# blank thumbnail



## mdgodf (Dec 11, 2017)

Operating System: Windows 10  Pro (updates current) 
Exact Lightroom Version (Help menu > System Info): Lightroom Classic version: 7.0.1 [ 1142117 ]

I noticed today that there is a blank thumbnail and I cant get ride of it. Clicking on it to "show in explorer" results in an error message from lightroom - "An internal error has occurred: ?:0: attempt to index field 'rootfile' (a nil value)". If I try "go to folder in lightroom" nothing happens. I've removed all previews and it made no difference. It also appears under "all Photographs". It appears to be associated with an image I took this month but searching on my system outside lightroom didn't find anything untoward. If I try to do any operations where it's one of the selected images they fail. Any suggestions on what to do welcome! It seems as though it's a "dummy record" in the catalogue. Here's a screen capture showing it in 'all photographs':


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## Victoria Bampton (Dec 12, 2017)

Hi Mark, welcome to the forum!

Yes, I'd agree with your assessment. It could probably be removed directly in the catalog, but that's not officially recommended, so let's try the official path first - do you use Publish Services or Sync? If not, I'd just select all of the other photos and use File menu > Export as Catalog to copy all of the other photos to a new catalog and delete the catalog with the mystery photo.


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## mdgodf (Dec 12, 2017)

Victoria Bampton said:


> Hi Mark, welcome to the forum!
> 
> Yes, I'd agree with your assessment. It could probably be removed directly in the catalog, but that's not officially recommended, so let's try the official path first - do you use Publish Services or Sync? If not, I'd just select all of the other photos and use File menu > Export as Catalog to copy all of the other photos to a new catalog and delete the catalog with the mystery photo.



Thanks for responding Victoria. I tried export as catalog but the offending thumbnail also exported and appeared in the new catalog. Also I do use the publish services (facebook, Instagram and a couple of smumug sites) so would really like to maintain those. What's the not officially recommended solution?
Mark


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## Johan Elzenga (Dec 13, 2017)

mdgodf said:


> I tried export as catalog but the offending thumbnail also exported and appeared in the new catalog.


You must select all the images except the empty thumbnail and then export the selection.


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## mdgodf (Dec 13, 2017)

JohanElzenga said:


> You must select all the images except the empty thumbnail and then export the selection.


Thanks but Id really like to get rid of the thumbnail and preserve my published collections.


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## LouieSherwin (Dec 13, 2017)

I think what Johan is saying select every image in the current catalog except the one with the blank thumbnail then Export as Catalog. This will create a new catalog, preserving all your existing collections and metadata. 

Then use the newly created catalog as your main catalog going forward.

-louie


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## mdgodf (Dec 13, 2017)

LouieSherwin said:


> I think what Johan is saying select every image in the current catalog except the one with the blank thumbnail then Export as Catalog. This will create a new catalog, preserving all your existing collections and metadata.
> 
> Then use the newly created catalog as your main catalog going forward.
> 
> -louie


Thanks I understood that. If you do a catalog export the _*publications*_ do not go with it just collections and metadata. I want the publications preserved.


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## LouieSherwin (Dec 13, 2017)

Sorry I misread your last post. Export catalog does not include any of the Publish Services. There is a plugi Lightroom Voyager that is supposed to provide this. I have looked at in the past but not really tested it. The developer is well regarded in the LR plugin developer community so I presume  that it will work as advertised. There may, however, be limitations that I am not aware of that may affect the usefulness.

I noticed from the web page it is not "officially" supporting  LR Classic. That may or may not be a problem.

Maybe it would be easier to send Victoria a copy of the catalog file and have  on of her database guru's simply fix it. 

Sorry for your pain as I know how frustrating it can be when you tools let you down even with such a minor glitch. 

-louie


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## mdgodf (Dec 13, 2017)

LouieSherwin said:


> Sorry I misread your last post. Export catalog does not include any of the Publish Services. There is a plugi Lightroom Voyager that is supposed to provide this. I have looked at in the past but not really tested it. The developer is well regarded in the LR plugin developer community so I presume  that it will work as advertised. There may, however, be limitations that I am not aware of that may affect the usefulness.
> 
> I noticed from the web page it is not "officially" supporting  LR Classic. That may or may not be a problem.
> 
> ...


Thanks Louie, The Lightroom Voyager looks promising on a quick view of the website - I'll give it a go on a backup version of my catalog. At this point the errant thumbnail is an irritation/ minor glitch as you say. But still, I'd rather it be gone!
Edit: though the database changed  with CC classic, didn't it? So maybe it won't work.


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## mdgodf (Dec 14, 2017)

Yeah! Lightroom Voyager did the trick. It was a little convoluted but eventually got it all to work. Only 2 issues 1) didn't seem to want o migrate my Instagram publish service, but that's not a big deal to me as its' only a handful of photos 2) I have 2 smugmug accounts and LV wouldn't migrate both at the same time but if I ran it once for each account it worked.
No pesky thumbnail..
Thanks for everyone's help


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