Delete Catalog & Start Over

[ctctc]

The organizer crashed yesterday and now images are in the wrong folders almost everywhere I look.

Since I am new to APE 6 I think it best that I delete the catalog and start over. Any Ideas on how to do that the cleanest way would be greatly appreciated.

[ctctc]

Okay, what confused me in searching the help file is that Adobe does not use the "delete" terminology for catalogs, but instead uses "remove" which is grayed out in the catalog manager until you have more than one catalog.

Prior to posting my initial message I attempted to repair the database, but the program could not find any errors. Upon a subsequent reading of the help file I saw that it was possible to "repair anyway". But after doing this many images were still in the wrong folders and the wrong folders were being displayed even though their folder was not selected in the "browser" section of the organizer.

So I created a new catalog, and then I removed the damaged catalog. Now I assume that I can start over and slowly build my catalog with relevant images instead of importing thousands of images off the bat.

[dj_paige]

I don't know what happened to your catalog that would cause the problems you are seeing. But if you choose to start over by creating a new catalog, there is no reason why you can't import thousands of photos at once.

[ctctc]

After importing thousands of image files in the original catalog, the organizer seemed terribly sluggish and the icon at the bottom of the window indicated that it was "displaying thumbnails", or something like that, during the first four days of my using the program until it crashed.

It is because of this that I suspect that the import of thousands of images [approximately 19000] could have at least contributed to the crash!?

[Karin Sue]

Personally I think it is a good idea not to import all your photos at once.

View by import batch is one of your viewing options. It is nice to have import batches in manageable sets.

If you have duplicates, the first copy encountered will be the one imported, the duplicate will be denied, and you will be confused because in folder view photos you know are there will not show up and will refuse to import because they are already in the catalog (referenced from some long forgotten duplicate folder)--Import first from folders that you actually designed to hold photos. After that you can do a system wide import to catch any missed images.

Occasionally there will be something about an image that keeps it from importing. They are easier to identify if you import in smaller batches.

You might want to tag each batch as you import. It can seem a little less intimidating and gives Organizer a chance to build your thumbnail sets in more in smaller batches. Building thumbnails can slow Organizer down.

[ctctc]

Bizarre organizer behavior. Something is terrible wrong.

After the organizer crashed I uninstalled and reinstalled APE 6. I then imported about 157 images in 20 folders.

When I click on a folder in the folder tree view sometimes the main screen (area of the organizer where the images are displayed) jumps to the correct folder, and sometimes it jumps to the wrong folder, and sometimes it doesn't react at all.

When viewing the contents of a folder in the main screen sometimes the correct images are visible, sometimes there are additional images visible which don't belong there, and sometimes only images which don't belong there are visible.

This bizarre behavior extends into the editor. When the editors bin view is set to "Show Files from Organizer" only 1 thumbnail image is visible. Sometimes no images are visible.

Please advise.

[Karin Sue]

Starting with v6 they have completely redone the Organizer, no longer using an Access database, so I don't know if any of the old fixes will work.

File>Catalog>Recover used to fix a multitude of Organizer behavior problems. I think the command is still there (under file>catalog) but I don't think it is recover. Maybe rebuild?

Deleting the preference file was also often a help. I am not sure how you would do that in 6.

Is the Organizer working okay in other views? (Date view, Import View)

[John NW]

Sounds very much like some of the same thumbnail problems I'm having!
Maybe you should ask the gurus if you should remove and reinstall the entire program.

[John NW]

I found this thread just now regarding thumbnails:
http://www.adobeforums.com/webx?128@@.3c0657ad

[ctctc]

After trying your suggestions nothing improved. So I uninstalled, rebooted, cleaned the registry, rebooted, reinstalled APE 6, reinstalled and successfully added a folder and it's images.

So I added another folder and it's images. Great.

So I added a 3rd folder and it's images...the organizer crashed!?

So I rebooted and restarted the organizer, and added the 3rd folder and its images, except that numerous images displayed a broken icon. These files are bmp, and jpeg, and have names and extensions. File/reconnect/add missing files found no missing files. So I deleted all broken icons. Tried to add them, but the broken icons returned.

So I added a 4th folder and the organizer had a c++ runtime error and shut down. Many more broken incon thumbnails.

I don't know about all of you but I have concluded that APE 6 is terribly unstable and probably not worth any more of my time much less the price of admission. If anyone believes that I am missing something in this mess I'm all ears.