# Merge catalogs before upgrading to Classic, or not?



## Edge of Alaska (Dec 3, 2017)

Operating System: Mac 10.13.1 High Sierra
Exact Lightroom Version (Help menu > System Info): 2015.1 Lr CC

I posted an earlier thread on Nov 25 on merging 2 catalogs that had become separated over the last couple of months.  There was a simple suggestion by, Johan W. Elzenga, which I was going to try soon after.  Meanwhile, I was operating on OS El Capitan and I had a virus scare while shopping that same night.  I called Apple support about it, and they told me to install the new OS High Sierra, as it had some security updates.  So, I did, and things looked to be okay until I tried opening the second of the 2 catalogs after being in the first (default) one.  It closed down Lr, and attempted to open with the other catalog, but would not.  It came up with an error window saying it had quit and gave a relaunch button to try, which doesn't want to re-open. 

So, I'm thinking maybe I should upgrade my Lr to the newest Classic.  So, I have now downloaded it and it is asking to create a new catalog and apply it to the one catalog which does seem to open to (which I want to merge with another catalog).  Once I do this to this catalog, will I be able to merge the other one, (which was made with Lr 2015.1), with this newly updated catalog?  

I'm ready to either push the button to upgrade, choose another catalog, or just quit.  I just don't know if I'll be able to merge an older CC catalog with the new Classic!  I can't open Lr at all until I choose one of the options.

Here are the windows showing where it unexpectedly quit, and where it's ready to upgrade to Classic.  Thanks for any help, as I need to show photos of one of the catalogs later in the day.


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## Johan Elzenga (Dec 3, 2017)

Lightroom Classic needs to upgrade your catalog before it can use it, so just let it do that. It will create an upgraded copy, so your old catalog(s) remain untouched.


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## Edge of Alaska (Dec 3, 2017)

Yes, LR wants to upgrade the one catalog and not the other(s). However, will I be able to still merge the older catalog(s) with this now newly upgraded catalog like I wanted to do prior to the new Mac OS?  Can there be a conflict merging a Lr CC catalog with the newer Lr Classic catalog?


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## Victoria Bampton (Dec 3, 2017)

When you try to Import From Catalog, it'll ask for permission to upgrade the "other" catalog too, so it should be fine.


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## Edge of Alaska (Dec 3, 2017)

My sequence of events for the two catalogs I wish to upgrade to classic, and then finally merge:

In my Lr Backups Folder, I made copies of both Mason’s Pics & of Thxgiving pics catalogs, and saved them in a folder of same name.  I choose the Mason's Pics copy catalog to be upgraded at first during last of initial Classic install.

Opened up new Classic Mason's Pics copy catalog and it opened fine.

Tried opening Thxgiving pics catalog within Lr.  Prompted with the need to have permission to upgrade this catalog to Classic.  Okayed, then it opened Thxgiving pics without problems.

Made a couple of exposure adjustments to a couple of Thxgiving pics.  Closed Lightroom and backed up in catalog in the new folder, “Copies of Thxgiving pics & Mason's Pics/2017-11-25 1635 Thxgiving pics Copy”.  Each new catalog in Thxgiving Pics & Mason's Pics folder now has Lightroom Catalog-2, with the “2” now added.

Opened Lightroom with Thxgiving pics Copy catalog-2.  Clicked on Import from another Catalog, which I chose Mason’s copy Lightroom Catalog-2.  It went through process, showing window of having 857 photos, will not move pics only make virtual copies, then to prompt me to okay this.  I did, and it was going along with status bar progressing then suddenly showed error window, “Lightroom could not import this catalog because of an unknown error.”  Things were going so well up to this point!!




I clicked OK, and it said "No photos from previous import"
Could this be from me renaming these files to something I can keep track of until I get things straight?  Does Lr need it to remain in it's defaulted file naming?


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## Johan Elzenga (Dec 3, 2017)

No, I'm afraid this is more serious. It looks like this catalog was currupted during your earlier crash problem. Do you have a backup of it?


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## Edge of Alaska (Dec 3, 2017)

Yes, in the original Lr CC version.  In the new Classic version, I was able to open both new catalog-2 files separately.


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## Johan Elzenga (Dec 3, 2017)

Renaming files should not give this error. What will happen in that case is that you can still import the catalog, but because the location of the images is unknown (missing), you won't get the option to move the images to a new location on import. And after the import has finished, they should show as missing images. Something else must be wrong, but the error message is not very helpful.


