# Upgraded to OS X El Capitan and Lost Folder/Images in LR CC 2015.3



## Doolinguy99 (Dec 24, 2015)

I'm new to this forum, but hope I can get some help.

I upgraded to El Capitan on my MacbookPro running LR CC 2015.3. When I opened LR, I only show 3198 photos total and my 2015 folder is missing with all of it subfolders and images.

The images and folders are still on my external HD. I can open them from the folders in PS.

I clicked on the exclamation point to locate lost files and it said the file was last found on a hard drive I no longer use and the image has been moved to a new folder.

I think I could manually find each file, but that would take days. I'm hoping there is a better way to locate all of the files on the correct drive. The 2015 folder was never on the old drive its looking for, so that is likely why that folder is missing.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

Happy Holidays,

David


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## clee01l (Dec 24, 2015)

Welcome to the forum.  There is a good possibility that you have opened an old or backup catalog.  
Open LR.  In the menu {File}{Open Recent}, there will be a sub menu listing the recent catalogs that you have opened.   Do any of the ones listed look like they would be your master catalog?  The One with the check mark listed at the top will be the catalog that you currently have open in LR.   This is probably the one that only shows 3198 photos.  
If you provide a screen shot of this list, I can with more information, offer additional suggestions.


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## Doolinguy99 (Dec 24, 2015)

Thank you for the quick reply. 
I ended up adding the missing drives and each folder. I was in the most recent catalog, but the upgrade appears to have lost the drives and each folder.


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## clee01l (Dec 24, 2015)

Doolinguy99 said:


> Thank you for the quick reply.
> I ended up adding the missing drives and each folder. I was in the most recent catalog, but the upgrade appears to have lost the drives and each folder.


The El Capitan update does nothing with the user's data.   Your catalog file(s) was/were unchanged from before the El Capitan upgrade. If your drives are now missing from your catalog, then you do not have the correct catalog.  If your  volume names have changed (unlikely), then the old volume will still be present in the LR Folder panel but showing as missing with a (?) because LR is still looking for the old volume.   If they are not present in the catalog Folder panel and they were before, then you don't have the right catalog file.  I can not say this more simply.

If you have lots of keywords, collections and develop edits applied to these images, they are lost if you re-import.  Re-importing is usually the last choice for recovery because you lose so much when you re import.


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## Johan Elzenga (Dec 25, 2015)

I agree. The only thing a system upgrade does is change the System folder and perhaps a few things in the user Library folder. It does not change anything in your Lightroom catalog nor does is replace or move image files. There is no way a system upgrade can cause Lightroom to lose files or folders. No way, period.

There are two scenarios I can think of. Scenario 1 is that you still have Lightroom 5.x on your hard disk too, and without realizing it you have started that copy (with its older catalog). Scenario 2 is that you at some point made a copy of your catalog and left the old one in your Pictures folder. Now for some reason Lightroom has reverted to that older copy, because that is the one in the default location with the default name. Check your Pictures folder to see if you have more than one Lightroom folder, and if not, check that folder to see if there is more than one catalog file inside.


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## tspear (Dec 26, 2015)

Actually, El Captain changes how some external hardware is mounted. The drive order or volume name may have changed.
So verify the volume name has not been changed....

Tim


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## Johan Elzenga (Dec 26, 2015)

Volume names do not change when you upgrade to El Capitan. This is not Windows...

Maybe the order in which volumes are mounted changes, but that is irrelevant.


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## Victoria Bampton (Dec 26, 2015)

JohanElzenga said:


> Volume names do not change when you upgrade to El Capitan. This is not Windows...



Mount points can occasionally change, usually resulting in a volume name with a -1 on the end in LR.


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## Johan Elzenga (Dec 26, 2015)

As a result of a system upgrade? I've never seem that, but then again my first Macintosh was only a MacPlus...


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## Johan Elzenga (Dec 26, 2015)

BTW, the OP said " When I opened LR, I only show 3198 photos total and my 2015 folder is missing with all of it subfolders and images" and "the images and folders are still on my external hd". That wouldn't happen if the disk with the images was renamed (in that case Lightroom would show the correct numer of images and it would show the folders, but with the dreaded marking that they are missing), so even if a name change _could_ happen as a result of a system upgrade, it still cannot be the cause of this particular problem.


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## tspear (Dec 26, 2015)

Johan,

I had it happen with two machines. 
A MacBook Pro and an iMac. So who knows; only some of the volumes had issues.

Tim


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## Johan Elzenga (Dec 26, 2015)

What happened on two machines? Spontaneous renaming of a disk, or the problem the OP describes? They are not related.


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## Johan Elzenga (Dec 26, 2015)

Victoria Bampton said:


> Mount points can occasionally change, usually resulting in a volume name with a -1 on the end in LR.



Yes, that could happen but that doesn't change the name of the disk itself. What happens is that Lightroom thinks it's a different disk (with the same name). It would also not cause Lightroom to forget the images on the first disk as the OP describes it. It would still show them (but as 'missing').


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## tspear (Dec 27, 2015)

JohanElzenga said:


> What happened on two machines? Spontaneous renaming of a disk, or the problem the OP describes? They are not related.



Not related to the OP Issue. But with multiple external drives, none with names (my stupid mistake), the order they attached was consistent on Yosemite. But under El Capitan; they appear in a random (or at least random to me) order every time the system wakes from sleep or reboots. NONAME NONAME-1 NONAME-2.....

Tim


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## Johan Elzenga (Dec 27, 2015)

That may be inconvenient, but it is totally irrelevant. It's probably due to the fact that these disks don't have a name. Disks with names will always mount their icon in the same place (unless another disk icon is already in the same position), so just give these disks a name again.


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## Hal P Anderson (Feb 27, 2016)

Jack, 

Welcome to the forum.

That won't help the OP. They lost the images out of Lightroom, but the files are still on disk. They don't need to restore the images.


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