danielb59 Loc: The South

All of a sudden all my photo previews in Lightroom (approximately 50,000 shots) have turned 90 degrees and now all appear to be in portrait mode instead of landscape. The same photos show up in Picasa normally so I know the photos haven't actually changed their position. Any ideas as to what have I may have done to have caused this? All I have done lately is copy a folder from from one hard drive to another using windows explorer. I did nothing to the photos except copy and paste and left all photos as they were. Then, when I restarted Lightroom, this happened, not to just the folder in question, but to every last photo in Lightroom. What gives?

Searcher Loc: Kent, England

Open the Library,
Left hand panel choose "All Photographs"
Control + A to select them all
Control + [ (you may need to do this a couple of times)

danielb59 Loc: The South

Thanks so much Searcher. That seems to be working although it looks as though it will take quite a while to remedy all those photos. Can't beat UHH expertise.

But what do you think I did to cause this situation in the first place? I'm still nonplussed.

Searcher Loc: Kent, England

It is too easy to select all photos and not notice you have done so. Then it is a short leap to Control + ] again without noticing, or of course an accidental touch on the rotate button on the toolbar. Or of course, a software glitch.

danielb59 Loc: The South

It is now morning. It seems that Lightroom would only make the orientation changes as the previews became visible on the screen and was not necessarily performing the task in the background. Prior to going to bed I attempted a backup and left the computer to perform that task. Upon awakening and checking on the computer, I found that the task still had not been completed. Not sure what is happening here. I will attempt another backup.
Apparently the only time that the orientation changes will occur is when the photos come to the screen. I minimized the sizes to accomplish the task quicker since more photos would come to the screen. Another computer glitch, perhaps?

Searcher Loc: Kent, England

This is wrong, I loaded 5000+ images, rotated them, scrolled down to check and they were all rotated. Rotated back again, and scrolled to check, they were all the correct rotation.

Overall time to rotate - too fast to measure.

In the Library, right click on one of the folders with wrongly oriented images, choose "synchronise" and see if it makes a difference.

The next move would be to rebuild preferences and or the previews, the former may effect any plugins and presets you have,. the latter will take a lot of time.

The best solution would be to update LR to 5.7 but you may not be on a 64 bit machine which of course is essential.

danielb59 Loc: The South

Synchronize scares me. I tried it once and an entire year's (2013) photos were reorganized (disoriented) into a fashion that I could not interpret nor use. It causes me to have to search endlessly through all the date taken oriented folders whereas the folders that I originally set up were eliminated. BTW, I use subject, not date,organizing as my preference. I am on a 64 bit machine, but right now, can't afford (retired on fixed income)a new version of Lightroom. Thanks again Searcher for the input.

Searcher Loc: Kent, England

Synchronise is quite innocuous. To prove it, you might like to do this:

In Explorer, create a new folder, call it "Test" and put one photo into it.

Open LR, Import> and navigate to the folder, import the image. This process has "registered" the folder in LR.

Close LR
Put another image into the folder.
Open Lightroom, in the Library find the new folder, right click and choose Synchronise.

The new image will appear on your Import screen and you can choose to import or ignore as you wish. (The check marks on the images in the import screen will turn the import on or off).

The reason I would advocate this synchronising, is because something is obviously wrong with the catalogue, and as metadata can be reimported via the synchronising procedure, it can be less painful than resetting preferences and or updating the previews.

I do understand your reluctance, I feel the same way when a new update is announced and my first thoughts are always "What is going to go wrong this time?"

Incidentally, I used LR 4.4 to check the rotating so something is definitely amiss. I think it is LR rather than the computer, especially in regard to the back up. the time it took suggests it is struggling with catalogue optimisation.

abc1234 Loc: Elk Grove Village, Illinois

Daniel, first of all, if that folder on the external drive had been cataloged in LR, then you should have moved or copied it in LR, not Explorer. You suggest that you moved it in Explorer, an unforgiveable no-no in the world of LR.

As usual, Searcher was right. I too cannot emphasize how easy and reliable synchronization is. I even use it to import photos. In Explorer, I copy or move pictures to a folder that LR has cataloged. Then, in LR, I go to that folder, right click on it, go down to synchronize and wallah, imported. Try it, you'll like it!

AZNikon Loc: Mesa, AZ

The best solution would be to update LR to 5.7 but you may not be on a 64 bit machine which of course is essential.

Thanks for the tip. I went into LR 5.6 and checked for updates and sure enough 5.7 was available. How did you know an update was available? You are a magician!

abc1234 Loc: Elk Grove Village, Illinois

When I started LR, it informed me of it. Here are the details. No big deal. However, the biggest reason to upgrade from 4 to 5 is the radial filter. How did I ever live without it! I did. Viviza. RIP.

5.7
Support for the ability to add or read feedback provided on Lightroom web.
Ability to import images from Apple Aperture and Apple iPhoto libraries into Lightroom.
Fixes for bugs introduced in earlier versions of Lightroom 5.
Camera support for additional new lenses and cameras.

danielb59 Loc: The South

As I said, I can't afford Lightroom 5 at this time. I do have a 64 bit machine. The one time that I tried Synchronize, it destroyed all my meticulously created folders accumulated for an entire year and reinserted its own date rated folders which I cannot freely use due to the time rated organization. I did not copy files within Lightroom; but rather, I left the files alone, merely copying them using explorer to another hard drive that is not affected by Lightroom. All my files are stored on two external hard drives. Lightroom knows about only one of the drives while the other is innocuous to Lightroom.
At this time I am weighing the possibility of uninstalling Lightroom and starting over.

abc1234 Loc: Elk Grove Village, Illinois

I would not uninstall LR. I would try to fix the matter first. I wonder if 4 has a bug or cannot handle a catalog as large as your without problems. And we all know that buying 5 is out of the question for you and that includes the $10 monthly version. Let's work with 4.

When you synchronize, you have the option of going to the import dialog box. Here is my feeble guess. You did not go to that box and, perhaps, in your destination, a box to import by date is checked. A long shot because you said you organize by subject, not date, so I assume that you import likewise. Also a long shot because synchronize only imports files that are not cataloged and I presume you cataloged all 50,000 files. I guess I am talking in circles.

Searcher Loc: Kent, England

A reinstall might be a possibility, but it is a very last resort.
If the catalogue is corrupted, a reinstall using the last catalogue back up will not solve any problems. A reinstall without using the present catalogue will mean a loss of metadata which is normally stored in the catalogue - edits and so on (unless of course every image is either a dng or has an accompanying xmp file).

Even rebuilding the preview files and preferences is a better bet for success.

My choices would be:

1 Optimise catalogue
2 Synchronise files (making sure Import screen is set correctly)
3 Rebuild Preferences
4 Rebuild previews
5 Reinstall

Using my LR 4.4 (which is what I use for experimenting) I could walk you through any of the above.

If you do need help, please let me know your Operating system etc.

MtnMan Loc: ID

Thanks for the Control + ] "reminder". I've been using a more time consuming method. Worth the price of admission right there!