"Corrupt catalog" on startup but problem actually extension on the main catalog file has disappeared

Forum|Forum|10 months ago
May 24, 2025
1 reply
541 views

This weird problem has happened 3 times now.

I'll shut down LR Classic and backup as usual. Next time I start LRC, I get that corrupt catalog message. "Repair" does not work.

Well, here's what happens. When i find the active catalog in Finder, somehow the extension is gone. Instead of

Lightroom-catalog-2025-April-1.lrcat

The file is actually there but the extension is missing. It's just:

Lightroom-catalog-2025-April-1

If I rename it by just appending .lrcat to that filename, then it opens and works fine.

I'm glad the file is still there but this seems like a disaster-in-waiting. Any idea what's happening? I'm not having any other system issues. I have over 100,000 images in LRC and this is disconcerting.

MacOS 15.5 MacBook Pro M1 64GB memory 2TB internal SDD

I'm attaching a screenshot of the file structure, which looks like it's cluttered with garbage. I'd like to move everything to a clean folder but not sure how.

macOS

Correct answer Rob_Cullen

What is the 'Cloud' icon on all your catalog files? (I'm on WIndows)

Any Cloud syncing of LrC catalogs is prone to cause errors.

Move that master catalog [Lightroom-catalog-2025-April-1.lrcat] out of a cloud syncing folder and try it again.

Rob_Cullen

Correct answer

Community Expert

What is the 'Cloud' icon on all your catalog files? (I'm on WIndows)

Any Cloud syncing of LrC catalogs is prone to cause errors.

Move that master catalog [Lightroom-catalog-2025-April-1.lrcat] out of a cloud syncing folder and try it again.

Regards. My System: Windows-11, Lightroom-Classic 15.1.1, Photoshop 27.3.1, ACR 18.1.1, Lightroom 9.0, Lr-iOS 10.4.0, Bridge 16.0.2 .

JohanElzenga

Community Expert

I think @Rob_Cullen is on the right track. You seem to be using a cloud service that works with an 'online only' option. Some files and folders are shown as being 'zero bytes' in size, or have ridiculously small sizes like 4 KB. If your catalog gets synced to such a service, it may no longer be accessible to Lightroom, so don't use this service unless you can check an option to keep a local copy of the files.

-- Johan W. Elzenga

snsokAuthor

Known Participant

Yes, I need to move the catalog off a folder that sync's to iCloud. The catalog is kept locally on my machine but is then sync'ed to iCloud.

The tiny files seem to be Lightroom's failed attempts to repaid the catalog, something it went through several times until it gave up.

I am not sure which of all those files in my screenshot are the ones I should be moving to a new location.

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded