# Edited photos missing after catalog retrieval



## ldunne (Jun 29, 2012)

I have this in another post, but have not had any responses... perhaps my issue is in the wrong discussion area.

I had a problem with my "All Photographs" catalog. I did something, and it was lost. I finally retrieved it by going to spotlight and clicking on .lrcat for that catalog. BUT the photos I have edited are showing as missing (with the little "?") If I try to locate, the file only comes up as the version before editing... mostly I have converted to B&W. If I click on another .lrcat file in spotlight, there is one catalog, "Favorites," that has quite a few (but not all) of the photos that are missing. If I click on that catalog, I can see those photos, but then the "All Photographs" catalog is gone.

How can I retrieve the edited photos or AT LEAST get both the "All Photographs" and "Favorites" catalogs?

I have Time Machine... is there a way I can retrieve content of LightRoom with it?

Help will be greatly appreciated.

Laure


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## Victoria Bampton (Jun 30, 2012)

Hi Laure

Sorry, I saw your other post but hadn't had chance to reply yet.  You're always welcome to post back on the thread to 'bump' it if it goes too long without reply.

Why have got 2 catalogs?  Is that intentional, or can we merge them back into a single catalog for simplicity?  Most of the issues we see around here are because people are trying to use the same photos in multiple catalogs, when using Collections or Smart Collections would work far better.


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## ldunne (Jun 30, 2012)

Yes, I have more than one catalog. I have to say I do not intentionally create them. It seems the one catalog that has all my photos in it is just titled "All Photographs." Then there is a Quick Collection, Previous Import, Previous Export as Catalog, and Already in Catalog. It would be great to merge all into the one catalog, but the problem is the missing photos. I obviously need to go back to learn more about catalogs and collections. Meanwhile, though, I am just upset about the missing photos. They are all photos that have been edited. Also, many are published in SmugMug. The folder in Publish Services has the missing photos as missing, although if I go to the site, they are there. Not sure if that has anything to do with the missing photos.

If I click on the "?" to locate the photo, the photo I am trying to locate is not in Finder.

Does it make sense to do a retrieve with Time Machine? 

I am so nervous about deleting photos. I once went to an Apple store to get help organizing my computer and one of the "geniuses" deleted all my photos. They were retrieved, but as if someone threw 5000 photos in the air and then they landed in my computer in no order whatsoever. It was a nightmare.

Laure


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## Victoria Bampton (Jul 1, 2012)

Oh dear, throwing them all in the air could explain why Lightroom can't find them!!!

Yes, restore the PHOTOS using Time Machine, but not the catalog.  Hopefully TM will put the photos back where they were before, in which case the question marks should disappear automatically.

With regard to your 'All Photographs' catalog, do you mean that you're not actually opening 2 separate catalogs by going to File > Open Catalog?  Where are you seeing the Favorites catalog you mentioned?

I think at some stage we might need a few screenshots to see exactly what you're looking at.


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## Hal P Anderson (Jul 1, 2012)

Laure,

Those things that you called catalogues (All Photographs, Quick Collection, etc.) are not catalogues, they are "special" collections within a catalogue. The catalogue is a data base file that keeps all the information about a set of images.



You might want to ground yourself better in how Lightroom works by watching some of Adobe's introductory videos:

http://tv.adobe.com/show/learn-lightroom-4/

We can help you better if we are all speaking the same language.

Hal


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## ldunne (Jul 2, 2012)

Victoria,

The "throwing them in the air" was something that happened a couple of years ago. I just referred to it since I am so nervous about something going wrong again.

I Finder there is a Picture category. Is that what I should restore in Time Machine?

 This is what I see in terms of the Catalog section and the beginning of my folders. One of the FOLDERS is Favorites... sorry, I meant folder. If I go to file > Open Catalog, it opens All Photographs, but there are missing files. The missing files are what I hope to retrieve from Time Machine but want to be sure that is the right thing to do.

I am going away tomorrow for a few days so will have to get back to this on Thursday evening. I think you are right about showing you some screen saves and will do that then. 

Meanwhile, many thanks. Will connect again on Thursday and make sure I should restore "Pictures" from Time Machine then go on from there.


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## ldunne (Jul 2, 2012)

Hal, I just responded to Victoria in this thread and included a couple of screen shots. You are correct; I am misusing terminology and should go back to some tutorials to understand things better. It is so important right now to just get the missing files back. I worry so that I will do something that will delete them! Once I have peace of mind that the missing files are found, I can concentrate on grounding myself with some of the videos.

