Syncing with LR Classic created empty folders but stored images elsewhere

[Gazumbo]

Lightroom Version Number

Lightroom Classic version: 10.0 [ 202010011851-ef6045e0 ]

Operating System

1. Windows 10

I recently got a new Desktop PC and so I transferred my Catalog from my laptop (which up until now had been my primary Lightroom device). This meant that, along with my main images, it also transferred all the synced images on the laptop. I wanted my new Desktop to be the device that synced via LR Classic (seeing as Adobe only allow one LR Classic installation to sync). I choose a custom location for the synced data and the folder structure of 2020/2020-11-05.

For some reason it has created empty folders (in the correct date structure) for all the images that are to be synced but not actually downloaded the images to these folders. Instead it has used the existing synced images that came inside the Catalog from my laptop and just left the images in this location. This location being randomly named folders. I've attached a screenshot to better explain it.

The top 4 folders are where the synced images are, below are some of the empty folders created when trying to sync to this new Desktop. The only thing in each of these empty folders is a 'LUA' file. I presume I can't delete the folders containing these LUA files? Is there a way to force Lightroom to move the sync images to the location I specified in the Lightroom Sync settings?

 

[Jim Wilde]

Can you back up a little? When you started LrC on the new desktop was it using a copy of the original catalog from the laptop, or a backup copy that you used? What happened when you enabled sync in the desktop catalog? Did you get a message to the effect that "Lightroom is currently synced with Catalog xxxxx, do you wish to switch syncing to this catalog"?

Can you select one of those 4 folders that contain images (use the 21 or 22 image folders), then post a screenshot of the images in the grid?

Leave those folders alone for now, until we figure out what has happened.

 

[Gazumbo]

Can you back up a little? When you started LrC on the new desktop was it using a copy of the original catalog from the laptop, or a backup copy that you used? What happened when you enabled sync in the desktop catalog? Did you get a message to the effect that "Lightroom is currently synced with Catalog xxxxx, do you wish to switch syncing to this catalog"?

Can you select one of those 4 folders that contain images (use the 21 or 22 image folders), then post a screenshot of the images in the grid?

Leave those folders alone for now, until we figure out what has happened.

Hi Jim, thanks for your help.

This is the process of steps I did after installation.

1. File > Import from Catalog (I imported my laptop's catalog - which I had exported using 'Export as Catalog')
2. When I enabled Sync, it did warn me that it was currently synced to another device and I choose to use the new one on the Desktop instead

I've attached the screenshot you requested. The top 2 sync folders are identical aside from an extra virtual copy of an image in the 2nd folder.

 

[Jim Wilde]

The first observation is that those images are NOT synced (not showing the synced icon on the thumbnails), so that begs the question: what are they? Try clicking on the All Synced Photographs collection in the Catalog panel and see if the content meets your expectations, or is there anything unexpected showing in there.

Where are the rest of your photos, as I can't tell from the screenshot? Can you run the Library menu command "Find All Missing Photos", then tell me the total number (an entry will appear in the Catalog panel).

To be honest, I'd not have used that export/import catalog operation if just attempting to move a catalog from one drive to another, I'd have simply copied the old catalog to the new drive and launched it from there. That way the current syncing process would have been retained. It may be possible to start over if we can't figure out what's going on. The empty folders don't really bother me, they likely get created immediately when you enable the sync process before (in your case) Lightroom would have realised that the synced images are already in the catalog....so in theory the photos should be in the same place as they were in the original catalog, which is why I'm curious to know where they are (or where Lightroom thinks they are).

 

[Gazumbo]

The first observation is that those images are NOT synced (not showing the synced icon on the thumbnails), so that begs the question: what are they? Try clicking on the All Synced Photographs collection in the Catalog panel and see if the content meets your expectations, or is there anything unexpected showing in there....

