ACDSee 9 can't find My Pictures folder

[dmva.parts]

My problem is with ACDSee 9 on Windows 10.

In my Windows tree, I see these folders:
3D Objects
Desktop
Documents
Downloads
Music
Pictures
Videos
(plus any flash drives inserted)

In the tree when I open ACDSee, I get these folders (when "This PC" is expanded):
3D Objects
Desktop
Documents
Downloads
Music
Videos
(plus any flash drives inserted)

Everything but My Pictures.

Tried Database>Catalog Files "Catalog the My Pictures Folder" then click Next button.

Current folder says Complete. Items catalogued: 0. Current Item box is blank, and thumbnail box is all black.

Excluded folders settings has:
C:\Program Files (x86)
C:\Windows

Tools>File Associations has JPEG checkmarked, and that's 99% of what is in My Pictures.

I'm sure this is something I've either done (by accident), or something I've not done correctly (cause I don't know how).

I've sidestepped this situation for a looong time, by throwing things on a flash drive and then working from there, but I'd like to get this to work properly.

Just need to know where to go next.

Thanks for any help.

[Greyfox]

...Everything but My Pictures.

Just a thought, have you tried running ACDSee as an Administrator?

Also in Windows File Explorer, right click on the Pictures folder, select properties, then click on the security tag, and post a screen shot of the settings.

[dmva.parts]

Thanks for helping. Sorry for delay in posting this, but work has kept me super-busy this last week.

The pop-out box in the screenshot will not enlarge, so missing from the scroll-down is the last item - Special Permissions, which does not have a check mark under the Allow column.

[Emil]

Something seems terribly wrong with your security. The path contains a user named "dmva5", but the list of user names just has a user named "D".

[dmva.parts]

I purposely blotted out personal information after taking the screenshot.

[Greyfox]

Excluded folders settings has:
C:\Program Files (x86)
C:\Windows

This suggests to me that your Windows 10 is a 32 bit version, rather than 64 bit. Can you please confirm that?

1. In Windows File Explorer, can you please right click on the Pictures folder, then select properties, then select the Location tab and post a screen shot - please don't blank out any information from that screen shot.

2. In ACDSee, Manage mode, in the folders tree in the left hand pane, browse down to Windows (C and expand the display, then browse down to Users, expand that, then expand your username and screen shot what folders are present, as per the following example.


3. In ACDSee goto Tools->Database->Quarantine Files. Are there any files quarantined, and if so post a screen shot showing the paths.

4. This is a long shot. There is a setting in Ultimate 2021, in manage mode, View->Reset Layout. I'm not sure whether that is in your version or not. If it is, can you try that reset.

[dmva.parts]

Screenshot 1 is my Windows version

Screenshot 2 is Pictures folder Location

Screenshot 3 is only tree I can find. Since you are operating out of a newer version (much so) than mine, I hope this is what you meant by Manage Mode. As you can see, in (C, there is no Users folder.

Screenshot 4 is when I expand to show history (??) of what's been opened in ACDSee, and attempt to make that what it showing, since I think that is the correct path to find the pictures.

Screenshot 5 is the error message I get when trying to open.

As you can see, in 9, the Database is separate from the Tools. Checked the Quarantine folder, and it shows nothing in it.

Yes, under View, there is Reset Layout, but I don't know what I would be resetting to. All it does is add a box to the RH side of that page with things to checkmark. Can't post screenshot of that because my limit is 5 screenshots per posting. I can post later if needed.

Thanks, I appreciate your help.

[Greyfox]

dmva.parts

Thanks for the screen shots.
The reason I thought your system might be 32 bit, was that your excluded folders reference C:\Program Files(X86) and not Program Files (which is where most 64 bit applications are nowadays installed). The current versions by default reference C:\Program Files, some AppData locations and C:\Windows.

Granted that our two versions of ACDSee are significantly different, however it seems from your screen shots that your ACDSee folder tree is also not showing the Windows Users folder, though in the expanded listing it is showing its child folders User\username\Videos, User\username\Documents, User\username\Desktop, User\username\Music, User\username\3D objects, and User\username\Downloads, and it is correctly showing these with their system folder icons, where as the reference to User\Username\Pictures has a blank icon.

