Unable to import all photos from Lightroom catalog

[pbb]

I am really struggling to get ACDSee to properly import my Lightroom catalogue. It looks like to complete set of keywords is imported, but only a fraction of the photos. I've tried both optimising (compacting) the catalogue and exporting everything to a new catalogue, to be sure that there are no errors in the Lightroom catalogue.

In the end I have been able to create a 100-photo Lightroom catalogue, of which NONE photos can be imported by ACDSee.

Is anybody else seeing this problem? The catalogue can be downloaded from https://www.dropbox.com/s/72gxgwfoxh...100.lrcat?dl=0 (5.2 MB), I would be interested in hearing if other people are able to import any photo references.

[S.hussain]

Hello,

When you export a catalog from Ligthroom it does not export the actual images, it only exports cached thumbnails and metadata of the images, notice how the catalog you provided is only 5.2 MB. If the original 100 files were moved to another folder after creating the Lightroom catalog, ACDSee will not be able to locate those files. If the original images are in an external drive, please check whether it's turned on. Similarly, if the images are in a network drive, please check the sharing settings for that drive.

To test whether the process is working, please do a fresh start by importing new files in Lightroom and then assign keywords/labels. Then use the ACDSee import Lightroom database feature. If this does not work please let us know the following information so that we can investigate the issue.

- Version of your ACDSee Ultimate. You can find this information under the Help menu About box.
- Version of your Lightroom
- Type of images you are using
- Version of your windows system

Sincerely,

Shakil H.
ACD Systems

[pbb]

Hi Shakil, thanks for responding.

It's difficult to clearly formulate the problem without creating misunderstandings. I was wrong to say I am trying to import *photos* from the Lightroom catalogue, I know the photos are not stored inside the catalogue. What I am trying to do, and failing in, is importing the *references* to photos from the catalogue.

I know both Lightroom and ACDSee support the concept of "offline files" or "ghost files" or "placeholders". That is, references to photos that are not currently located on the hard drive. I know that in principle, ACDSee is able to import these file references to offline files, because I have seen it happen. When it works, the results is photo placeholders without thumbnails in the ACDSee Photo Well. In my full catalogue import tests, 6% off the references to offline files were imported by ACDSee from the main Lightroom catalogue. Yes, only 6%, though that was still almost 4.500 out of the total of almost 70.000 offline files, which means the principle works but in practice it hardly works.

I will try and make another test catalogue with offline files which are actually imported by ACDSee, so you can compare the results and see the difference, maybe that will make the problem more understandable.

As for the versions used:
- ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate Version 12.0 Build 1593.
- Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Version 6.14
- The full catalogue consists of 97% JPEG, 0.5% raw, and 2% video. Of all photo's, 3% are Virtual Copies. 88% of all references are offline. The test catalogue that is linked to above, only contains 100 references to offline JPEG files, including 22 Virtual Copies.
- Windows 10 Home, Version 1803, OS build 17134.523.

[S.hussain]

Hello,

1. At the time of importing Lightroom database if the original files are offline ACDSee will not bring any thumbnails or placeholders for those images. After importing the database, even if you make the files online (put them back in the original destination or turn an offline hard drive on) ACDSee will not be able to retrieve information regarding those files. So, if the files are not found while importing, the references to those files are not saved.

1. To avoid the problem above, make all files online. Then import the Lightroom database in ACDSee. This time ACDSee will use the references to find and create new thumbnails for all the files. After this when you take the files offline, the files become Orphan files in ACDSee. That means you will still be able to see the thumbnails and any assigned collections/keywords/ratings/labels. But when you try to Develop or Edit a prompt will let you know that you have to put the files back to its original location, in your case it would be making them online.

Regards,

Shakil H.
ACD Systems

[pbb]

Hi Shakil,

That is too bad. So you are saying ACDSee is not able to create thumbnails for photos if the file was offline during the initial import? If the import process truly is this limited, then this should have been documented.

However, there is more going on. In my original tests where I imported my complete catalogue, which had 9528 ONline files, only 7262 of those files were imported by ACDSee. At 76%, this is much better than the 6% result for offline files, but it is still a major shortage.

I will work on a more controlled test case for the online files.

In the mean time, I have made another offline test catalogue, again containing references to 100 OFFline files: https://www.dropbox.com/s/dxcw1b8l2h...100.lrcat?dl=0. Just like the one in the opening post. However, in this case, 98 of those file references are imported by ACDSee. Please compare this to the other catalogue, where none of the file references are imported by ACDSee. (Numbers have been checked by looking in the image well.) Something is preventing ACDSee from importing certain file references. Please analyse both catalogues and tell me why none in the first catalogue can be imported, while almost all from the second can.

I will try and produce test catalogues for online files in the same manner.

[pbb]

Hi Shakil,

Did you get a chance to take a look at the two catalogues I uploaded? Why are almost none of the photos imported from the one catalogue, and almost all of them from the other? Are you at all able to reproduce what I am seeing?

[S.hussain]

Hi PBB,

I imported both your catalogs in ACDSee and neither imported any files. That is expected as the catalogs do not contain the actual files.

I understand that the 2nd catalog was created in Lightroom by referencing 100 offline files. Maybe the files were copied to your local drive during the import process. That's why when ACDSee imported the catalog it was able to find those files.

At the time of importing a Lightroom database, if the files are offline ACDSee will not add them to the Database.

Regards,

Shakil H.
ACD Systems

[pbb]

Hi Shakil,

BOTH of the catalogs were only referencing offline files. But when importing the second one in ACDSee, I was getting 98 items in my Image Well. All without thumbnails of course, since they are offline files. But 98 references did get imported in ACDSee, while with the first catalog none got imported.

I think it is regrettable that, even though both Lightroom and ACDSee support offline files, ACDSee will not import those from Lightroom. And this is without any notification.

[pbb]

I have found one definite bug now in the importer. This is with ONLINE files.

If I have a file "Image1.jpg" in my catalog, and inside Lightroom I rename this to "Image2.jpg", and then later on I add another "Image1.jpg" to my catalog, then I have two files in my catalog ("Image1.jpg" and "Image2.jpg"). However, even with both of these files online, if I import this catalog in ACDSee, only "Image1.jpg" (the newer one) will show up.

It looks like the ACDSee importer is only looking at the "Original Filename" field for renamed files.

[S.hussain]

Hi PBB,

I was able to reproduce the issue you mentioned above where ACDSee is not importing the files renamed in Lightroom. I have logged a ticket so that the developers can investigate the issue. Thank you for reporting it.

Sincerely,

Shakil H.
ACD Systems