This Photo Is Missing - For ALL Photos!

Dalders

Newbie Joined: Sep 07, 2014 04:20 Messages: 10 Offline

Solved by

Jun 07, 2015 09:56

Hi,

I store all of my photo's on my NAS, which is set as drive 'P:'.

My PhotoDirector project (version 6, latest version, patched) is located on my local drive, in the OneDrive folder, so it get's synced to my onedrive account. This allows me to then open the project on another computer, which also has my NAS set to drive 'P:'. Although the project files get synced, they are also stored locally on the machine (on each of the two machines)

This has worked OK for some time, but now, for some reason, when I open photoDirector, it tells me that all my photo's are missing (I can see the thumbnails, but not the real photo) - even though the photo's are still on my NAS, and the NAS is still drive 'P:'.

The project appears to now think that my photo's should be on the C: drive for some reason.

It attempts to display the first photo in the project, and displays a dialog saying it's missing, and offers a search button and a trash button. If I click on the search button, nothing happens. I also cannot right click on another photo in the strip at the bottom, and then right click to say 'locate on disc', as this option is greyed out.

What's happened? And how can I tell it that my photo's are really still there?

I opened a backup of the project from a few days ago, and that still works OK, so it's not all lost, but I would like to find out WHY this is happening, as it's stlightly scarey that's it's saying my photo's are missing!

Thanks.

PIX

Senior Contributor Joined: Sep 21, 2011 00:02 Messages: 2910 Offline

Jun 07, 2015 12:57

Hello Dalders,

I have to admit to sailing a little blind here, as I'm not using network storage. It's therefore difficult to try to replicate your circumstance.

Firstly, PhotoDirector does not "physically" import photos. As a feature of "non-destructive editing" PhD simply records the file path to each photo in the project. Generally, when such an alert appears, it means that the missing photos have been moved or renamed by the user. It can also occur when drives (SD cards, external drives) are disconnected.

It is also possible that a particular project can become corrupted in some way, so doing back-ups is wise.

I wouldn't waste any energy being worried about whether actual photos are missing. Your original photos are exactly where you put them. You may have lost some edits, but not any photos.

So - the back-up project is functioning correctly? It's shown no signs of errors with file location?

PIX

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Jun 07. 2015 12:58

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Dalders

Newbie Joined: Sep 07, 2014 04:20 Messages: 10 Offline

Jun 07, 2015 13:49

Hi Pix,

Yeah, the backup project is working fine (and the photo's were always safe on the P: drive) so,yes, I'm not immediately worried, however it IS the second time this has happened - the first time I was able to tell Photodirector where the photo's were and it restored all the photo's at once, but this time, it doesn't seem to want to let me do that.

I'm wondering, if for some reason, my P: drive was disconnected at some point, when photodirector was launched, would it get confused? But even if that was the case, why won't it let me search for the photo's, like it did the first time?

As I said, I have a backup, but it's just inconvenient if this keeps happening.

Dalders

Newbie Joined: Sep 07, 2014 04:20 Messages: 10 Offline

Jun 07, 2015 13:52

Just tried loading the project again, and noticed ANOTHER dialog that briefly pops up at the bottom of the window, saying 'the file is missing'

It says this before it displays any photo's, and before it says 'this photo is missing'.

Any idea what file it's talking about?

Dalders

Newbie Joined: Sep 07, 2014 04:20 Messages: 10 Offline

Jun 07, 2015 14:35

Think I know what's going on.....

Whilst on holiday last week, I opened Photodirector, to look at the photo's I'd taken so far, but when you open PD, it tries to open the last project that you were using, so it tried to open my main project.... which it couldn't, as I wasn't connected to the NAS. I then just closed the project, and created a temp project, to view my photo's.

Once I got home, my laptop that I took with me, synced it's Onedrive directory, which would have included presumably an updated PD project file.

Then I loaded PD on the other laptop, which by this time, had also downloaded the latest PD project file from Onedrive...... which then caused the error..... I think!

Is there any way to stop PD from automatically loading the last project? In the meantime, I've created an empty project, and created a shortcut on my desktop to the new project file, so if I want to start PD 'disconnected' from my NAS, I can click on that icon......

PIX

Senior Contributor Joined: Sep 21, 2011 00:02 Messages: 2910 Offline

Jun 07, 2015 14:43

PhD is telling you "This photo is missing" but neglecting to tell you which one??? That is seriously wrong. So, no, I have no idea what that's about.

I've just tried to replicate here using photos imported from external drives (I know it's not the same). Imported - closed project - disconnected and reconnected drives - opened project - no alerts - no problems.

Can I assume that you've had no similar issues with other software?

In the same circumstance, I would: (1) delete the projects that are malfunctioning (the whole project folders) (2) completely uninstall & reinstall PhD6.

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Dalders

Newbie Joined: Sep 07, 2014 04:20 Messages: 10 Offline

Jun 07, 2015 14:50

No, it display's the photo's cached picture, and overlays that with 'this photo is missing', but BEFORE it displays ANY photo's, when the project is first loaded, it says 'the file is missing', but doesn't say what file..... I presume it's one of the project files it uses.

Nope, I have other photo editors, and haven't had any problems....

I think it's the fact that I'm using Onedrive, and two computers - if one computer is disconnected from the nas, when it then syncs the project file to onedrive, the other computer then downloads it, and then the project gets stuck, and for some reason defaults to looking on the c: drive.

I've now restored the project from the backup, and like I say, I've created a new blank project, so I can open that one, when I'm disconnected, and hopefully that will stop it from happening