# Greyed out folders



## Loz (Jan 15, 2017)

Hello,  I recently bought Lightroom and imported my catalog from Photoshop Elements. Everything seems to have been imported properly except for all the photos from one year.  All the subfolders from that year are greyed out and have ... at the far right hand side of the folder tree.  If I try to import the photos again, Lightroom has them all listed and greyed out.  If I search for individual photos by filename, I get "no photos match that filter".  I have looked at lots of posts about lost folders but they don't seem to match my problem.  

Thanks, Loz


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## Johan Elzenga (Jan 15, 2017)

It looks like Lightroom has detected duplicates. The photos are dimmed in your import dialog because Lightroom thinks they have already been imported, but apparently not through that same folder. Is it possible that there are indeed copies in another folder somewhere?


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## Loz (Jan 16, 2017)

Hi Johan, I don't think they are copies. It is all photos from an entire year.  I try to be very organised with my file system and rename a photo if I change it.  I can't find more than one copy of the photos if I search on the external hard drive of my photos.  If I search the catalog in PS Elements, the photos are there under the folder which is organised by date.  If I search for an example photo from the year by going to Catalog > All photos, Lightroom finds the photo.  If I then Right click > Go to folder in the library, it takes me to the folder where the photos should be but if I then click on that folder it says 'No photos in the specified folder".  All other years which were imported at the same time seem to be intact.


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## Johan Elzenga (Jan 16, 2017)

H'm, that is indeed strange, but it confirms what I thought: If you can search for these photos in Lightroom, then it means they have been imported already. So the first screenshot is logical: Lightroom refuses to import them again, because that would mean importing copies. 

The only question now is why they don't show in the folder they should be. Can you post a screenshot of what Lightroom shows after you've searched for the photo(s) in 'All Photographs' and when you choose 'Go to Folder in Library'? Does the photo still show in that case? Make sure we can see the entire hierarchy, not just a part of the list of folders!


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## Loz (Jan 16, 2017)

Hi Johan,  attached are the screenshots when searching for a photo that I know is in the catalog in Elements and on my hard drive.  There are two photos with that name, but the first one (orange girl) is in the 2006 folder on my hard drive.  When I click on 'Go to folder  in library', it expands the 2006 directory but you can see every subfolder has ... as the number of photos in it.  I hope you can see enough of the hierarchy.  Clicking on the folder says 'no photos in selected subfolder'.  Thanks Loz


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## Johan Elzenga (Jan 16, 2017)

In your second screenshot, I do not see any selected folder. Technically, that is impossible, so what I suspect is that Lightroom has actually selected another folder, not shown here in the folder panel. Maybe there is another '2016_09_01' folder somewhere lower in the hierarchy? Please scroll down to see if that is the case, because that would explain what is going on here.


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## Loz (Jan 16, 2017)

I have just looked through every subfolder in the LR catalog to try to find if the 2006 folder had been copied anywhere else.  I can't see it.  If I search my external hard drive and Lightroom catalog there is only one version of that folder (or any other 2006 folder that I have searched for).  There isn't a version of it on my computer hard drive.  When I click "go to the folder in library" no folders in any of the catalog get highlighted for 2006 photos like they do when I search for photos from another year.  I am at a complete loss but I am learning to search the catalog in many different ways!


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## Johan Elzenga (Jan 16, 2017)

I wonder if you have a problem with capitalization. That problem comes up from time to time, even though it usually manifests itself differently (people usually see two different folders in Lightroom, but only one folder on the disk). Because your folders are dated, most of them can't have this problem at all, but I noticed that your (empty) '2006' folder is actually called '2006-done' in Lightroom. Can you check on your disk that this folder is indeed called this way, and not '2006-Done' or '2006-DONE' or something like that?


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## Loz (Jan 16, 2017)

Yes it is called 2006-done


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## Jim Wilde (Jan 16, 2017)

JohanElzenga said:


> In your second screenshot, I do not see any selected folder. Technically, that is impossible, so what I suspect is that Lightroom has actually selected another folder, not shown here in the folder panel. Maybe there is another '2016_09_01' folder somewhere lower in the hierarchy? Please scroll down to see if that is the case, because that would explain what is going on here.



