# Duplicate Hard Drives are appearing in Lightroom



## lilsalt (Nov 15, 2017)

Operating System:10:11:6

Exact Lightroom Version (Help menu > System Info):Lightroom Classic version: 7.0.1 [ 1142117 ]
I just upgraded a few days ago from Adobe Lightroom 5 - which was running on a Mac Pro.  I had the subscription based Lightroom 2016 running on an identical computer, so I just inserted the harddrive from the one Mac to the other.  Then I upgraded the LR 5 ctalog to LR 2016 subscription.  After that I upgraded it to Lightroom 2017 Classic.  My catalog is ten years old, and I consider myself well versed in the program.  Something strange happens now,  I import a folder into my Lightroom Library.  The path to the file would be: 6TB_LIGHTROOM_LIBRARY/2017/20170900_Irma/20171111_after_irma  The /(slash) indicates a folder.

If I go into finder on my Mac running el Capitan (10.11.6) the folder structure is correct.

I have a harddrive for my backup and it is called 6TB_Lightroom_Library_BU.  Since it is a similar name,  I even ejected that harddrive the second time I attempted to import folders.

See a screen shot of what my Lightroom Classic CC looks like:







The next screen shot is what my hard-drive in the finder looks like:









This is a screenshot of what my Lightroom Classic CC window looks like with the Catalog folders collapsed.







And finally this is what my Preferences show for the catalog location.







As far as I know I am doing everything by the book.



But something is wrong...


I posted this on the adobe forum under the udername carolellis.  I got a response that this was a duplicate folder bug.  They told me to go to this link, and I did.


Jim Wilde always seems to have an answer for this problem. See the forum links below.


https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/lightroom-creates-duplicate-folder- after-ps-edit-or-import-from-d…

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/community/threads/wrong-path-every-time-when-importing.31062/#post-1 210172 









* Carol Ellis * Nov 15, 2017 1:24 PM  (in response to Carol Ellis)


Well, thank you.  I did exactly what Jim Wilde outlined in the links you sent.  The good news is the second Lightroom Library drive disappeared.  Then when I went to  Update folder location, it created a drive again, and this time with all the files from 2017, my destination parent location.



I look inside my finder window for the Lightroom Library, and the files are all where they properly belong.



I tried his steps twice and in both cases it created another drive location in my Lightroom.



Carol



Screenshot is what it looks like now...


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## Victoria Bampton (Nov 17, 2017)

Hi Carol, sorry we missed your thread. Are you up and running now?


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## lilsalt (Nov 17, 2017)

No I am not.


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## lilsalt (Nov 17, 2017)

Victoria Bampton said:


> Hi Carol, sorry we missed your thread. Are you up and running now?


Some glitch happened after I did a migration of my 10 year old LR Library (which I started a long time ago with you guys.)

I had been running Lightroom 5 on my desktop on my Mac Pro (Mid 2012 running 10.8.5).  Everything working fine.  I had an identical Mac Pro (Mid 2012 running el capitan) which was running the subscription based Lightroom CC 2016.  I really didn’t do much with the Mac with the newer LR and OS, however it had more room available so I decided I would migrate my LR5 catalog to Lightroom CC 2016, and then upgrade that to the Lightroom 7 CC Classic.

All looks good.  I then do a super Duper copy of the newly Upgraded catalog (6TB Lightroom Library) to a second internal HD (6TB Lightroom Library BU).

After the super Duper finished, I imported files, and it was weird, the files would go to the proper place on the Harddrive, but in the Lightroom it showed up under a duplicate hard drive named 6 TBLightroom Library.

I was able top process files etc, but they were in the wrong place in Lightroom.

I went online to the Adobe forum and posted a question under Carol Ellis, complete with screen shots.

I received one reply from someone who was talking about “Duplicate Folders” and I did the steps they recommended.

The duplicate hard drive named 6 TB Lightroom Library disappeared.  Great, they when I went to the step where right click on the folder, and Update folder location, the Duplicate Harddrive reappeared.

All the while, the super duper BU drive named 6TB Lightroom Library BU. never showed up in my Lightroom folder structure although was visible on my desktop.


Question:
1. Has this ever happened to you our any of your people?
2. Should I go back to the LR5catalog and then restart the migration process.
3. Could it be something with Super Duper.

