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Corrupt Catalogue file - about 5 years of work lost.

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
July 8, 2019
6 replies
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I'm syncing my Lightroom Clasic through the Creative Cloud files. Satuday I uploaded 2 new 128 GB cards and started developing the images. When i quit lightroom it hung up, would not close and the application became unresponsive. I'm running a fully loaded iMac Pro, OSX 10.14.5 and Lightroom is up to date as of today. All original files are stored on an mirrored external thunderbolt drive with 5 enterprise level drives. The gear is all first rate.

On Sunday evening I opened up Lightroom to keep editing and I got the dreaded catalogue file corrupted error. After the failed repair and shutdown I copied the entire folder, moved it to a new location for safety, then tried opening Lightroom again with no luck. An internet search revealed a way to repair the LRCAT file using the terminal and some SQL tools built into the Mac. I did this and the first time everythig looked like it worked but the file faled to open again and tried to go through the repair. I figured I would open up one of the zip files from the backups that I do twice a week but sadly, those files would not open either. There also does not seem to be any way to get Lightroom to open up and ask you for a catalogue so the constqnt crashes were not giving me a chance to try something else and if I just tried to open Lightroom by opening a backup file it would crash again and write a bunch of new data to the existing files.

I even went back to a Time Machine backup and triedd to open that. Now I have about 7 copies of my LRCAT that are reporting as corrupted and can't be fixed by any method I have tried. I have even uninstalled Lightroom, rebooted the computer, deleted a bunch of the files from the Library/Applicaiton Support/Adobe folder which was a suggestion from this forum. I finally gave up and just created an entirely new catalogue by renaming the LRCAT files, moving them, and starting a new Catalogue in a new folder. Almsot 4 hours later my images were all back in place, the folders were all where they should be but the collections were all gone and I think that the adjustments to many of the images are also fouled up. I have not had a chance to verify that yet.

So here's my quesiton, has anyone had this kind of caterstrphic failure happen before? Do you know any other solutions to repair the LRCAT files?

It also turns out that my Creative Cloud folder isn't updating. It's been syncing for more than 4 hours and it's is still showing 4 out of 5 and 2 seconds remaining even after three re-boots of both systems.

This is a real mess. About 28,000 images, hundreds of catalogues and months of work apparently gone. At least all of the images are backed up. I really want to know why the backups won't open - not one of them, and I want to know why the Lighroom won't give you the opportunity to choose a library when you open it. There shold also be an option to save your library as a different name like you can in every other app so you can generate backups and copies whenever you want.

Any ideas on how to recover the corrupted catalogue files wuld be appreiated. I think that I'm going to have to go back to a system where each project has it's own LRCAT file because I can't afford to work for another year and then loose all of my sorting and organizing.

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Correct answer Rick Gerard

Syncing through Creative Cloud is a feature outlined right in the help files. Right there in your link, and here, complete with video tutorials,

How to sync photos and edits across all devices | Adobe Photoshop ...https://helpx.adobe.com › Adobe Photoshop Lightroom › Tutorials

And there are a lot of other articles on the capability.

Skip Lightroom CC and Sync Catalogs With LR Classic | Fstoppershttps://fstoppers.com › Education

I am not doing anything at all outside of the recommended procedures. Maybe I didn't explain the workflow carefully enough, but I did not customize anything. It was Lightroom trying to repair a catalog that caused all the problems. The huge amount of work that was lost was the collections that were synced.

There is also no reason at all that letting Lightroom rebuild a catalog should completely destroy it. That is what is happening. I found a couple of techniques to read and analyze the damaged LRCAT files using Terminal. Before the Lightroom attempts to repair a catalog the SQL tools return no errors. The technique does not fix the damaged copy, but no errors are returned in the hundreds of lines of code that are echoed in the Terminal panel.

After Lightroom tries to repair the file there are hundreds of lines of error messages. Something is broken that should not be broken.

Turns out the only way to fix the problem is to isolate the LRCAT file in another folder, make sure the original files are available, then force Lightroom to rebuild the previews and start all over again. If you use a separate LRCAT for every job this is not that much of a big deal, but if you keep a couple of terabytes of files or even a couple of months of work in a single catalog you could lose everything if you let Lightroom try and rebuild the catalog.

I'm calling this the correct answer.

If Lightroom locks up and tells you that the catalog is damaged DO NOT let Lightroom try and repair the catalog. Force Lightroom To Quit without running the repair, it's not easy, then try the following.

Reboot
Copy the LRCAT file to another location but do not move any of the other files
Make sure that the original image files are available and in their normal location
Hold down the Alt/Option key when opening Lightroom so you can choose the LRCAT file copy or double click the copy of the LRCAT file to open Lightroom
Recreate all image previews in the Lightroom Library using the recommended technique
Verify that all collections and synced files are showing up as they should.
Open View On Web to see the Creative Cloud Folder in a browser
Pause Creative Cloud File Sync
Delete the broken file using the web browser
Replace the broken catalog files in the Creative Cloud Folder using all of the repaired files in the temporary folder
Turn Sync back on and wait for all files to be updated
Run Lightroom again.