As I said to Victoria, I will be away until Thursday, so hope to see what both of you say about Time Machine... if it will retrieve those files. I just don't want to do something that will make this a worse mess. Also, it would be great to know what I did that caused this in the first place!

Until Thursday (possibly Friday),

Best,
Laure


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## Victoria Bampton (Jul 2, 2012)

If you click on a question mark on a thumbnail, it will tell you where it thinks the photo should be.  Then go to that location using Time Machine and check if the photo's there - if it is, you can restore it.


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## ldunne (Jul 3, 2012)

I will give that a go when I return. THANKS!

Do you have any idea what I did to cause this problem?

Laure


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## Victoria Bampton (Jul 3, 2012)

I would assume that you've (unintentionally) moved them using Finder or other software.  You might get a few clues from looking at the Time Machine date when they disappeared, to see if you can remember what you were doing that day.


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## ldunne (Jul 5, 2012)

Victoria, I am restoring from Time Machine, but it doesn't seem to be restoring. It says I have 20,870 items but it has been going for about a half hour and there is no change to the numbers: 

I am not sure if the edited photos will be restored, but the photos themselves were in Finder. I will wait and see.

Is it simply that there are so many items restoring (my "Pictures" file) that the number isn't changing YET? 

Should I have restored every folder separately???

This is another addition: This is what I get now. So how do I answer this? And what can I do next? Is there any way to just copy the contents of Lightroom?

Addition 2: I restored from Time Machine and the photos are in a mess. Nothing is in folders. I am beside myself and do not know how to get the edited photos at all, or how to even organize the photos that I do retrieve. It is a major, major mess. Should I restore my entire hard drive? I am at a loss. I don't understand why, if I backed everything up on a Time Machine, that it doesn't retrieve it in the same folders, etc. Lightroom was basically empty, and when I imported "Pictures," it imported them in no order whatsoever. Plus no edited photos were retrieved. 


Laure


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## Victoria Bampton (Jul 6, 2012)

I think we're going to need a lot more screenshots Laure.

Let's see a screenshot of your Lightroom folders panel (expanded so I can see the contents).

And also a screenshot of the Pictures folder in Finder, again expanded to see the contents.

And a screenshot of what Time Machine thinks is in the Pictures folder.

And finally, tell us more about 'the mess' and also LR's tidy version.


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## ldunne (Jul 6, 2012)

First, my folders panel in LR... after restoring from Time capsule, it is empty.

My picture file in Finder after restoring from Time Machine:  This shows up if I click Import on TM.

What shows in Time Machine in my Picture file: Oops, unable to do a screen save in Time Machine, but there are over 1000 items... I have a lot of single photos that I am afraid to delete, but there are MANY more folders... I would say about 50 folders and sub-folders of those . I did not have that many in Lightroom. I did have a lot of folders with sub-folders in LR but did not import all from my Picture file in Finder since Finder included a lot from when I used iPhoto. 

There isn't quite the mess there was yesterday. I tried restoring folders and that just made the mess. At the same time, I think I was not very "tidy" when working in Lightroom and had some copies and then other files in more than one folder, etc. Also, I realized in this process than I used a / in some naming. When I corrected the name, the photo came back. But now, as you see there is nothing in LR... even after restoring from TM.

When I restored the Pictures folder, the photos came into LR in a mess, that is in no order whatsoever. Files were all mixed together. 

Also, I don't think any developing data for photos is anywhere. I convert a lot into B&W and even when I restored that messed up picture file, I could not even find photos in color that I had converted to B&W.

I talked to Apple when this started. They said I can restore my Hard Drive. What do you think of that idea?

Thanks for all you help on this issue. I sure hope we can get everything back in order!

Laure


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## missingelement (Jul 7, 2012)

Okay, so I am going to take a stab at this one mainly because I can't sleep tonight, I enjoy trying to solve those "tricky problems" and also I get to use the phrase "go back in time".  

I have read through all of your posts dating back to 6/25 and have pieced together some conclusions based upon the information you have given and your screen shots. It would appear that you have gotten yourself into quite the pickle.  I am taking a wild stab in the dark, so please correct me if I am wrong in any of my assumptions but I believe you have made some slight misunderstandings about how lightroom works and certain terminology.  I believe this to be at the root of your original problem and it only has confused you from then on. I can understand that you are frustrated and don't know what to do, but please read this whole post before trying anything, and take screen shots every step of the way while attempting it.  

So here we go....

