# 'No photo selected'



## magdat78 (May 5, 2020)

Dears,
I experienced the following issue. Light room does not see any photo in the folders, however the number of photos is listed next to the folder name.
I might have clicked something by mistake. Any guess how to fix this?
Magda


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## Paul McFarlane (May 5, 2020)

Hi Magda and welcome to the forums!

Try Library - Show Photos in Subfolders


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## magdat78 (May 5, 2020)

Thanks for the reply.  
Unfortunately this didn't help.


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## Paul McFarlane (May 5, 2020)

The Filter bar (top) isn't showing - I suspect you have a filter applied that is excluding the photos you have in that folder. Hit backslash (\) to show it, see if that reveals the culprit!


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## magdat78 (May 5, 2020)

Thanks again.
Checked and I don't have any filters set :(


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## Jim Wilde (May 5, 2020)

I suspect it's more of a fundamental Lightroom issue, it seems "stuck" trying to initialise the UI. If Edit>Preferences is working, try turning off the GPU on the Performance Tab. If that achieves nothing, next thing I'd try would be to close Classic, then rename the library previews folder (the folder called "_yourcatalogname_ Previews.lrdata", in the same folder as the catalog file itself) to force Classic to create a new previews folder when next restarted. Does that work, i.e. does Classic initialise OK?

If none of that works, try resetting the Preferences file: How do I reset Lightroom's Preferences? | The Lightroom Queen


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## Johan Elzenga (May 6, 2020)

I have seen this reported a few times. If none of the above suggestions work, you could try the following: create a new catalog and then use 'File - Import from Another Catalog' and import the old catalog. Check the option to leave the photos where they are, so do not move them. After the import has finished you should have a new, identical copy of your catalog (except for any publishing service you may have) and hopefully this new catalog won't show this problem.


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## clee01l (May 6, 2020)

The message "No  Photo Selected" means that you have not selected a photo in the folder to show in Loupe view .   Lightroom should default to the first  image in the folder  but has not.  Toggle the option too Grid view and select a photo before returning to Loupe view. and this should correct the problem.

You can get this message in Loupe view if you go to the Edit menu and choose {Select None}.   Even in this case the Film Strip  shows thumbnails.


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## Gnits (May 6, 2020)

I agree with Cletus..... This scenario can happen frequently and can at first be off-putting.... maybe after some batch process, such as importing images (but it has happened to me in other scenarios that I cannot remember now). The result of the previous process is that no individual item is selected and if you are in Library Loupe mode then Lightroom does not have instructions to look at a particular image.

I have long requested a feature in Lr that it remembers the last image which had the focus in a particular folder and return to that image when one returns to the folder.  (This could be improved by picking the first image in the folder if no image previously had focus.  This would save a lot of time looking for the last image edited in a folder of say 1000 images.  
As Cletus suggests... try toggle to Grid mode, select an image and return to Loupe Mode.

Ps. I am writing a mini app to help me ingest images from an SD card to my laptop when travelling.  I have built the following logic... if there are multiple sd cards attached (ie external drives with DCIM folders, then select the drive with the lowest letter (I am writing this for Windows). It will immediately look for sub folders of the DCIM folder. If multiple sub folders in the DCIM folder then select the most recent. In the most recent folder preselect the first image file (raw and/or jpg).   This logic saves me lots and lots of mouse clicks on a laptop, where I might not always have a mouse and I might be balancing the laptop on my knee so the less times I need to interact with the touchpad the better. The same logic applies (and is more useful) when I get the app to pre-empt what folder I want to copy my card images to.


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## Jim Wilde (May 6, 2020)

clee01l said:


> The message "No  Photo Selected" means that you have not selected a photo in the folder to show in Loupe view .   Lightroom should default to the first  image in the folder  but has not.  Toggle the option too Grid view and select a photo before returning to Loupe view. and this should correct the problem.


In that scenario, the Filmstrip should still be populated with the thumbnails from the selected folder. The fact that none are showing indicates to me that there's a different issue here.


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## clee01l (May 6, 2020)

Jim Wilde said:


> In that scenario, the Filmstrip should still be populated with the thumbnails from the selected folder. The fact that none are showing indicates to me that there's a different issue here.


I don't disagree that there is some Lightroom bug that created this scenario.   I simply offer a work around.      If I go to grid view and choose "Select None" then return to Loupe view, I briefly see this message before Lightroom calls the "pick default" process and populates the Loupe view.


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## Johan Elzenga (May 6, 2020)

I have to agree with Jim, and I cannot easily reproduce this. If I go to Grid View, choose 'Edit - Select None' and then switch to Loupe View, you might think that this 'No photo selected' message would/could appear, but it does not. Lightroom simply selects the first image in the grid and shows that in Loupe view. And the Film Strip should always show the photos in the selected folder.


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## Jim Wilde (May 6, 2020)

The only way to reproduce it, I think, is to *start* in the Loupe view then do Edit>Select None and you should end up with the "No Photo Selected" view....but the Filmstrip is still populated.


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## clee01l (May 6, 2020)

Jim Wilde said:


> The only way to reproduce it, I think, is to *start* in the Loupe view then do Edit>Select None and you should end up with the "No Photo Selected" view....but the Filmstrip is still populated.


I could not reproduce it either without a populated filmstrip. I think it must be a bug and perhaps restricted to Windows


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## Califdan (May 7, 2020)

there was (maybe still is) a bug that in some cases when you switch sources (e.g from a collection to a folder) the "old" source stays highlighted along with the new source.  Perhaps the highlighted folder is not "really" the current source and there is an empty folder or collection that is also highlighted in either the folder or collection or Publish service panels.


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## Makespictures (Jun 16, 2020)

Johan Elzenga said:


> I have seen this reported a few times. If none of the above suggestions work, you could try the following: create a new catalog and then use 'File - Import from Another Catalog' and import the old catalog. Check the option to leave the photos where they are, so do not move them. After the import has finished you should have a new, identical copy of your catalog (except for any publishing service you may have) and hopefully this new catalog won't show this problem.


Thank you!! This solution saved my butt today, this seemed like a less invasive solution than trashing my preferences.


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