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## Edge of Alaska (Dec 3, 2017)

I'm including a screen shot of my Lr Backups files.  You can see my original files at top "....Thxgiving pics" and below that "...includes Mason's pics...".  Then midway/near bottom are the copies I made and upgraded to Classic.  Might look a little confusing.  I tried to keep things separate in order to try and keep a little more control (at least in my archaic thinking!).  I've since had to make some adjustments to Thxgiving pics, which is shown as the zipped file at bottom at 2:06pm.  Thought there might be something there that may stand out as odd, i.e. size of files, or naming, etc.


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## Johan Elzenga (Dec 3, 2017)

Did you make this screenshot while Lightroom was running? If not, then you should delete any .lock file in these folders. The .lock file is created by Lightroom to stop another application from opening the catalog at the same time, and normally it is deleted on quit. If such a file remains after Lightroom has quit, it means that this quit did not go properly. It may stop Lightroom from opening that catalog the next time, and it may also stop it from importing from such a catalog. There are some other temporary files as well that should have been deleted by Lightroom, such as the -shm and -wal files, but I'm not sure if you can delete these manually. It's better to let Lightroom do that next time it quits.


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## Edge of Alaska (Dec 4, 2017)

I thought these were odd when I saw them.  When I just recently went in to open Thxgiving pics they were there amongst the catalog-2 files.  Each folder also contains the Catalog.lrcat AND Catalog-2.lrcat.  Should I delete the older Catalog.lrcat file in addition to the -shm, -wal, temporary & .lock files?  Would this possibly be the problem on merging?  I'm not sure if these files were in there at that time, however.


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## Johan Elzenga (Dec 4, 2017)

No, there is no reason to delete old catalog files. They do not interfere with the merging process (as long as you don't select the wrong one by mistake).


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## Edge of Alaska (Dec 4, 2017)

I've deleted the shm, wal, temp & lock files, and still have the same problem.  Maybe you can see something here on the merging pop up windows, but sure seems to be something for it not to be able to see the photos from the previous import.  My photos are still there as .DNG's on my external where I keep them.  Any other ideas would be appreciated.  I've already adjusted quite a few photos so far since this has happened, and would hate to start all over by uninstalling OS High Sierra and Classic, not being sure that would do anything anyway.


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## Johan Elzenga (Dec 4, 2017)

I see nothing out of the ordinary. Can you open this catalog in Lightroom? If so, you could try the following. Select all images in All Photographs (or only the ones you want to merge with the other catalog) and then export this as a new catalog. Then try to import this newly exported catalog into the main catalog.


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## Edge of Alaska (Dec 5, 2017)

Johan, I did try this and had "mostly" a big success, thank you!  

However, now I may have another topic related to what I've done during this process.  I've somehow managed to split up my photos on the Lr hierarchy shown in the left panel.  I've always kept my photos on my external HD "Erix 1".  Now, it looks to have most all ~16k of them on my iMac, and only about ~1k on my "Erix 1" hd.  Initially, I had them all coming from "Erix 1" HD.  I have two screen shots together that shows the extent of what it looks like now.  It looks like about 10 different folders to get to my individual photo folders under the current year.  I know it's from what I've done, but I'd like to get all the photos coming from the "Erix 1" external.  I'm unsure of how to move them without creating another mess!  It should come to be: Erix 1/RAW Photos/, then listing 2014-2017 folders/ events for this year.  Instead, it's got all the year's folders under iMac, then just the 2017 folder with only part of the event folders.  Thanks again for getting me at least back on a better track so far!


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## Johan Elzenga (Dec 5, 2017)

You can simply drag & drop folders in the folder panel to move them to where you want. That will physically move those folders, just like doing it in the Finder.


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## Edge of Alaska (Dec 5, 2017)

I did leave one thing out. I look on my external itself and all the photos are actually there like they should be and always have been. I’m just confused following the Lr hierarchy. I don’t think I’m understanding the path I’m looking at there.

By moving folders where I want to in Lr, will they physically be moved, or just that Lr will know where to reference to?


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## Johan Elzenga (Dec 5, 2017)

Yes, they will be physically moved and because you've done it in Lightroom, Lightroom will know that and keep track of it.

However, if the photos are already on that other disk too, then it means you have copies. In that case you can also use a different method, namely let Lightroom know that you want to use the other copies. You can do that as follows. In the Lightroom folder panel, right-click on the 'Raw Photos' folder on your internal disk. In the contextual menu choose 'Update Folder Location' and then in the dialog that follows navigate to the same folder on the external disk. Select it. You will get a message that the folder already exists and do you want to merge them. Merge them and all the images in the 'Raw Photos' folder will now be reconnected to the external disk. Do the same with any other folder that is still listed as located on the internal disk.

When everthing is now listed again as on your external disk, you can delete the copies on the internal disk if you want to.


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