One other variable, when I initially inserted a drive for the 6TB Lightroom BU, which was a new 6 TB Western Digital Black (WD6002FZWX), I initialized it with Disc Utility, and after doing that it would not mount.  I then ejected it and plugged it into my MacBook Pro 15” 2017, and I was able to format it and it mounted on the laptop. Since that worked, I reinstalled the drive into the Mac Pro.  It mounted just fine.  I used Super Duper to erase and make a duplicate copy.

I guess that’s all.

I can send screen shots if you need that.


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## Victoria Bampton (Nov 17, 2017)

Yeah, it's an issue we come across regularly. Do you have a link to the forum thread, so just so we can double check the instructions. SuperDuper may be a factor if it continues to happen after it's been fixed, but yes, screenshots would be a great place to start.


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## lilsalt (Nov 17, 2017)

Victoria Bampton said:


> Yeah, it's an issue we come across regularly. Do you have a link to the forum thread, so just so we can double check the instructions. SuperDuper may be a factor if it continues to happen after it's been fixed, but yes, screenshots would be a great place to start.



MY thread:  I import photos to a folder in my Lightroom Lib... | Adobe Community
A link to one of the fixes mentioned in my thread:
Wrong path every time when importing


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## Victoria Bampton (Nov 17, 2017)

Ah good, Jim's instructions are the same I'd have given. When you followed the instructions, did you "lose" both drives, or just one of them?  I think it's screenshot time.


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## lilsalt (Nov 17, 2017)

Victoria Bampton said:


> Ah good, Jim's instructions are the same I'd have given. When you followed the instructions, did you "lose" both drives, or just one of them?  I think it's screenshot time.


I did the process over again, and same results.  I am attaching the screenshots.  I used Jim's folder name as capsfix as in the instructions.


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## Victoria Bampton (Nov 22, 2017)

Sorry lilsalt, haven't forgotten you. I'm having one of those weeks. I will get back to you as soon as I can though!


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## lilsalt (Nov 22, 2017)

I am so grateful you are here to help.  Happy THANKSGIVING


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## Victoria Bampton (Nov 23, 2017)

I've finally managed to get some peace and quiet to think this one through, so a couple more questions. 

In your screenshot-post-before-last, where it shows both 6TB_LIGHTROOM_LIBRARY volumes, I can see the 2017 folder in both of them. Are the same photos in both "versions" of 2017? Or are they different photos? If they're the same photos, is one set edited and the other not? If they're duplicates, we'll to remove (not delete) one copy of them from the LR catalog before we can merge them.


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## lilsalt (Nov 23, 2017)

Victoria Bampton said:


> I've finally managed to get some peace and quiet to think this one through, so a couple more questions.
> 
> In your screenshot-post-before-last, where it shows both 6TB_LIGHTROOM_LIBRARY volumes, I can see the 2017 folder in both of them. Are the same photos in both "versions" of 2017? Or are they different photos? If they're the same photos, is one set edited and the other not? If they're duplicates, we'll to remove (not delete) one copy of them from the LR catalog before we can merge them.[/QUOTE
> 
> ...


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## lilsalt (Nov 23, 2017)




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## Victoria Bampton (Nov 23, 2017)

Enjoy the time with the family and we’ll get this sorted tomorrow


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Victoria Bampton (Nov 24, 2017)

Right, hopefully you're still sleeping off all that lovely grub, but I'll waffle to myself in the meantime! 

I'm borrowing Jim's instructions and tweaking them slightly to hopefully get the right result, as your issue is slightly different to the one in that original thread:

1. Backup your catalog. This is important, as it'll give you an immediate fallback position should the "fix" cause a problem.

2. In the top 6TB_LIGHTROOM_LIBRARY drive (the one with the long list!), right-click on the 1994 folder and choose Show Parent Folder. We want the folders all enclosed in a single parent folder so you don't have to relink one!

3. Create 2 temporary folders on another drive - a USB stick or memory would do, it doesn't need to be a big drive. Call them something like "Fred" and "Mary".

4. Back in Lightroom, in the Folders Panel, right-click on the "6TB_LIGHTROOM_LIBRARY" folder that's now showing in the top volume, and select "Update Folder Location". In the resulting file browser, navigate to and select the "Fred" temporary folder. This should result in that first 6TB_LIGHTROOM_LIBRARY volume disappearing, and now showing under the "Fred" folder on the USB stick. All the sub-folders will show as missing, don't worry about that. 

5. Now do the same with the 2017 folder on the other volume, and update folder location to the Mary temporary folder.

(The aim is to remove all trace of the 6TB_LIGHTROOM_LIBRARY volumes from Lightroom, so if they don't disappear, stop and post screenshots).