*Errors/Misunderstandings* :


*1) *You are exporting files as catalogs instead of adding them to collections (you were mistaken, thinking that "catalogs" are "collections" and instead of adding them to a collection you exported them as catalogs) Also at this time I believe you were renaming your files upon export with illegal characters.


*2)* You used illegal characters in file names mainly "/" _perhaps in the future use "-" instead._ I believe you then renamed the illegal files in finder and tried to redirect lightroom to the new names.  _(What did you do when you tried to rename them? And did how did you rename them?)_


*3) *On 6/26 you accidentally created a new catalog and lost your original (perhaps thinking you were creating a new collection or trying to locate the renamed files in finder)


*4)* On 6/26 thinking you lost your catalog, you went into spotlight to try and locate your original catalog. But instead you found a backup copy of your working catalog and assumed that it was your original, not seeing your edits/collections and also noticing that the files had a "?" makes me think this.


*5)* On 7/5 you tried to restore photos from time machine and got the error as displayed in your 7/5 screen shot.  I believe this because your hard drive is formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Do not worry this is common, most OSX drive are formatted this way. I'm assuming that you never were able to successfully *go back in time* (maybe you didn't have your flux capacitor handy) and restore your "Pictures" folder, which you never needed to do in the first place.  You then imported all your photos into your newly created lightroom catalog and they were a "mess".  This is because (I'm guessing) you were not in your original catalog and didn't have all your collections.


*Concusion:* Ever since 6/26 you have never actually found your original catalog only a backup copy which could not locate your files, perhaps due to renaming while working on/exporting the files. Everything else you have done since then has only resulted in more frustration because you never found the original catalog and only loaded a backup copy.


*Solution:* What you need to do is find that original catalog that you had a screen shot of on 6/25 titled "Lightroom 3 Catalog.lrcat" and that should restore everything to the way you remember.  


Now it would appear that you have been bouncing between two different catalogs one being your accidentally created new catalog and your backup copy. Now I don't know how many different catalogs you may have tried while looking through spotlight.  So there are a couple options that I can suggest for you to try and find that original catalog. I've listed 2 here but there is one more that is a little more involved, I'm hoping that one of these two can fix the problem.   


*Option 1 *- I believe the catalog you are looking for may be found in your pictures folder in finder.  It is in the folder labeled "Lightroom".  This is the default location for the catalog, which I'm assuming you didn't change as seen by your screen shot on 7/6.  In that folder you should see a lightroom catalog named "Lightroom 3 Catalog.lrcat" Open this and it (cross your fingers) should be the right one.  (Before you double click on this catalog if you could take a screen shot like the image below so we can seen the information in finder i.e date created and last date opened, just incase I am wrong and we need to figure this out further.)



*Option 2 *- In spotlight, search for "Lightroom 3 Catalog.lrcat" when your search results show up click on the show all in finder option at the top.  Then in the top menu go to View>Arrange By>Date last modified as shown in screen shot below. 



Find the catalog that was last opened on 6/25, which is what I believe to be the catalog you are looking for.  Open that catalog and everything should be as you remember.  If it is not, perhaps you actually opened it after that date. So open other listed catalogs after that date.  _I can be certain that you used this catalog on that date, but not after, so open each one following that date as I cannot be sure on how many copies you may have floating around.  _


Hopefully one of these options helps you locate your original catalog, which you then might run into your original problem of the files missing due to illegal characters. Please take as screen shots every step of the way by using the "Command+Shift+3" option so that we can see your whole screen. This is just to help in the future incase these options do not solve your problems, the more we can see the better.

Okay, that's it.  Sorry for the super long post.


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## ldunne (Jul 7, 2012)

Her is the screen shot for Option 1. Should I do this before attempting Option 2?

Yes, you are right. I have not been consistent in naming, etc., etc. as your 1-5 assumptions assumed. I don't think, though, that I exported "Catalogs." Not sure how I would have done that. In any case, I need to re-learn and go back to square one in terms of learning Lightroom... I will first hope your solutions work! THANK YOU so much for taking the time to read and figure out what I have done. 

Please let me know if my screen shot is what you expected and if I should attempt Option 1 before Option 2. If you would like to walk me through this at any point, I am not averse to sending you my phone number.

Laure

I figured I could go to the first part of Option 2 without a problem. Here is the screen shot. It looks like I only have one .lrcat.

The other day, I know I had many catalogs listed when I went to .lrcat... probably lots of copies. Unfortunately (?) I also talked to someone at Apple who had me do a couple of things. Not sure they were good things. I honestly can't remember.


