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"The file ***is offline or missing"

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TBerryhill

New Member
Joined
Jan 22, 2013
Messages
4
Location
North Central Washington, Methow Valley
Lightroom Experience
Beginner
Why do I keep getting this message when I can find the file in My Pictures and Picasa has no trouble finding the files? It will be seemingly random files in a large, single date folder that has other, accessible files in it. It also seems that LR loses access to whole folders that I then have to find and import again. I use Picasa, ViewNX and LR and it seems they do not play well together. I have the trial upgrade to LR 4.3 (from LR 3.6) and though I appreciate its capabilities in Develop, I am disappointed in its Library function which is supposed to be its strength. I realize that it is likely that I am somehow doing something wrong, but I cannot figure out what it might be since it comes up with these memory lapses between sessions when I have not been actively moving or manipulating files. Can anyone point me to some likely causes or cures? Thanks
 
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I think that is not the problem, though I do have a 90GB SSD main drive and two separate 1TB disk drives designated Archive and "Striped". ( My son is a MS IT and set this up for me so I am still feeling my way around.) In order to keep the SSD from getting too full, I move folders (usually one day's photos -5-150 exposures NEF+JPEG) into the Archive drive and I notice that they somehow, without my intervention, also make their way to the "Striped" drive. I think I may be getting into trouble when I edit or delete files in ViewNX or Picasa. (Picasa's approach to viewing and simple editing is very alluring) . I have tried locating the files in the My Pictures folder in Windows and attempting to move those "missing" files into LR, but I find that the Import box will be grayed out and unavailable. Maybe someone could direct me to some of the better videos covering these Library routines rather than attempting to write out a prescription for my particular problem, though I would certainly appreciate a specific fix, too. Thanks for taking the time to reply. Tom
 
It sounds like you are moving these images outside of LR. In LR's catalog it keeps a pointer to the location the image files when they are imported into LR. If you do anything to these files without doing it in LR you confuse LR. If LR think the files are located on the SSD and you moved them to the Archive Drive using the filesystem tools. then LR is lost and throws up the (?).

If you want to use ViewNX or Picasa, you need to call these programs using the "Edit-In" function for external editors. You don't want to use a pixel editor like ViewNX or Picasa on the originals and you certainly don't want to delete these files except through the facility in LR.

If you want to move files, use the Folder panel in LR to make the changes, It will also update the catalog with the new location. 90GB is terribly small for anything but the system and programs. Data (images) need not even be stored there. In LR, you can import and designate the Archive drive as the target for your copied images when they come off of the camera card. It sounds like the Striped drive is the system backup drive and probably something that you need not be touching except to recover files from in an emergency.

FWIW, I have a Nikon and IMO ViewNX is not useful if you have LR. LR can probably do a better job on your NEFs. I don't hold Picasa in very high regard either. I can manage 99.7% of my photo image editing within LR. The things that LR does not handle (HDR, Panorama Stitching, Layers and a few other special photo embellishments), I use Photoshop Express. as I can't really see the need to spend $1000s on Photoshop for the few features it adds to LR.
 
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