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The Volume Browser displays the name of the drive along with some information about that drive. Each drive containing photos that have been through the import process is represented by what is called a Volume Browser. When you use a combination of internal and external hard drives, Lightroom gives you a clear indication in the Folders panel when a given drive is offline.
#Lightroom 5.7.1 won't connect full#
Due to the fact that Lightroom stores all the data about your photos in that catalog file and keeps a special folder (called a cache) full of previews of your photos alongside the catalog file, it is possible to open Lightroom and work with your photos (to a limited extent) when the actual photos are stored on an offline drive. Using external hard drives to store photos and videos is incredibly useful and common.
#Lightroom 5.7.1 won't connect how to#
So now that you understand what the root cause is and how to avoid the problem, let’s look at how to fix things just in case this should ever happen to you. Sort of.Īnyway… if you use Lightroom to move, rename, or delete photos and folders, then that task is performed by Lightroom, and the information is updated inside the catalog as part of the process. But then you see a sock peeking out from under the bed then you find all of your missing socks under there.
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All of a sudden you can’t find a matching pair and you start to blame the dryer for ‘eating’ your socks. It is like when your Corgi keeps taking one of your socks and hides it under the bed. People often run into trouble when they revert to using other software or manually move, rename, or delete their imported photos outside of Lightroom, which then results in the location path stored in the catalog becoming out of sync with the actual state of those photos.
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That location information is stored inside the Lightroom catalog. One of the main purposes of the import process is to inform the Lightroom catalog where your imported photos (and videos) are stored on your drive (remember, your photos are never actually inside of Lightroom). Once you understand this relationship, these problems are easily avoided. Most of these problems stem from a misunderstanding of the relationship between the photos managed by Lightroom and the Lightroom catalog file. In this article, we will outline those reasons and how to correct them. While it might seem like a mystery, quite simply, the question mark means Lightroom can’t locate the original image file. Very few things are more frustrating in a Lightroom workflow than encountering the dreaded ‘?’ indicating missing photos.