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## missingelement (Jul 7, 2012)

I believe you are exporting as catalogs because of the one screen shot you sent on 7/1 of your master catalog.  As seen below (slightly modified)


So it looks like Option 1 is yet another catalog that you created.  So that's not going to be the right one, guess we are not that lucky...

Lets go with Option 2 for now, Your going to have to make some slight modifications to your search. I have modified your screen shot to help you visually.



Green Arrow : Make sure this says "Lightroom 3 Catalog.lrcat" currently it says "Lightroom 3 Ca"
Red Arrow: Click here to narrow down your search to just file names
Blue Arrow: Right click here to bring down a menu as seen below and click on the "Date Modified option"


Take another screen shot and send it over.  I'm leaving for the beach for the day, going to be hot (104!) so I'll be around for another hour or so.


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## ldunne (Jul 7, 2012)

When I click on "Show All<
I only get this  If I just start Lightroom, I get a huge long list that does include these: 

When I go to "Arrage by," I get this 

Enjoy the beach! It is hot here too, but I don't think quite up to 104!!! We can continue later. THANKS again!


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## missingelement (Jul 7, 2012)

What was your search in the first screen shot? Can you do the whole screen again?
In the second on, you are seeing a lot of DMGs, these are your lightroom installation files, not catalogs.


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## ldunne (Jul 7, 2012)

When I went to spotlight, I entered Lightroom 3 Catalog.lrcat 

When I do that, I get  and this 


If I select Show All, I get this  with more pages:
 and this added


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## Victoria Bampton (Jul 7, 2012)

missingelement, it looks like you're doing a great job here, so I won't confuse things.  Just shout if you need a hand.


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## ldunne (Jul 8, 2012)

Hi, I thought I would send a screen save of my Library screen (most of it). Up to CA Sunsets, the photos are all there and OK, I think. Also, in SmugMug, the photos are there. In that "folder," all the photos are there too but have "?" on all. 


Also, In CA Sunsets I have MANY photos that belong in other folders.


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## ldunne (Jul 10, 2012)

Hi, again.

Is there any possibility you can help me finish getting the rest of the photos into the folders? We came so close. All the photos are in the new Pictures Restore folder in Finder, but only some come into Lightroom with the last copying we did.

I did try clicking on one photo to locate and then see if it would go into the folder as "found," When I do that, I create another folder that pops up at the top of all folders, but I think it then contains all the photos.

I just want to be sure what I am doing is OK. If you do not have any time, I TOTALLY understand. You have already spent a lot of time on this! Please let me know so I can perhaps see if Victoria can help me.

Thanks again.

Laure


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## Hal P Anderson (Jul 10, 2012)

Laure,

Yes, when you tell LR to find one image, it will find all nearby missing images and add them as well. That folder being added to the folders list is perfectly normal.

Now, don't go moving your images around unless you use Lightroom to do it. 

Hal


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## ldunne (Jul 10, 2012)

Hi, Hal, Thanks.

When I click on a folder in LR and all the photos have "?" on them, I click on one to locate, locate the photo in Finder, and just click on it... is that OK? 

Also, it seems there are some folders that, in Finder, contain several other folders and photos other than the ones I had in the Lightroom folder. Here are screen shots showing what I mean


(The selected photo is "Two 'Shrooms")
I am not sure if I should click on the "Two 'Shrooms" file... that whole Favorites folder seems to be a mess.

I am sure the reason for the mess is because I have copied and have not done all of my exporting, etc. correctly. I thought I followed the directions (the Lightroom video tutorials), but I must be doing many things wrong.

I still have no idea what I did to create this problem!

For future: If I am editing a photo, should I first create a copy and edit the copy? Is that part of my problem? I also put some photos in more than one folder... For instance: a photo is in "Pictures" where all photo data is, then I move some photos into a folder. Once I edit a photo, I may put it into a folder such as Favorites. When I have so many photos in folders and edit some, I do want to get the ones I want together. Should that be in Collections instead of another folder?

Laure


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## missingelement (Jul 11, 2012)

Can you post a screen shot of the recovered photos folder that we made? I want to see if they all came back or if it stopped halfway.


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## ldunne (Jun 29, 2012)

I have this in another post, but have not had any responses... perhaps my issue is in the wrong discussion area.

I had a problem with my "All Photographs" catalog. I did something, and it was lost. I finally retrieved it by going to spotlight and clicking on .lrcat for that catalog. BUT the photos I have edited are showing as missing (with the little "?") If I try to locate, the file only comes up as the version before editing... mostly I have converted to B&W. If I click on another .lrcat file in spotlight, there is one catalog, "Favorites," that has quite a few (but not all) of the photos that are missing. If I click on that catalog, I can see those photos, but then the "All Photographs" catalog is gone.

