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Marstoc
Marstoc
Participant
November 18, 2019
Question

Catalog "upgrade": What the hell was that...!!!!

  • November 18, 2019
  • 1 reply
  • 381 views

So, I just upgraded to the latest version of Lightroom and it immediately popped up a message saying that I had to upgrade my catalog to continue working.  I dutifully clicked on the big green button and five hours later there is a massive new file [Lightroom Library.lrlibrary]  taking up half my harddrive and my cloud storage has overflowed (~20% of my images "cannot sync due to lack of cloud storage!) , having only been 1/3 full before that.

WTF, Adobe????

Why do I need a 390Gb "library" file as well as my original images?

Why is my cloud storage suddenly gone?

How do I get it all back (hard drive space and cloud storage)?

You could at least warn people if you are going to f*** up their computer with your "upgrade".

Any thoughts from the community appreciated...

V. angry....

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

J
Community Expert
Jao vdLCommunity Expert
Community Expert
November 19, 2019

You did not upgrade Lightroom but downloaded a different app that Adobe calls Lightroom. Adobe renamed the old Lightroom that you know and love to Lightroom Classic. The Lightroom that you downloaded is a port of the mobile lightroom app for iOS and android to Desktop operating systems. It misses 95% of the features (no printing, no virtual copies, no slideshows, no real export options, etc.) but it stores all images in the cloud instead of on your local disks which can be something you might want but you lose all the other features if you switch to Lightroom Cloudy. When you install Lightroom cloudy, it offers to migrate your Classic catalog to the cloud. It does this by first copying all images into a hidden directory inside the library file you found and then it uploads all those images to the cloud. If that ius succesful it will delete the local copies. The result is what you see that you suddenly need double the harddrive space. 

 

You probably didn't want to install the cloudy lightroom version but you probably wanted to update to Lightroom Classic. If that is the case, install it from the creative cloud app and uninstall the app just called Lightroom which is the cloud version. Open Classic and it should find your normal catalog and use that (it might need to do some housekeeping to upgrade it to the latest version but that is quick and takes no real disk space). Then if in CLassic you find all your images again, you can delete the Lightroom Library.lrlibrary file to free up space.

 

Adobe really messed up with the naming of the new app. They should never have called it just "Lightroom" as it leads to endless confusion. They should have called it "Lightroom Cloud" or something like that. For the overwhelming majority of people Lightroom Classic is the right choice. If all you do is light duty shooting and like all your images in the cloud and to be available on all platforms the same and you rarely print and rarely share images on other platforms, than Lightroom cloudy is the right choice.

 

ICSTARS15067439
ICSTARS15067439
Participating Frequently
November 24, 2019

I did not understand your response to Marstoc's problem. Yesterday, I received a notice that I needed to upgrade my catalog. This prompt occured when I opened up LR Classic. I blinked several times, shut down LR and reopened it. The prompt came up again. I took a deep breath and clicked 'Okay' or whatever I clicked. The new catalog is listed as: "Lightroom Catalog Classic - 2.Ircat". The old catalog is still 'there' when I go to File/Open Recent. Matter of fact I have two files: "Lightroom Classic Catalog - 1.Ircat" & Lightroom Catalog. Ircat. When I attempt to open LR I get the following notice. What can I do to get rid of this notice? 

 

J
Community Expert
Jao vdLCommunity Expert
Community Expert
November 24, 2019

That's a different issue. Sometimes when Lightroom Classic gets updated they slightly change the format of the catalog files. This necessitates Classic to make a copy of your catalog and to upgrade(I.e. change the format of the copy so it works in the new Classic version). It keeps the catalog from the previous version intact which is why it still says you need to upgrade when you open that in the new Classic version. The new copy of the catalog is now your main catalog. You should not reopen the old catalog file. It will just try to upgrade that again and create another copy. Just open the newly created catalog and you should be fine.

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