Consistent Corruption of Catalogs

Forum|Forum|25 days ago
June 7, 2026
2 replies
54 views

Under OS X Sonoma, I was working on some catalogs. Everything was fine until I opened one catalog and it would not let me import new images or close properly (had to force quit). I tried optimizing it unsuccessfully. I tried moving it locally with no success. I tried importing JPGs instead of DNGs. Didn’t work.

I went so far as to do complete computer OS reinstall, upgrading to Tahoe. Didn’t work.

I eventually completely rebuilt the photo catalog using JPGs. The DNGs seemed to be the problem, but I’m not 100% convinced.

I moved on, but I am now realizing that as I work on more catalogs, the same problem is showing up on other catalogs. The big problem is that the catalogs are not fixable. I cannot optimize them. I have tried using the “check for integrity” on load, but it never finishes. It can go for hours trying with no success.

Having to completely rebuild catalogs is incredibly time consuming. This was never a problem before. I can open the source files just fine in Photoshop or other apps. No issues.

I personally think this is actually a Lightroom problem, not corrupt source files. I haven’t totally narrowed down the issue, but it seems to be DNG related. Specifically from DJI Mavic Pro 3.

Help! Anything else I can try?

Correct answer dj_paige

Consistent corruption of catalogs is almost always caused by a hardware malfunction, and given your description, I would suspect the hard disk where the catalogs are stored is malfunctioning. A second possible cause is failure of the memory chips in your computer.

Run diagnostics on your hard drive and memory chips.

Try unzipping a recent backup of one of the catalogs to a different drive and see if the problem goes away. Do not unzip to the same drive that the catalogs have been stored on.

T

Thor Egil Leirtrø

Known Participant

If you have the catalogue on an external disk, you have your root cause right there. That cabled connection is a recipe for disaster when you do heavy communication with a database through it.

Thor Egil LeirtrøFreelance concert photographer - thoregilphoto.com

dj_paige

Legend

If you have the catalogue on an external disk, you have your root cause right there. That cabled connection is a recipe for disaster when you do heavy communication with a database through it.

I am not convinced this is true. While any hardware can malfunction (including external drives and cable connections), there are also many people who leave their catalog file on an external drive all the time, and sometimes even move the external drive from one computer to another. I haven’t noticed that the people who do this have higher rates of catalog corruption than any other users.

dj_paigeCorrect answer

Legend

Consistent corruption of catalogs is almost always caused by a hardware malfunction, and given your description, I would suspect the hard disk where the catalogs are stored is malfunctioning. A second possible cause is failure of the memory chips in your computer.

Run diagnostics on your hard drive and memory chips.

Try unzipping a recent backup of one of the catalogs to a different drive and see if the problem goes away. Do not unzip to the same drive that the catalogs have been stored on.

T

tkdonovanAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thanks for the response. I spent several hours troubleshooting, including working on multiple hard drives, rebuilding catalogs from scratch, opening backups, running diagnostics, and much more.

I am now 95% sure the problem is with DNGs. What I cannot determine is if I have corrupt DNGs or if recent updates to Lightroom have introduced the issue. These are DNGs specifically created by the DJI Mavic Pro 3. Older DNGs from other devices seem to work fine.

I’ve been using the Mavic 3 for over a year with no issues. Just within the last month it became a problem. It’s possible the Mavic is delivering corrupt DNGs, but I cannot find any evidence of corruption other than Lightroom not working. The DNGs open fine in Photoshop and other apps.

So for now I’m just going to use JPGs, which is really lame, but I just can’t trust DNGs anymore in Lightroom. I’ll check periodically and see if the problem gets resolved.

dj_paige

Legend

So, in my opinion, DNGs cannot cause catalog corruption. There is no mechanism in my understanding that would allow a faulty image file to corrupt a catalog file. So I disagree with your conclusion. And nobody else is reporting DNGs cause catalog corruption.

When you say “opening backups”, did you follow my instructions and unzip the backup to a different disk, open this backup catalog there on the different disk, and see if the problem goes away? Did you run diagnostics on your hard disk and your memory chips?

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