I checked the 'All Synced Photographs' folder (which was empty until I turned on syncing on this PC) and all the photos seem to be there. They have the 'sync' mark on them. If I right click and choose 'Show in Explorer'. They are located in those 4 folders at the top (with the long randomly generated names of numbers and letters). So it seems that Lightroom found those files and found they matched what is in my Synced library and made a sort of symbolic link to save re-downloading all the files and having them duplicated on disk?

I did Library > Find All Missing Photos and none were reported so that's good. In answer to your other question as to where my other files are located. They are stored Photography\Year\Year-Month-Day but have been cobbled together with those empty folders since I enabled sync.

I hadn't realised I could copy a catalog over with simple copy and paste. I'll bare that in the mind for the future.

For now, my main option seems to be..

Delete all sync data, remove those 4 folders from the library (maybe move them off disk so lightroom can't see them) and then start sync from scratch (though i'll have to check all files are there).

Would that work ok, Jim?

 

[Jim Wilde]

Sorry, but I'm still not clear about what the current situation is. Are you saying that the earlier screenshot of the top listed folder was taken before you enabled sync in the catalog, in which case if you take that screenshot again all the images are now showing the sync icon? Looking at that last screenshot, what is the selected source that you are displaying in the grid? I assume that it's All Synced Photographs, is that correct? If so, and you right-click on the first image and choose "Go to Folder in Library", does that open that first folder with the long string of alphanumeric characters as the name?

One other thing, the ASP shows a total of 491 images, but those 4 folders only total 437....so do you know where the other images are?

If you correctly set the download location as yyyy/yyyy-mm-dd, I don't know why all those loose yyyy-mm-dd folders have been generated without a corresponding year folder. Just a thought, if you right-click on the first folder and select "Show Parent Folder", then do the same for the 2019 year folder, how does that effect the display in the Folders Panel? Just trying to figure out where and why those folders sit in the overall folder structure.

In terms of moving forward, there really isn't a way to force a re-sync. If you remove the synced images from the Classic catalog they will be automatically deleted from the cloud, which is NOT what you want to do. For now, verify the Preferences>Lightroom Sync tab is showing the correct location and dated-folder structure, then it becomes a manual process of reorganising the images in those 4 folders into correctly dated folders by dragging and dropping using the Folders Panel in Classic. Before starting that, however, can you just get back to me on the questions I've raised above, as I'm still not certain I fully understand the actual position.

 

[Gazumbo]

Sorry, but I'm still not clear about what the current situation is. Are you saying that the earlier screenshot of the top listed folder was taken before you enabled sync in the catalog, in which case if you take that screenshot again all the images are now showing the sync icon? Looking at that last screenshot, what is the selected source that you are displaying in the grid? I assume that it's All Synced Photographs, is that correct? If so, and you right-click on the first image and choose "Go to Folder in Library", does that open that first folder with the long string of alphanumeric characters as the name?

....

Hi Jim,

The first screenshot was taken after I had enabled sync in the catalog and it was first the first of those 4 folders (that were imported along with the entire catalog). I've just checked the other 3 folders again and realised that most of the photos in those folders have the 'sync' mark on them. The photos that do not have the sync mark in those folders seem to be photos that have a virtual copy. In these cases it has synced the virtual copy but not the original. But that's less of an issue.

The second screenshot is indeed with the 'All Synced Photographs'. Your theory was correct, right clicking on an image and choosing 'Go to folder in Library' does take me to which ever of those 4 folders physically contain the folder. Never the first one, that seems to be just a duplicate but the other 3 are linked to these.

Right clicking the first empty folder for each year and choosing 'show parent folder' has automatically organised them into their respective 'year' folders - thank you. After doing this I noticed that underneath all these empty folders are 3 more folders with randomly generated names. Two of these contain duplicate photos, of which only the second ones have the 'sync' mark.

To answer your question about the discrepancy between the total amount photos. I think that's down to there being some virtual copies of some images and only either the original or the virtual copy has synced, but not both.