I tried to have Lightroom repair a broken catalog 5 or 6 times using different backups. Every single time the files were not repaired and Lightroom would crash immediately when it tried to open the supposedly repaired file again.

Todd Shaner

Legend

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Rick+Gerard wrote
I'm syncing my Lightroom Clasic through the Creative Cloud files. Satuday I uploaded 2 new 128 GB cards and started developing the images. When i quit lightroom it hung up, would not close and the application became unresponsive. I'm running a fully loaded iMac Pro, OSX 10.14.5 and Lightroom is up to date as of today. All original files are stored on an mirrored external thunderbolt drive with 5 enterprise level drives. The gear is all first rate.

Why are you storing and syncing the original image files and LR Catalog files in the Creative Cloud Folder and when did you start doing this? LR Classic users normally only sync LR Collections, which uploads much smaller smart previews to the Cloud. It sounds like you're confusing LR Classic's operation with LR Desktop, Mobile, and Web apps. I suggest you Pause Creative Cloud File Sync for now until you resolve the corrupt catalog issue and stop using the designated Creative Cloud Folder for your original image files and LR Catalog files storage location. This is most likely what's causing the LR hangs and catalog corruption messages. Do you also have the Lightroom Desktop 2.3 app installed or just the Classic 8.3.1 app? Go to LR Help> About to see the version number.

R

Rick Gerard

Author

Community Expert

I'm not storing original image files in the Creative Cloud folder. Only Lightroom Library Files right now. I deleted everything else.

I paused sync on both machines about 3 hours ago. Then I put 3 folders in the Creative Cloud Folder on my iMac Pro. The Test Cat folder contains a catalog with 10 images I created yesterday as a test. The Lightroom folder contains a copy of my original catalog from a 3-month-old backup that I have not tried to open in either computer yet because every catalog that I have opened so far has caused Lightroom to crash and corrupt the file. The Master copy folder is a new catalog that I created on the iMac pro from my external drive that stores all of my images. There are no collections and I am not sure that all of the photo edits have been preserved. It took the web about 3 minutes to sync up.

Then I turned on syncing on my MacBook Pro and after an hour here's what I have:

That's right, 161 hours to sync 3 folders. Something is fouled up.

I loaded the same 3 folders in DropBox to see how long it took for them to sync up. Under 3 minutes and they were on the MacBook Pro.

Something is definitely fouled up with syncing and I think that it has something to do with the problem Lightroom is having opening up my previous files.

Here's what happens when I try and open up the catalog file in Dropbox:

Same old error. If I repair the file that fails, then I can't open it up on the iMac Pro either. Using terminal and the SQL fix won't fix the file either.

Something on my MacBook Pro is killing catalog files and fouling up sync. I wish I knew what it was.

Todd Shaner

Legend

In your reply I don't see that your tried what I suggested.

"I suggest you Pause Creative Cloud File Sync for now until you resolve the corrupt catalog issue and stop using the designated Creative Cloud Folder for your original image files and LR Catalog files storage location."

For troubleshooting purposes let's keep it simple without ANY syncing and see what we can do. Place one of the unzipped Lightroom Catalog.lrcat backup files and nothing else in any folder other than the Creative Cloud Folder and pause syncing. Double-click on the .lrcat file in that folder and it will launch LR and should open. Please tell us what happens. Thank you!

Bob Somrak

Legend

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Rick+Gerard wrote
and I want to know why the Lightroom won't give you the opportunity to choose a library when you open it.

You can have Lightroom ask which catalog (not library) you want to open by holding the OPTION key down when you start Lightroom.

M4 Pro Mac Mini. 48GB

R

Rick Gerard

Author

Community Expert

I unzipped the backups. None of them going back 3 months would open. I tried 2, then uninstalled Lightroom removing preferences, rebooted and reinstalled, then I tried 4 more and none of them would open on my laptop. I went through preferences and enabled lightroom sync and now, even the new catalog that will open on my iMac Pro has problems on the laptop. It shows no images.

I've got more work to do in diagnosing this problem. There is absolutely no excuse for Lightroom to be so fragile. I cannot open any backup files on either machine. I cannot copy the entire catalog file to an external drive and have it open on my iMac. I cannot connect my storage drive array to the laptop and have it open the catalog without saying the catalog is damaged. Every time Lightroom tries to repair a damaged catalog it is permanently damaged.

This is a real mess.

dj_paige

Legend

What happens if you put the backup on an external disk and open it from there?

dj_paige

Legend

Also, you probably did this, but I'll mention it anyway ... backup catalogs have to be unzipped first.

JohanElzenga

Community Expert

How did you try to open these catalog backups? I have often seen that people try to open a file directly from the backup disk, but that is not the way to do it. You have to use Time Machine to restore the file(s) to another disk.

-- Johan W. Elzenga

dj_paige

Legend

What happens if you take one of your backups and put it on a different disk than the original was stored on? Will it open from this different disk?