Multiple Portfolio Collections with Same Name Lost?

[LifeIsLong]

The story as I understand it:

• I have a portfolio called ByDate with subcollections for each year, then by my own date string, so: ByDate/2023/20230205
• I also have several other portfolios with subcollections named 2023, some with the same date string, so: Export/2023/20230205
• I was on Photosupreme 4038 (or something like that) and upgraded to 4860
• After a few days or so, I realized that my ByDate/2023 collection had vanished (and all subcollections), I could still see Export/2023
• I discovered that if I read the metadata on files that should be in the missing collections (somewhat easy because the collections are by date), the "missing" collections would be recreated, but sometimes they came in under ByDate, sometimes under Export

I'd like to know:

• When I press delete on a picture, I get a bunch of collections to remove the photo from, several are exactly the same: ByDate/2023/20230205 for example... do I have to change the collection name of the collection I want to make sure I dont remove photos from it? Or is there an easier "remove photos from unseen collections" button?
• How do I find where the missing collections went? They still exist in some capacity (given the delete problem above), but I searched and could not find them.
• Is using the same subpath for collections a problem? I thought they were identified by a UID, not by name.

Still trying to figure out exactly what happened, so let me know if you have any questions.

[Hert]

When I press delete on a picture, I get a bunch of collections to remove the photo from, several are exactly the same: ByDate/2023/20230205 for example... do I have to change the collection name of the collection I want to make sure I dont remove photos from it? Or is there an easier "remove photos from unseen collections" button?

Hover the mouse over the entry in the delete box to see its qualified path.

How do I find where the missing collections went? They still exist in some capacity (given the delete problem above), but I searched and could not find them.

There's no such thing as "unseen collections". Try to find its path using the hiover tip I gave above. Then drill down in the tree

Is using the same subpath for collections a problem? I thought they were identified by a UID, not by name.

The name of a collection doesn't have to be unique as it is not what identifies a collection.

[LifeIsLong]

Ok, good... so collection names are not the UID, that's what I thought.

The reason I say the collection is unseen is because when I press delete, there are duplicate options that show. I have several (2-4 depending on the specific image) cases of ByDate|2023|20230205 that I can delete from. If I change the name of the 20230205 collection to, eg, t20230205, and press delete again, only one of the entries has a 't' in front of it.

I still dont understand how I lost the entire ByDate/2023 collection. As I think about it, several of the subcollections showed up under Export/2023 as I reread metadata from the file.

I understand there should be no unseen collections, but I've been losing and regaining them in weird places!

[LifeIsLong]

So after removing the multiple 2023 collections, one came back. Again, I'm not sure when it came back, but I now have two 2023 collections in the same portfolio. I created a bunch of new subcollections under one. When I looked at the other one, it had a couple of the same subcollections (only two out of 13 that I made).
There is some weird cross-coupling between subcollections. Maybe things are messed up when you have multiple collections, at the same level, under the same portfolio?