Catalogues have disappeared

[Graham1]

Suddenly all my PM+ catalogues have disappeared in PM+, which only shows me a default catalogue with zero images in it.  I am on Windows 10, PM+ 6097.

I have been using my catalogues daily, with no issues at all.  They are all on an internal SSD drive (happens to be M:) and all my images are on local hard drives.  My M: drive is visible in Windows Explorer, there are separate subfolders for each of my PM+ catalogues.  I have regularly run Cataloig Sync to keep, in particular, my main catalogue up to date.

Nothing has changed, nothing has crashed, but now PM+ is tonight not picking up any of my catalogues.  I can navigate to the folders with Catalog Management : Locate Existing Catalog, but it appears not to see anything - there is nothing shown to load, even though there is a .pmdb file for each catalogue visible in Windows Explorer.

I have of course rebooted, but still the same - no catalogues recognised.

I have no idea what may have caused this: I have no problems with any other programmes.  I could rebuild the catalogues without too much trouble, since all are local, but I really prefer not to, since with over 700,000 images, it will take days to do this.

Any ideas about how to re-discover my catalogues will be very welcome.

Graham

[Kirk Baker]

Graham,

Suddenly all my PM+ catalogues have disappeared in PM+, which only shows me a default catalogue with zero images in it.  I am on Windows 10, PM+ 6097.

I have been using my catalogues daily, with no issues at all.  They are all on an internal SSD drive (happens to be M:) and all my images are on local hard drives.  My M: drive is visible in Windows Explorer, there are separate subfolders for each of my PM+ catalogues.  I have regularly run Cataloig Sync to keep, in particular, my main catalogue up to date.

Nothing has changed, nothing has crashed, but now PM+ is tonight not picking up any of my catalogues.  I can navigate to the folders with Catalog Management : Locate Existing Catalog, but it appears not to see anything - there is nothing shown to load, even though there is a .pmdb file for each catalogue visible in Windows Explorer.

I have of course rebooted, but still the same - no catalogues recognised.

I have no idea what may have caused this: I have no problems with any other programmes.  I could rebuild the catalogues without too much trouble, since all are local, but I really prefer not to, since with over 700,000 images, it will take days to do this.

Any ideas about how to re-discover my catalogues will be very welcome.

I'd like to see your Photo Mechanic Plus log.  In Photo Mechanic Plus go to the Help menu and choose "Reveal Support Data..." and moments later a Windows Explorer window will come forward with the zipped log file selected.  Use the 'Attachments and other options' link when you're composing your reply to this message and there you'll be able to upload your zipped PM log file.

Thanks,

-Kirk

[Graham1]

Thanks, Kirk.

File attached.

Graham

[Kirk Baker]

Graham,

Can you post the following file:

C:\Users\<your user>\AppData\Roaming\Camera Bits, Inc\Photo Mechanic\catalog_settings\amprefs.yml

Thanks,

-Kirk

[Graham1]

Hi, Kirk.

Here is the requested file.

Thanks.

Graham

[Kirk Baker]

Graham,

Thanks for the file.  The only known catalog is the default catalog.  Photo Mechanic Plus stores info about which catalogs were known to it and which ones are set to add/modify and which ones are set to search.  Your amprefs.yml file only lists the default catalog.

I don't know why this happened.  Nothing out of the ordinary appeared in your logs.

You can use the "Locate Existing Catalog..." button in the Catalog Management window to open up each of your catalogs.  They may need a "Reintegrate Forgotten Catalog" maintenance operation to be performed on them after you locate them.

-Kirk

[Graham1]

Thanks, Kirk.  I have, as you suggested, used the Locate Existing Catalog function successfully. 

I did try this before and now know why I was not successful.  I navigated to the sub-folder which contains the .pmdb database file.  I expected the browse window to show that it had recognised the existence of the file, so that I would be selecting the file itself to reload the database.  Instead, the browse window shows only an empty folder (with the proxies sub-folder, but no files).  Pressing enter on the empty folder screen with nothing apparently selected is counter-intuitive to me as a Windows user, but that reloaded the database, even though it looked as if nothing had been selected.  I don't know how Macs would look, but this is not the usual way things would look in Windows, where one would expect there to be a target file which would show as having been selected.  Now that I know how to do it, it is however fine.

It looks as if there is no need to reintegrate: I am running a sync to check.

Many thanks for your help.

Graham

[Juerg]

Hello Kirk,

I have the same Problem as Graham: my Catalogs disappear frequently (Running Win10) with only a Default catalog showing and I have to manually add them again with the "Locate Existing Catalog..." button. Then it works fine for a couple weeks until the disappear again and I have to start to add them again.

As I am frequently traveling for 2-5 week periods I do not use PM+ during that time, and it seems that my catalogs always disappear after this prolonged time of non-use.

Is there somewhere a setting where PM+ automatically deletes catalogs not used for a certain time and goes back to the default catalog?

Regards,
Juerg

[Kirk Baker]

Juerg,

I have the same Problem as Graham: my Catalogs disappear frequently (Running Win10) with only a Default catalog showing and I have to manually add them again with the "Locate Existing Catalog..." button. Then it works fine for a couple weeks until the disappear again and I have to start to add them again.

As I am frequently traveling for 2-5 week periods I do not use PM+ during that time, and it seems that my catalogs always disappear after this prolonged time of non-use.

Is there somewhere a setting where PM+ automatically deletes catalogs not used for a certain time and goes back to the default catalog?

No, definitely not.  Instead, is there something on your system that would delete data in your AppData folder?  If the file that PM Plus uses to track catalogs is deleted (or restored from a previous backup perhaps) then PM Plus will create a new default catalog.  The file is called 'amprefs.yml' (it is a text file that you can view in a text editor if you like) and it is located in the following location:

<your user folder>\AppData\Roaming\Camera Bits, Inc\Photo Mechanic\catalog_settings

For me, the path is:

C:\Users\kbaker\AppData\Roaming\Camera Bits, Inc\Photo Mechanic\catalog_settings

I suggest making a copy of this file now that you have gone through the process of locating your existing catalogs and storing it elsewhere.  If the problem happens again, quit PM Plus and restore the file and then re-launch PM Plus.  It should correct the problem.  It would be good to know why that file (and possibly other files) in that location is removed when you're traveling.

-Kirk