I don't know whether this is some sort of permissions issue (I can't see anything wrong with the permissions of the Pictures folder itself as shown in your earlier screen shot), some other Windows 10 issue, an issue with ACDSee 9 in general, or something specific to your installation of ACDSee. I asked earlier on whether you had tried starting ACDSee as an administrator, but I can't see a reply to that.

In the later versions Reset Layout took the various mode layouts back to "factory defaults" but has been known to remedy some other issues as well. (You could lose any custom layouts in the process).

The only other simple suggestions which I have at the moment would be to try running Windows compatibility troubleshooter on ACDSee, and/or referring the issue to ACDSystems customer support. https://www.acdsee.com/en/support/form/

[dmva.parts]

I was expecting that Reset Layout to allow me to restore to defaults, which would be ok, since I don't really have anything set up custom in ACDSee. I was bewildered when I didn't see anything in that box to do just that. I guess resetting to defaults is a later addition to the program, which mine doesn't have.

How do I run ACDSee as an Administrator?

[Greyfox]

...How do I run ACDSee as an Administrator?

If you normally start ACDSee from a desktop icon, right click on it and you should see an option to "run as Administrator. When you click on that you will probably get a UAC (User Account Control) dialog asking you to confirm that the application can make changes to your device. You need to click on the Yes button.

If you are starting it from the main Windows 10 start menu, then again right click. You should then see "Pin to Start, More, Uninstall"
Click on More, and you should then see the option to run as Administrator.

[dmva.parts]

Ran as Administrator, and expanded tree is identical to before. No Pictures folder, and blank icon for it.

This laptop I'm using was bought used, and I've had some slight problems with it. Chrome will crash every several days or so (I have at lease a dozen tabs open all the time, and I always forget to clear cache for what seems like forever). And at least once a month Windows will crash. Considering the stability of programs nowadays, I've found it annoying, but didn't think it was WAY out of the bounds of possibility. Generally speaking, it is solid/stable 99.9% of the time.

I wonder if uninstalling and re-installing some things might help? Not entirely sure the royal pain required would be worth it, just to try to fix ACDSee, since I've got a workaround that operates well for me, with the program running as it does now (no Pictures folder). Re-installing ACDSee wouldn't be too bad, since I've got nothing custom set up in it, but I wouldn't be really happy to have to re-install Chrome, and not interested AT ALL in re-installing Windows.

If you were faced with this problem, what do you think you would do to fix?

[Greyfox]

Ran as Administrator, and expanded tree is identical to before. No Pictures folder, and blank icon for it.

This laptop I'm using was bought used, and I've had some slight problems with it. Chrome will crash every several days or so (I have at lease a dozen tabs open all the time, and I always forget to clear cache for what seems like forever). And at least once a month Windows will crash. Considering the stability of programs nowadays, I've found it annoying, but didn't think it was WAY out of the bounds of possibility. Generally speaking, it is solid/stable 99.9% of the time.

I wonder if uninstalling and re-installing some things might help? Not entirely sure the royal pain required would be worth it, just to try to fix ACDSee, since I've got a workaround that operates well for me, with the program running as it does now (no Pictures folder). Re-installing ACDSee wouldn't be too bad, since I've got nothing custom set up in it, but I wouldn't be really happy to have to re-install Chrome, and not interested AT ALL in re-installing Windows.

If you were faced with this problem, what do you think you would do to fix?

Because of the other problems you mentioned, more so than the ACDSee problem, I'd personally seriously consider doing a complete clean reinstall of the operating system, and those apps I wanted to retain, however I appreciate that might be a daunting task for some, and in any case there are some "it depends"......

With a second hand laptop, there may be some applications you use that were already installed by the previous owner, and that you don't have an activation key for (commonly that might include MS Office). You would lose the use of them until you purchased a new key.

Some laptops have a manufacturer recovery partition which enables the operating system to be relatively easily restored to its original ex factory condition,including all of the chipset drivers. However depending on the age of the second hand laptop, that might not be the same as the OS version that is on it now. For example it might be that the laptop was originally supplied with Windows 7, and later updated to Windows 10 when that conversion was available free. I would not want to go that route again. I would rather opt to go straight to a clean installation of the current Windows 10 version. That would mean you would probably need to obtain the drivers for the chipset used in the laptop.

If it was only the issue of the missing Pictures folder in ACDSee, then I would probably just not use that folder in ACDSee and store my images in other folders. To be honest I don't store my image collection on the system partition anyhow.