Non-existent files in Finder

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Level 1

46 points

Non-existent files in Finder

Please see the two screen grabs from my Finder. They show the exact same folder, but with different files.

Background: I searched in Finder for a photo on my system of PeeWee Herman and was served up the results in the second screenshot below. When I looked at the files they were all photos I took in the UK some years ago. Thinking perhaps that I misnamed them I went into Adobe Lightroom, selected the indicated folder and did not see any of them. I then went back to finder and manually navigated to the indicated folder. Again none of those files showed. To make sure I had not done something inadvertently I again put the text "peewee" into the search box in Finder and got the same result I got in the first place. Additionally the sub-folder "peewee.comic.jpg" in the second screenshot just contains the actual files in "unnamed" that display when I navigate that folder manually.

Can anyone explain this? Is some sort of extraterrestrial being messing with my Mac?

MacBook Air Apple Silicon

Posted on Jul 29, 2022 4:15 PM

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Answer 1

Wet Baloney Author

Level 1

46 points

Aug 20, 2022 3:51 PM in response to ivan54

Thanks for the help Ivan. I wasn't able to exactly reproduce the situation first cited (perhaps I deleted some files), but did find two files which illustrate the problem. Screenshots are attached which show the full finder path to each, followed by screenshots where each file is selected in Adobe Lightroom and metadata is shown on the right. Aside from file creation date, the metadata fields not shown are empty. I can find nothing which relates to "peewee". Also, I have several thousand .dng files and have not encountered anything like this before.

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Answer 2

Wet Baloney Author

Level 1

46 points

Aug 26, 2022 6:46 PM in response to ivan54

I just found more Finder weirdness:

In Finder on the left I selected a file nunarm.psd (which should be a photo of an Armenian nun in Jerusalem, see 3rd photo), but what displays is a file showing ships in the harbor of Split, Croatia, with an appropriate file name shown on the right side of the finder.

In this one I selected a file unarm.psd (which should be a photo of an Armenian nun in Jerusalem, see 3rd photo), but what displays is a file showing ships in the harbor of Split, Croatia, with an appropriate file name shown on the right side of the finder.

In Finder on the left I selected a file nunarm.dng, but what displays is a file showing downtown Chicago with untitled-8.tif as the filename.

Finally, this is the REAL nunarm photo. This is just too weird. Is there someone at Apple who needs to see this?

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Answer 3

ivan54

Level 4

2,858 points

Aug 20, 2022 1:11 PM in response to Wet Baloney

Howdy,

Could you show us a better screen shot of your Finder window that includes the path at the bottom and maybe the files above what we see in that screen shot?

It looks like there are more files above "euro2014-661.dng" which may include "euro2014-659.dng" that we see in the 2nd screen shot.

It looks like you did not search for "Filename" contains "peewee", but instead just searched for "peewee" which also searched inside the files and found files with metadata that includes "peewee".

Note in your search results the selected file with the "peewee.jpg" information is actually the file "euro2014-659.dng". That suggests "euro2014-659.dng" contains a jpg preview that may have been named "peewee".

When you open "euro2014-659.dng" with a program that shows you the metadata, does it show "peewee" somewhere?

Also test by searching for Filename contains peewee to see what comes up.

I don't play with .dng files as I don't have a camera with those capabilities, but it looks like adding metadata like a "peewee" descriptor may not rename the actual file.

ivan

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Answer 4

ivan54

Level 4

2,858 points

Aug 20, 2022 4:22 PM in response to Wet Baloney

Thanks for the update.

So you are still seeing odd files when searching for "peewee"?

The files in your new screen shots don't match the ones you first mentioned so it's hard to compare.

It does look like the Finder is showing smaller previews or thumbnails of the actual pictures.

For example whitby-2011-15.dmg the Finder dimensions are 234x422 but Lightroom shows 4032x3024.

ivan

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Answer 5

etresoft

Level 9

51,150 points

Aug 26, 2022 7:16 PM in response to Wet Baloney

All of your screenshots that show something strange are search results. These are images taken 15 years ago? How old is the external drive they are on? How many images are on that drive? Search is designed for an SSD. Even then, it can take a long, long time to populate results. Don’t use Search for these files.

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Answer 6

etresoft

Level 9

51,150 points

Aug 27, 2022 5:32 AM in response to Wet Baloney

Wet Baloney wrote:

Yes, TB. I'm waiting no longer than 15-20 SECONDS for the searches to complete.

That's what I'm saying. I don't think they are completing. I tried to do a search the other day on an external SSD and I went out to get lunch waiting for it to complete. It's a Samsung T7, so it's not slow.

There are a lot of different factors causing you trouble here. These are RAW files. They are very large and take a long time to search. They contain embedded TIFF previews. That's why some of your results have such tiny dimensions. This fact might also be what is causing these funky results. I've encountered this problem with the software I'm developing. I have to be careful and check for a RAW file before checking for a TIFF. Otherwise, it will find the TIFF preview and tell me it is a TIFF file.

You are using Adobe Lightroom. It has its own RAW support. It has its own QuickLook previews. So when the Finder wants to show a preview, is it going to use the built-in logic or Adobe's logic? Maybe Adobe's logic is buggy and that's why you are seeing the mis-matched previews.

These files are on an external drive of unknown speed and format.

You are using Spotlight search, which is simply awful. It searches the contents of files, not the file names. This also relates to the 3rd party software. Maybe Adobe also has its own Spotlight importer that is causing the system to search the entire file for results instead of just looking at metadata.

If you want to understand what the Finder is doing, you will need to connect this drive to a computer that does not have any Adobe software installed. Then, you would only be dealing with Apple's software. The only factors that would impact your experience are the Finder, your external drive speed and format, and Spotlight itself. Other people could then try to reproduce what you are seeing with their own computers. So far, this just sounds like buggy Adobe software.

I can assure you that I've had many, many arguments with people using buggy Adobe software. They categorically refuse to admit that Adobe software could have any bugs. It MUST always be Apple's fault. Even when I write software to definitively prove that the cause must be the buggy Adobe software, they still refuse to accept. There is an important plot point here. I'm developing software along these lines. It is likely that my customers will have Adobe software installed. I'll have to make sure to check that and refuse to support these kinds of complaints if any Adobe software is installed.

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