[geoffpearman]

Lightroom Version Number

Lightroom Classic Version 11.3

Operating System

1. macOS 12 Monterey

I had a fault with LR Classic in Print Module. When clicking the Page Background colour selector LR closed down. After spending 10 hours at least online with Apple (Who were fantastic) and Adobe (less said the better) we identified the problem as a corrupt Catalog. Adobe created a new .Ircat Catalog with a different name and transfered all my files into it. Solved the faulting problem but created a new one. Now my Collections have become disconnected as they are not linked to the new Catalog.
How do I reconnect my Collections to the parent image in the new Catalog? Any help would be appreciated

 

[Califdan]

Do you know how Adobe created and populated your new catalog? I can think of two methods they may have used.

1) Start with empty catalog and re-import images
2) Start with empty catalog and do an "import from another catalog"
3) Somehow repaired the corrupt catalog

In case one, your new catalog would not have any collections untill you create them by hand. As you used the words "Now my Collections have become disconnected as they are not linked to the new Catalog" implies that your collections are still there in some form which would not be the case for option 1

So, they probably used option 2. which should have brought over your collections with images (depending on the nature and locations of the catalog corruption). Your statement "Now my Collections have become disconnected as they are not linked to the new Catalog" is confusing to me as collections are part of the catalog so I'm not sure what "...not linked to the new catalog" means. Can you please describe what you're seeing when you access your collecitons? Screen shots are very helpful.

 

[geoffpearman]

Thanks for responding. I think they used Option 2.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

Your problem is not disconnected collections (which does not exist), it is missing images. It looks like Adobe or Apple instructed you to create a new user account., Your images were probably moved to the new account but Lightroom is still pointing to the old images. This is how to solve that: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/lightroom-photos-missing-fix/

 

[Johan Elzenga]

How many photos do you really have? It could be that import from another catalog was used (which is the correct method), but then followed by importing the images again from the new location (which should not have been done). That would mean you now have duplicates.

 

[geoffpearman]

Hi Johan
Thanks for your suggestion. You are right the problem is that Collections cant locate the files. That is because the Adobe Technican created a new catalog with a new name, shifted the files in there and now Collections cant locate the files becuase it is looking at the old catalogue that has no files. Does that make sense. It seems that some files have duplicated and triplicated but not all. So now it seems I have 2 new issues, collections not locating the file in catalog and a heap of duplicates. Help!!!!

 

[BobMc]

I am confused, Did you have a backup of the original catalog? If you did, you should have been able to use it without creating a new one.

 

[Califdan]

Looks to me like your "JANS PHOTOS" folder with 35608 photos is the problem. You now have 2 folders with the same name (JANS PHOTOS), one under user ID "Jan" and one under user ID "janpearman". Using Finder, check to see if the photos under "janpearman" are also in the folder under "jan". If so then right click on the version under "janpearman", select "find missing folder" and in the finder popup window select the version under "jan". If not then copy them there and do the same "find missing folder" operation. When you do this you may get a duplicate folder do you want to merge warning. that's OK, go ahead and let it do it.

 

[geoffpearman]

Thanks everyone for your feedback. I have attached a PDF of what Adobe did. I have changed the name in the PDF to a fictitious user.
Adobe are now ignoring me, even worse leaving me hanging on line and not getting back to me on scheduled Call Backs. I no longer trust them. I cant find a way to talk to anyone senior.
If someone could help me it would be appreciated.

 

[Califdan]

In your PDF, What was done, step 3 point 3 is one issue. If Adobe "Imported" (not import from another catalog) then all your prior work in LR was abandoned. But that's not your main issue.

If the Test catalog is the one you gave us a screen shot of, the folder "JANS PHOTOS" under User ID "Janpearman" is not found. You need to right click on that folder in the folders panel and then in the Finder pop up navigate to the JANS PHOTOS under user ID Jan and select it.

I'm sure you'll continue to get help in this forum, but If at some point you feel you need more hands on one-on-one help over the internet through screen sharing, I offer such help as a for fee service. See my web page. (https://www.danhartfordphoto.com/blog/2018/10/lightroom-help).

 

[geoffpearman]

Problem Solved
I decided to try and get some sense from Adobe via a different route. Rather than go via Creative Cloud and get the same teams, I rang the NZ sales number, worked through the menu and ended up with a technician who within 5 minutes found the issue and corrected it. Yes the first technician had botched one step. He should have renamed the folder JANS PHOTOS to JANS PHOTOS NEW. He did that, did an import and everything worked. Suddenly we went from over c120,000 photos showing in LR to the 35000 which she should have had.
Thanks to everyone.

 

[Califdan]

Remember, "Re-importing" loses all your prior edits (unless you had them saved to XMP) and participation of images in collections. Before you do more work in LrC you may want to check on the status of your collections (if you have any) and a sampling of edits you had performed using your previous version of LrC.