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vertigrator
Participating Frequently
May 7, 2019
Answered

Can't open my old catalog after installing trial version

  • May 7, 2019
  • 3 replies
  • 692 views

I have a perpetual licence for Lightroom 6. I thought I'd check to see if there were any updates for it and accidentally clicked the wrong button and instead clicked the Update button that installed the trial version of 8.5. So I deleted that. I still had my LR6 but it now won't open my catalog, even though I made sure that I was trying to open the old catalog file that I had restored from my backup drive. The strange thing is that my Lightroom about screen used to say version 7.0.1 or similar instead of version 6. It now says version 6.14. So I think that when I originally installed my perpetual licence Lightroom 6 two years ago, it actually installed something that had a different version number on it, even though it was just the standalone perpetual licenced software. So it must have been just the version 6 software, but was reporting itself as version 7 for some strange reason. After the trial install and subsequent uninstall, it now says 6.14 and that's probably why it won't open my catalogue.

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer JohanElzenga

    vertigrator  wrote

    I have a perpetual licence for Lightroom 6. I thought I'd check to see if there were any updates for it and accidentally clicked the wrong button and instead clicked the Update button that installed the trial version of 8.5. So I deleted that. I still had my LR6 but it now won't open my catalog, even though I made sure that I was trying to open the old catalog file that I had restored from my backup drive. The strange thing is that my Lightroom about screen used to say version 7.0.1 or similar instead of version 6. It now says version 6.14. So I think that when I originally installed my perpetual licence Lightroom 6 two years ago, it actually installed something that had a different version number on it, even though it was just the standalone perpetual licenced software. So it must have been just the version 6 software, but was reporting itself as version 7 for some strange reason. After the trial install and subsequent uninstall, it now says 6.14 and that's probably why it won't open my catalogue.

    There has been an installer bug, that allowed Lightroom 6 users to upgrade their version of Lightroom to some non-existing 'Lightroom 7' version. Sounds like you did that and so your catalog was converted to the Lightroom Classic format. That would explain why you can't open it anymore, now that you are back using a regular Lightroom 6.14 version rather than this 'Frankenstein Lightroom' as somebody called it.

    You can do the following: Open your catalog with Lightroom Classic trial (even if the trial is expired this should work), select all the images and choose 'Metadata - Save Metadata to Files'. Then open Lightroom 6, create a new catalog, and import these images. The edits and metadata should come over, except those edits that are new for Lightroom Classic (like Range Mask). Of course you will also have to manually restore other things like collections and smart collections, like @DJ_Paige already said..

    3 replies

    JohanElzenga
    Community Expert
    JohanElzengaCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
    Community Expert
    May 7, 2019

    vertigrator  wrote

    I have a perpetual licence for Lightroom 6. I thought I'd check to see if there were any updates for it and accidentally clicked the wrong button and instead clicked the Update button that installed the trial version of 8.5. So I deleted that. I still had my LR6 but it now won't open my catalog, even though I made sure that I was trying to open the old catalog file that I had restored from my backup drive. The strange thing is that my Lightroom about screen used to say version 7.0.1 or similar instead of version 6. It now says version 6.14. So I think that when I originally installed my perpetual licence Lightroom 6 two years ago, it actually installed something that had a different version number on it, even though it was just the standalone perpetual licenced software. So it must have been just the version 6 software, but was reporting itself as version 7 for some strange reason. After the trial install and subsequent uninstall, it now says 6.14 and that's probably why it won't open my catalogue.

    There has been an installer bug, that allowed Lightroom 6 users to upgrade their version of Lightroom to some non-existing 'Lightroom 7' version. Sounds like you did that and so your catalog was converted to the Lightroom Classic format. That would explain why you can't open it anymore, now that you are back using a regular Lightroom 6.14 version rather than this 'Frankenstein Lightroom' as somebody called it.