If you select All Photographs, then do a filename search as in this case, the results are presented in the grid but no folder is selected (which sort of makes sense if the results contain photos from different folders, again as in this case).

I'm puzzled by the persistent "three dots"....I see that occasionally when starting up Lightroom, whilst it interrogates the hard drives and eventually returns the number of photos per folder. But those three dots don't ever seem to get resolved into an actual number on that 2006-done folder, which would tend to indicate a problem on the hard drive....except that the other folders on the hard drive seem OK. Most odd. Just to satisfy my curiosity, can you do Library>Show Photos in Subfolders then repeat screenshot one and/or three?


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## Johan Elzenga (Jan 16, 2017)

I agree with Jim, there is something odd with that folder. Perhaps you should try this. In Windows Explorer, create a new folder called '2016'. Move all the subfolders of '2016-done' into this new folder. Start Lightroom. You should now see the 'Missing folder' question mark on all the '2016-done' subfolders in Lightroom. Right-click on '2016-done' and choose 'Update Folder Location' from the contextual menu. In the dialog that follows, navigate to the '2016' folder and select it. That should 'reconnect' the missing subfolders, and hopefully Lightroom should now also see the images inside those subfolders.


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## Loz (Jan 17, 2017)

I moved the files as suggested in Explorer.  Attached is the error message I got when I tried to find a missing folder.


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## Loz (Jan 17, 2017)

I realised that I should have tried Jim's suggestion first.  So I moved the photos back to 2006-done.  Now all folders say 'inval..."  and did a file search on All photos.  Then clicked "go to folder in library".  Now it says inval... next to all the 2006-done subfolders which I assume is "Invalid


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## Loz (Jan 17, 2017)

Sorry I accidentally posted it early.  I realised that I should have tried Jim's suggestion first. So I moved the photos back to 2006-done. Now all folders say 'inval..." I get the same error message if I try to locate the folders. Searching for a photo from All photos then clicked "go to folder in library" same as before, except with inval...  I can't get the word to extend out completely but I assume it is Invalid something.


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## Johan Elzenga (Jan 17, 2017)

Loz said:


> I moved the files as suggested in Explorer.  Attached is the error message I got when I tried to find a missing folder.



*I didn't suggest to try to find one of the missing folders!* I suggested you used 'Update Folder Location' on the '2016-done' top folder which was not missing (only its subfolders were missing).

I must admit that I have never seen this error before, but it looks like something is indeed not right with that folder on the disk. Another possibility could be catalog corruption somehow. If I understand you correctly, you have only imported images in the Lightroom catalog so far, nothing else. That makes it relatively easy to first try if a new catalog gives the same error. So create a brand new catalog in Lightroom, import the images again (you could start with the '2016-done' folder!) to see if that generates the same problem or not.


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## Jim Wilde (Jan 17, 2017)

I agree that creating a new catalog and just trying to import that 2016-done folder would be a good idea. If that works I think we should go back to your original suggestion, Johan, i.e. copy all the sub-folders in that 2006-done folder (preferably to a different drive), then try the "Update Folder Location" command.


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## Victoria Bampton (Jan 17, 2017)

JohanElzenga said:


> I must admit that I have never seen this error before, but it looks like something is indeed not right with that folder on the disk. Another possibility could be catalog corruption somehow.



I have seen it, and it's short for invalid. Corruption would be my best guess too.


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## Loz (Jan 18, 2017)

OK sorry I said find the missing folder but I actually tried to Update to folder location.  The top 2006-done parent folder has ... next to it so it is lost somewhere too.  So what I have done is move the folder to my computer hard drive and created a new catalog with that folder only.  The new catalog worked well and all photos and folders could be seen.  Leaving the 2006-done folder there I tried to 'Update the folder location'.  Exactly the same error message, "An internal error has occurred: A source is required to change a folder location".  As I only started using Lightroom last Wednesday I decided to try upgrading my Elements catalog and make a new catalog.  I will only lose the little bit of work I was doing when I was just starting to learn to use it.  I put the 2006-done folder back where it came from, as otherwise it wouldn't work with the Elements catalog and Upgraded the catalog again.  It worked!  All the 2006-done photos are there as are the photos in all other folders, no ...s this time.  Thank-you for your help, I feel I know my way around the Catalog much better now.  Loz


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