How can I retrieve the edited photos or AT LEAST get both the "All Photographs" and "Favorites" catalogs?

I have Time Machine... is there a way I can retrieve content of LightRoom with it?

Help will be greatly appreciated.

Laure


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## ldunne (Jul 11, 2012)

Hi,

Hope you enjoyed the beach over the weekend! 

I so appreciate your help. I am not sure what you mean, but it looks like all photos are in the "pictures restored" folder we created. Here is a screen shot, but I am not sure this is what you are asking for:


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## missingelement (Jul 12, 2012)

Yup, Looks like they are all there, it's a simple step from here and should only take 2 mins.  Are you going to be around later?  Send me a text when your available and we can get this all back in working order for you!


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## ldunne (Jul 12, 2012)

Was out all evening. I will be here tomorrow evening... all evening long... if that will work for you. Thanks, again.

Laure


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## missingelement (Jul 13, 2012)

Okay so it seems like we keep missing each other so I'm going to try and explain how to fix your problem.  Open up your catalog and go to library mode.  On the left panel you will see your folders.  Right click on the parent folder(The top most folder)


You will get a menu, you want to click on update folder location.


Find the restored photo folder that we created from time machine (Inside the "restored pictures" folder), and click on the pictures folder (This should be the same name as the folder you right clicked on in lightroom) 


And that should be it!  You should have everything back to working order.

Let me know if you have any problems!


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## Jim Wilde (Jul 13, 2012)

Hi, I don't want to interfere here, but thought I'd better mention that "Update Folder Location" is not an option when a folder is "missing". IIRC, the only options are likely to be "Find Missing Folder" or "Remove". Using the former (Find Missing Folder) will, however, work in the same way as "Update Folder Location".

Just thought I'd mention it to avoid any confusion.


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## ldunne (Jul 13, 2012)

Hi, I just saw your reply and will go forward with your suggestions. 

I am wondering, though, if I should delete the long lists that are not in folders in Finder. I think all of the files shown are in other folders, but I have not deleted them because I don't want them to be deleted from all locations.

ok. I will now follow your directions and send another note when I finish.

Do you have any idea what I did to cause this? Also, what about the note from Moderator?

And lastly, I feel I have files in too many folders... should I be putting the selected files in collections? Would that help?

Another note added: The top-most folder is a small folder... one of the ones that popped up when I located (I think I described that in a note below, see July 10). So, I assume I go to "Pictures," which is the folder with all photos? Here is what I am talking about:


New note: This is what I get when I double click on "Pictures" in the "Pictures restore" folder: 

One more note Saturday 2:35 - I just tried to download photos from my photo card. It is doing really strange things. It picks and chooses several photos to download. Some from one day of shooting and some from another. Then, If I take out the card and re-insert it to download, it chooses other photos. Now I am totally confused about what I am doing wrong. 

Laure


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## missingelement (Jul 17, 2012)

Hi Laure,

So to answer some of your questions, I have no idea what you did to cause all of this.. I've been scratching my head the whole time trying to figure it out. What the moderator was saying is the same thing if lightroom couldn't find your pictures folder, but since it thinks that it has the right folder it's "update folder location"

I think you have too many folders as well, but let's concentrate on one problem at a time.

You were correct on clicking on the "Pictures Folder", then you want to click on merge.  That should fix any problems of lightroom locating your files.  As far as your importing goes, I'm not sure what it's doing without seeing anything, but take a look at this video, it might help you in the future.


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## ldunne (Jul 18, 2012)

Hi,
I will take a look at the video. I am sure it will help. I finally contacted a Lightroom expert here in CT who is coming to my office to help straighten things out. These forums (and you!) are terrific, but I need to solve this soon. It has been about 3 weeks since I lost the files from Lightroom and have been unable to do any work on my photos. I will let you know how this goes with this "expert." His name is Mark Brendel, and he recently presented a LIghtroom seminar for the CT Professional Photographers Association. Let's hope he can unravel my mistakes and help me to NOT make mistakes in the future.

Laure


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## Victoria Bampton (Jul 19, 2012)

Oh that's good news Laure.  Some things are much easier done in person!


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## ldunne (Jul 19, 2012)

I will let you know how it goes. I have been so frustrated and afraid to touch anything at this point!

Laure


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