Backlight based Web Site and Lightroom out of sync

bcobb10b · 2016-07-21 08:33:15

Interesting situation. Somehow my Backlight "galleries" folder disappeared from my server. No idea how, and at this point that is not my key issue. Getting the galleries folder rebuilt without having to rebuild the Publisher collections -- and the verbiage in each -- in Lightroom is my key interest.

I moved an empty copy of a galleries folder into the web site directory and tried to republish the albums and album sets from Lightroom. After a number of false starts, permission error messages, and Lightroom publishing the gallery to a completely unrelated server directory (which was fortunately in the correct web site), I was able to get Lightroom to publish the album set and albums to the correct web directory. Per a cursory look via Coda2, it appears that the files needed for Backlight to display the gallery exist.

I can see at least one issue -- the slug name for one of the albums has a "5" appended to the end in the Lightroom Edit Album panel, while the web server directory does not (friday-brunch5 vs friday-brunch). Lightroom does not seem to mind and still re-publishes that album upon request.

Unfortunately, the web site created by Backlight did not get the message. What it shows is not what is in the galleries folder (on the web site) or in the Albums in Lightroom. The Gallery pages generated by Backlight show a mix of album sets and albums. Some have images ... some do not ... some are albums and some are album sets. See this page: http://dbhs60.org/galleries/55th-reunion/ Look at the "Photos" sub-menu item under the 55th Reunion Menu item and compare it to the structure in Lightroom:

- Album Set "55th Reunion"
- Album "Friday Brunch"
- Album "Organizing Committee Appreciation Lunch"
- Album "Thursday Dinner"

- Album "Other Photos"

Note that album set "55th Reunion 2" shown on the page described was created in an effort to work around earlier issues and was deleted from Lightroom before the version of the web site you see was generated. "55th Reunion 2" is still being displayed by Backlight's generated web site even though it does not exist. I have cleared the cache several times to no avail.

Bottom line, is there a way to reset Backlight's database and republish the Gallery from Lightroom into a clean folder without having to rebuild everything in Lightroom? And reset Lightroom so that it thinks it is publishing into a clean slate? Or do I have to start over?

Note to Matthew & Ben: I checked to confirm that the "pages/" option is still the selected "Page URL Format" on the Backlight Settings page. It is.

Bill

Ben · 2016-07-21 08:58:30

Hi Bill, do you think you could have accidentally deleting galleries via FTP?

Rebuilding from Lightroom into a fresh galleries directory is a manual process:

1. In the Backlight Admin, navigate to Backlight > Publisher > Top-level Galleries
2. Click on Albums for the Galleries entry
3. One by one click on each album set or album on the top level.
4. For each, click on Delete Album at the bottom of the page.
5. Delete any remaining albums and album sets within galleries/ on your server using FTP. Depending on the state of your database, this may already have been done during deletion of albums and album sets in steps 1-4.

Once you no longer have any albums or album sets under 'Galleries' at Backlight > Publisher > Top-level Galleries, there should be no further trace of those albums on your server.

6. In Lightroom, visit every album set from the top down, right clicking each, editing the album set, changing the slug to remove any appended numbers if needed, and clicking Save (or 'Edit'). The process of editing and saving re-creates the album set on the server.
7. Do the same for the albums within every album set. and clicking Save (or 'Edit')
8. Republish your photos

bcobb10b · 2016-07-21 09:07:52

Ben, I won't rule that out. I was moving quickly today and may have self inflicted my wound. I am not dwelling on that for now.

As this may occur again for me or others, I thought it best to post the situation and get your input on the best way to proceed.

Thanks for the quick response.

Guess I know what I'll be doing for the next several hours :-)

Bill

bcobb10b · 2016-07-21 09:44:55

Ben wrote:

Rebuilding from Lightroom into a fresh galleries directory is a manual process:
1. In the Backlight Admin, navigate to Backlight > Publisher > Top-level Galleries
2. Click on Albums for the Galleries entry
3. One by one click on each album set or album on the top level.
4. For each, click on Delete Album at the bottom of the page.
5. Delete any remaining albums and album sets within galleries/ on your server using FTP. Depending on the state of your database, this may already have been done during deletion of albums and album sets in steps 1-4.
Once you no longer have any albums or album sets under 'Galleries' at Backlight > Publisher > Top-level Galleries, there should be no further trace of those albums on your server.
6. In Lightroom, visit every album set from the top down, right clicking each, editing the album set, changing the slug to remove any appended numbers if needed, and clicking Save (or 'Edit'). The process of editing and saving re-creates the album set on the server.
7. Do the same for the albums within every album set. and clicking Save (or 'Edit')
8. Republish your photos

This process is a keeper - it has been added to my cookbook! Back up and running in about 20 minutes. Was expecting a painful process --- it is not.

It is nice to have the support of a team who has thought through what it will take to recover from a disaster, built the needed tools, and made themselves available to talk us through what it takes to recover. Thanks Matt & Ben

Bill

Ben · 2016-07-21 11:23:42

Hi Bill, I'm glad you were able to solve it. Thanks for the kind words!
The approach from the Lightroom side is a side-effect of the way we've made Publisher more robust. For example, if you had created an Album in LR that had failed to be created on your server, then the next time you edit or try publishing to that album from Lightroom, the back-end will attempt again to create the album.
The manual aspect (and delete link at the end of the page) in Backlight is intentional. We don't want to make it too easy to remove individual albums or especially remove all albums with a single click.

I use the rebuilding approach often during development and testing. It's a quick way to get your LR albums back onto a fresh install.

Daniel Leu · 2016-07-21 14:44:07

Ben wrote:

I use the rebuilding approach often during development and testing. It's a quick way to get your LR albums back onto a fresh install.

That's something worth to remember!

rod barbee · 2016-07-21 22:41:36

Hey Ben, that procedure would make a good sticky post

Community @ The Turning Gate

#1 2016-07-21 08:33:15

Backlight based Web Site and Lightroom out of sync

#2 2016-07-21 08:58:30

Re: Backlight based Web Site and Lightroom out of sync

#3 2016-07-21 09:07:52

Re: Backlight based Web Site and Lightroom out of sync

#4 2016-07-21 09:44:55

Re: Backlight based Web Site and Lightroom out of sync

#5 2016-07-21 11:23:42

Re: Backlight based Web Site and Lightroom out of sync

#6 2016-07-21 14:44:07

Re: Backlight based Web Site and Lightroom out of sync

#7 2016-07-21 22:41:36

Re: Backlight based Web Site and Lightroom out of sync

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