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laxwings
Participating Frequently
January 6, 2013
Answered

error message: unexpected error opening catalog

  • January 6, 2013
  • 17 replies
  • 33801 views

I am getting this message when trying to open Lightroom 4.  I have had no problems ever before.  Any solutions?

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer hedeon79

I have finnaly solved this, and maybe it will work for you too. Run Lightroom as Administrator, that did the trick!!! YES!!!

Thanks

17 replies

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Sarvesh0D45
Participant
August 13, 2020

Running the app as admin may not solve the problem for everyone. I found a solution in my case. If you wish, read ahead to know my situation and how I diagnosed it or just skip to the highlighted solution part.

I installed LR and on the first attempt (while my internet was down and windows defender was disabled) it opened the catalog without any issues. Then I had work on the internet so I turned on both my antivirus and my internet and after that Lightroom crashed saying it ran into some problem and needed to close. When I reopened, it would not open my catalog. I could create a new one and it would work fine but my original catalog had over 4 years of work in it. I just couldn't give up. So I noticed what triggered the event. 2 possibilities. 1. Catalog got corrupt. 2. Windows Defender. Since I had made over 43 backups of my catalog in various different places included 4-5 cloud storages, I tried about 7 of them and all of them failed to open. So the only issue left was Windows Defender. I tried to turn everything off in Windows Defender and reopen my LR but it didn't work. Finally I recalled same thing happening with FIFA19. It would just crash on opening. So I applied the same solution I used in FIFA19 over here.

Solution:
Go to Settings app > Update and Security > Windows Security > Virus and Threat Protection > under virus and threat protection settings click on manage settings > scroll down and you will see 'controlled folder access'. Click on 'manage controlled folder access' under it > allow an app through controlled folder access > click on add an allowed app. Browse to Lightroom Installation folder (Generally: C:/Program Files/Adobe/Adobe Lightroom (or just Lightroom)). Now close any open apps and launch lightroom. It should read your catalog fine. Lemme know if this method helps. This is an annoying little feature from windows that blocks access to certain folders for all apps for security's sake.

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FamilyG
Participant
February 4, 2018

This one saved me:

Windows Defender Security Center

Virus & threat protection

Virus & threat protection settings

Controlled folder access: TURN OFF

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    Seibertron
    Participant
    June 8, 2018

    last post helped me with the same problem after I locked down some settings a few months back with Windows Defender. Rather than turning off virus and threat protection, I enabled Lightroom to get through instead.

    • Go to Windows Defender Security Center
    • Then go to Virus & threat protection settings
    • Then select "Allow an app through Controlled folder access" under "Controlled folder access" section
    • Then select "plus sign" next to "Add an allowed app"
    • Then locate your Lightroom EXE file. Mine was located at the following path, but it may differ on your computer. C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Lightroom\lightroom.exe . After you've selected the file, double click on it, highlight it and click enter, or hit open with the filename highlighted.

    Once I did that, I was finally able to successfully open Lightroom once again. What is a real shame is that Windows Defender allows us to lock down our computers (which is fantastic), but doesn't provide proper errors when programs encounter errors because of this lockdown. That's really unfortunate because I've encountered similar errors with other programs. It can be really frustrating because I really want my computer to go back to how it used to be without these problems (especially as more time passes since I set up Defender to better protect my computer from intrusions), however I know it is better to have it setup this way. Just wish Defender provided better errors when programs encountered the new rule I setup with Windows Defender.

    Hope this helps someone else after I messed around with all of this for the past half hour just so I could edit 20 photos completely unrelated to any library from earlier this year!

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      patcharap72430734
      Participant
      June 5, 2019

      thats really help me. thankyou so much

      R
      Refpoman
      Participant
      January 28, 2018

      I'm having the same VERY frustrating issue!  "Unexpected error opening catalog"  Can someone please walk me through the process so I can once again PROCESS some very timely photos so I can keep my job! LOL

      I appreciate any and all help at this point!

      Thanks guys!

      nataliebero
      nataliebero
      Participant
      January 23, 2018

      I have the same problem - "Unexpected error opening catalog". I don't have any problems with the hard drive. The system (Windows 7) is in small SSD C:, all data is in disk D:. One day Lightroom stopped opening the catalog, and that's all! My clients are waiting for the result, and I cannot answer them "My Lightroom is broken", Disgusting situation. And no any decisions by Adobe

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      flashtastic1500
      Known Participant
      January 18, 2018

      Had the same issue today (for the first time). I had my back-up programme backing up LR at the time so paused the back-up and then LR opened normally. Hope that helps.

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      lucentfilms
      Participant
      January 6, 2018

      does not work it saya to choose a different catalog

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      Brian Hook
      Participant
      October 25, 2016

      Got this error message on one of my catalogs, all other catalogs were working fine. I think it was caused by removing hard drive while the catalog was open.

      FIX:

      1. Hold Option and click on Lightroom.
      2. Dialog box with your catalog list opens.
      3. First tick the check box in the bottom right "Test integrity of this catalog"
      4. Then find the troublesome catalog from the list and open it.
      5. The catalog should open but this does not fix the issue.
      6. To stop this issue for the catalog you will have to export the entire catalog out as a new catalog.
      7. Once complete, delete the old troublesome one.

      Will take a long time if you have an enormous catalog!

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        TechByter
        Inspiring
        September 24, 2016

        This is a really old question, but I faced a similar issue today and here's the process I went through:

        1. Moved what appeared to be the problem catalog to a new folder for safekeeping.
        2. Extracted the most recent backup catalog in place of the previous catalog. (Same error.)
        3. Restored a catalog from the external backup drive. (Same error.)
        4. Ran Lightroom as Administrator. (Same error.)
        5. Created a NEW catalog. (Same error message.)
        6. Uninstalled and reinstalled Lightroom. (While this was happening, I looked in the directory where the new catalog should have been, but none had been created. Gigantic clue!) Checking the attributed for the catalog directory, I found that it had been set to read only. Arrrrgh!
        7. Removed read only attributes from the directory and all files.
        8. Copied the  "problem" catalog back from the other directory, confirmed that read only attribute was not set.
        9. Lightroom now operates normally.

        So if you encounter this issue, checking the attributes is a good idea.

        francealot
        francealot
        Inspiring
        September 29, 2016

        I've tried changing the attributes, but it hasn't helped the problem.  I changed attributes on the Lightroom folder and on the Pictures folder.  Is that what you did?

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        TechByter
        Inspiring
        September 29, 2016

        No, I changed the attributes on the catalog folder. On my system, the images are in a directory on the D drive and the catalog is on the E drive. Find your catalog file and check that. I think Adobe defaults to placing that in the Pictures directory, which is under your account directory on the C drive.

        Note that I also uninstalled and reinstalled Lightroom CC at the same time. It's a bad practice to make 2 changes simultaneously, but that's what I did. One change or the other fixed the problem, so if changing the catalog directory's attributes doesn't do it, uninstall/reinstall might work. MOST (but not all) of my settings were preserved.

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        RonD43
        Participating Frequently
        April 3, 2016

        I had the same problem on Windows 10. I was able to solve the issue by running Lightroom as an administrator and my catalog opened.

        twincitymedia
        twincitymedia
        Participant
        March 28, 2016

        Laxwings try my solution.  My C: drive (where the original catalog was located) must not have had sufficient space.  I copied that entire Lightroom Folder from my C:/thispc/pictures/lightroom location and pasted them to me additional hard drive (E:).  When I received that error message again I chose instead to open the catalog on my E drive.  Lightroom opened.

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