6. Now, when all trace of that 6TB_LIGHTROOM_LIBRARY volumes are gone from the Folders Panel, right-click on the "Fred" folder and again select "Update Folder Location". This time navigate to and select the (correct) "6TB_LIGHTROOM_LIBRARY" volume. 

Then right-click on Mary, choose Update Folder Location and navigate to the 2017 folder on the 6TB_LIGHTROOM_LIBRARY drive. You should likely receive a "Merge" warning message (basically telling you that some folders already exist, do you wish to Merge or Cancel). Click on Merge, and you should have everything back as normal, one folder structure.

7. Test importing! 

If anything doesn't look right anywhere along the line, stop and post updated screenshots. I've turned on notifications for this thread, so I'll try to get back to you quickly.


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## lilsalt (Nov 25, 2017)

Victoria Bampton said:


> Right, hopefully you're still sleeping off all that lovely grub, but I'll waffle to myself in the meantime!
> 
> I'm borrowing Jim's instructions and tweaking them slightly to hopefully get the right result, as your issue is slightly different to the one in that original thread:
> 
> ...


Hi...

I came into a roadblock at step number 5.  I am attaching all screenshots leading up to it and the one that which says an internal error has occurred.  Could it be it is looking for another volume that is not there?  Remember I said I had trouble after I did a Lightroom Library Super Duper backup, and that is when the problem started.  Well, I ejected that harddrive and put it in a box since it was showing as a volume named Lightroom Library even though the name was Lightroom Library BU.

Anyway, they are attached the screenshots:


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## Victoria Bampton (Nov 26, 2017)

Hi lilsalt. Ok, I can see what's happening there, but I think it might need a little database tweak for it to work. Easiest way to do it is just before you go to bed tonight, quit Lightroom, zip up just the catalog (the *.lrcat bit) and use www.wetransfer.com to send it to me to [email protected]. Should be daytime here, so I'll try to get it fixed and returned to you by the time you wake up again!


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## lilsalt (Nov 27, 2017)

Victoria Bampton said:


> Hi lilsalt. Ok, I can see what's happening there, but I think it might need a little database tweak for it to work. Easiest way to do it is just before you go to bed tonight, quit Lightroom, zip up just the catalog (the *.lrcat bit) and use www.wetransfer.com to send it to me to [email protected]. Should be daytime here, so I'll try to get it fixed and returned to you by the time you wake up again!


Hi Victoria,

I put my old catalog in a folder called corrupted catalog.  I got unzipped your newly tweaked catalog, and put in my Lightroom Library location.  I opened Lightroom.  Screenshots.  I imported two folders of dng files and they went into a phantom Lightroom Library volume.  As before, the actual raw files are in the proper place in Lightroom Library Harddrive.


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## Victoria Bampton (Nov 27, 2017)

Ok, I've just tweaked something else. New one coming back to you shortly!


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## lilsalt (Nov 27, 2017)

lilsalt said:


> Hi Victoria,
> 
> I put my old catalog in a folder called corrupted catalog.  I got unzipped your newly tweaked catalog, and put in my Lightroom Library location.  I opened Lightroom.  Screenshots.  I imported two folders of dng files and they went into a phantom Lightroom Library volume.  As before, the actual raw files are in the proper place in Lightroom Library Harddrive.
> View attachment 10187 View attachment 10188 View attachment 10189



YES!  All is good hallowed Lightroom Queen!  All imports are going in the right place.  I did a few imports, and did the adding and all good.  I just turned on my plug-in's so now I hope I can get all those Thanksgiving Photos online for proofing...

What is your take on why this happened in the first place.  Did it have to do with my upgrading process? I am so curious.  I always have been a slow adopter of new upgrades, just hoping that all the bugs get caught before I do it.

You are amazing, in that you were really there for me.  Like when you said upload the file when you go to bed, and it will be fixed and ready to go when you wake up!  Who does that?  And those comments you made about Thanksgiving dinner for me on that date...  I am sure you have a different tradition in the UK...  so thoughtful.  So real.

You have given me - this old school kinda gal- a new perspective on how we learn.  

I am so grateful.


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## Victoria Bampton (Nov 27, 2017)

Happy to help! It was a variation of the capitalization issue. In the database, it was called 6TB_Lightroom_Library but macOS was calling it 6TB_LIGHTROOM_LIBRARY. The OS isn't case-sensitive, but LR is, so it thought it was a different drive. It was almost certainly the change of computer, but I don't think it was anything you did.


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