    You can do the following: Open your catalog with Lightroom Classic trial (even if the trial is expired this should work), select all the images and choose 'Metadata - Save Metadata to Files'. Then open Lightroom 6, create a new catalog, and import these images. The edits and metadata should come over, except those edits that are new for Lightroom Classic (like Range Mask). Of course you will also have to manually restore other things like collections and smart collections, like @DJ_Paige already said..

    -- Johan W. Elzenga
    V
    vertigratorAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    May 8, 2019

    Thanks Johan

    That sounds exactly like what must have happened. I remember being surprised when my Lightroom 6 was reporting that is was version 7 yet not having any of the features of version 7. So that must have all got wiped when I accidentally did the trial. I will install the trial again and try to work out what you and dj_paige mentioned of exporting to XMP. Do you do that for one image at a time or a folder at a time or can you do it for the whole catalog at once?

    V
    vertigratorAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    May 8, 2019

    I have installed the trial again and tried to save the metadata as XMP for the whole catalogue, but it only seems to do it for one file at a time. I have 31,000 files in my catalog, so this is not going to be feasible to do manually one image at a time. Is there a way I can do it as a bulk save?

    Just Shoot Me
    Just Shoot Me
    Legend
    May 7, 2019

    When installing a newer version of LR that requires a catalog upgrade your original catalog is left intact. So use the Search System for the OS you are using to search for .lrcat. One of them is your older LR 6 catalog.

    Problem is if you had been using LR 7 or 8 for a period of time any images imported and edited in either of those versions will not be in your older LR 6 catalog.

    Akash Sharma
    Akash Sharma
    Legend
    May 7, 2019

    hi vertigrator,

    Sorry that you've lost access to your Lightroom 6 catalog after you've updated Lightroom to version 8.2 from the Creative Cloud desktop app.

    I'd recommend that you make a backup of your Lightroom catalog by manually copying it to say your desktop temporarily and then uninstall Lightroom from your computer using the Creative Cloud cleaner tool.

    The whole intent of uninstalling the app is to re-serialize it. To use the Creative Cloud cleaner tool check out the steps mentioned here: Use the Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool to solve installation problems ​

    Once the Lightroom app is removed, you can reinstall it from the installation media. Use the below direct download links if you do not have the installation media handy:

    http://trials3.adobe.com/AdobeProducts/LTRM/6/osx10/Lightroom_6_LS11.dmg?PID=2159997 MAC

    http://trials3.adobe.com/AdobeProducts/LTRM/6/win64/Lightroom_6_LS11.exe?PID=2159997 Windows

    After installing the application, you can try opening the older catalog.

    Let us know if that helps?

    Thanks,

    Akash

    V
    vertigratorAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    May 7, 2019

    I have now tried what you said. It made no difference. When I looked through regedit.exe doing a search for lightroom I could see that there had been reference to these two versions installed on my PC, 7.0 which is what my old version was reporting itself as and 8.2.1, which is the latest trial version that I accidentally installed. As I said before, I have no idea why my version 6 software was reporting itself as version 7.0. But after uninstalling it and installing it again it now says 6.14. So therefore it can't open my previous catalog that I have been using for two years. So I have lost all of the edits I have made on all of my thousands of photos!

    Is there a way to save the catalogue from a newer version of Lightroom as an older version catalog? If so I could install the 8.2.1 trial again, which will upgrade my 7.0 catalog and then if I could save it as a version 6 catalog then I could uninstall the trial and open the catalog in my old version of Lightroom.

    dj_paige
    dj_paige
    Legend
    May 7, 2019

    If you were really using LR 7, then the catalog cannot be used (or converted somehow so that it can be used) in LR 6.

    If that's the case, you could use LR 8.2 for the 7 days of the trial, and then write the edits and other user-provided metadata to XMP. Then you could import all of this into a new LR 6 catalog, but some things will not transfer this way (a partial list): collections, edit history, edits using features not in LR 6, virtual copies, pick flags, books, web pages, slideshows.

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