Organizer Improperly Cataloging Files

[Bannon]

Last night my attempts to import video and photo files into organizer failed miserably and I hope you can help. I have an assortment of videos in MTS format and photos in PSD format that I want to import into Organizer so that I can eventually use them in constructing a video and here is what happened when I attempted to use Get Media|Files and Folders: I was presented with the file browser and was alble to successfully select the file(s) I wanted to import from my drive D and then started the import process. That process appeared to work just fine and during the processes I noted that it was reading the file(s) from drive D. However, when the import finished the thumbnail(s)s had the broken link image and when I clicked on properties the catalog indicated the file(s) were on drive E which of course they weren't. This happened whether I selected single or multiple files. Attempts to reconnect the file(s) failed with a message that they were already in the catalog. Repairing the catalog, optimizing the catalog, and even creating a new catalog produced the same results. I feel something stupidly simple is wrong but I haven't identified it yet and I'm hoping one of you brainiacs can help. My system is:


Intel 7-980X
6GB memory
Windows 7 64-bit
160GB SSD Drive C (OS and applications) internal AHCI
1TB Western Digital Drive D (data) internal AHCI
2TB Western Digital Drive E (backup) external USB 3.0
(I believe the drives all have unique names but I can't validate that at the moment)
Adobe Lightroom 3.0
Adobe Premiere Elements 8
Adobe Photoshop Elements 8

Thanks in advance for your help.

[Barb O]

Hi Bannon and welcome to muvipix.
Here are some suggestions to start the troubleshooting of your problem.

First,
I am not familiar with the specifics of the AHCI interface and its various options, so I hope that someone else will comment on those considerations.

Second -
The following information could be very significant in an analyzing your problem. The volume serial number of drives does need to be unique or the Organizer will have problems that give symptoms like you observed.

(I believe the drives all have unique names but I can't validate that at the moment)

There is an analysis program written by a knowledgeable Adobe customer, John Ellis, which can help in the analysis of your symptoms. See
http://www.johnrellis.com/psedbtool/index.htm
and I suggest that you download and run this program. It should provide significant help in the analysis of your problem.

Third,
another problem that you could encounter
Do any of your folder names (names of the Windows folders containing the photo and video files) contain periods?
There have been reports of this causing problems when running under Windows 7. Because you do think that the import did process and imported the files, your symptoms do not immediately point to this problem. However, I thought it worth mentioning so that you would be aware of the need to take evasive action if it would be relevant.

Get Photos And Videos misbehaves on Windows 7
On Windows 7, File > Get Photos And Videos > From Files And Folders can behave strangely with folders whose names contain periods, e.g. “christmas.2000”. When you click on such a folder, it and others can disappear from the window, and the Get Media box can be grayed out; there could also be strange flickering in the window. Some workarounds:
- Rename the folder to replace the period with a hyphen.
- Use File > Get Photos And Videos > By Searching.
- Import photos by dragging files or folders from Windows Explorer into the thumbnail area of the Organizer.

[Bob]

AHCI shouldn't cause that problem and should be totally transparent to applications. I'm using AHCI on my Win 7 64-bit system and the Premiere Elements implementation of the Organizer works as it should and I've used it across multiple volumes both internal and external. I don't have Photoshop Elements, but I would expect that Organizer to work as well.

Nice system!

[Barb O]

Bob,
Thanks for your post about AHCI.

I am curious -- are you using Premier Elements 7 or Premiere Elements 8 ?

If you have version 8, then the Organizer is basically the same code whether you install Premiere Elements or Photoshop Elements or both. (note: there are some differences in the defaults for Organizer Preferences)

If you have version 7, then there is different code for the Premiere Elements panels.

[Bannon]

I have PE8 and PRE8 and for the reason you point out, get the same results whether I start the Organizer from PRE or PE.

[Bob]

I have Premiere Elements 7.

[Barb O]

I have PE8 and PRE8 and for the reason you point out, get the same results whether I start the Organizer from PRE or PE.

Bannon,
My intent was for Bob to post which version of Premiere Elements he is running. Sorry if that was confusing. I did notice that your post said you have version 8.

When you have the opportunity I do recommend that you run the analysis utility that I suggested. Your symptoms are indicative of volume serial number duplication. That analysis utility will provide additional info about the catalog to either confirm my suspicion or identify other potential causes of incorrect info in the Elements catalog.

[Bannon]

Thanks again Barb for your help. I plan to run the utility when I get home and I'll post the results here.

[Steve Grisetti]

Glad to see you found your way to Muvipix, Bannon. As I said, if the knowledgeable and helpful people here can't help you, no one can!

[Bannon]

Barb, Steve, et al I want to thank you for your help. I checked and just as I suspected each of my drives have unique volume labels. However, using the tool Barb suggested I discovered that my D and E drives had the same volume serial numbers. I guess I imaged my D drive to the E drive when I installed it months ago and it copied the VolSer. Once I changed the VolSer for drive E Organizer functioned as expected. Once again, thanks for your help.

[Paul LS]

"Way to go" Barb.

[Steve Grisetti]

Great call, Barb!