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kayak107
kayak107
Inspiring
October 3, 2023
Question

Has this ever happened to you??

  • October 3, 2023
  • 18 replies
  • 994 views

I've had Lr for years and have never made this mistake.  When asked to upgrade current catalog to latest version -instead of selecting yes- I selected "older catalog".  That resulted in my active catalog being deleted.  Spent 2 hours with Adobe tech support.  Was able to select a catalog (not my current one).  All folders had a ? next to them.  So I then had to sync all folders with those stored on an ext drive.

When completed I discovered that there were no images in catalog from last year and all of this year.  We went into the time machine, to a specific date and I was able to see images shot on that date.

HAS THIS HAPPENED TO YOU ????

 

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    18 replies

    JohanElzenga
    Community Expert
    JohanElzengaCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 3, 2023

    No, this has never happened to me and I'm not sure what exactly happened to you. The upgrade dialog does not have an 'older catalog' choice, as you can see here: https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/help/create-catalogs.html , so I am not sure what exactly you did to lose your old catalog. One thing is clear however. Lightroom Classic offers you to make catalog backups. The default is once a week, but you can change that to every time Lightrolm quits. Use this option, and if possible, then select a different disk in the backup dialog. It is also a good idea to use Apple Time Machine to make a backup of your entire disk. Not only because that could also have saved you from all these problems, but because I assume you have other stuff on your hard disk that you do not want to lose either.

     

    -- Johan W. Elzenga
    kayak107
    kayak107Author
    Inspiring
    October 3, 2023

    Great news.  problem solved.  I poked around the computer and found all of my missing images.  adobe tech supoort showed me how to import them into Lr.  don't know why they didn't show up when I synced folders.

    thank you for your feedback.

    dj_paige
    dj_paige
    Legend
    October 3, 2023

    Did you or Adobe tech support try to find the catalog on your hard disk(s) as was suggested above? Did you or Adobe tech support look for recent backups of your catalog file?

     

    Importing photos into a catalog is not the best solution; in fact in my opinion it is a poor solution that should only be used as a last resort. By importing, depending on what you did previously, you could lose all of your edits and user-provided metadata; you will lose all of your collections, edit history, pick flags, virtual copies and a few other things. I would not consider this "problem solved". The fact that Adobe tech support helped you do this makes me queasy and somewhat angry (unless they looked for catalogs and recent backups first and were unable to find any).

     

    dj_paige
    dj_paige
    Legend
    October 3, 2023

    Catalogs should not be deleted by Lightroom Classic. There is, as far as I know, no such "feature" in Lightroom Classic to delete a catalog when upgrading, or at any other time. Upgrading should not cause (and doesn't cause for everyone else) the deletion of existing catalogs, whether it is the catalog being upgraded or some other catalog on your hard disk.

     

    So, did you, or Adobe tech support, use your operating system's search feature to search all hard disks for all files whose name ends with .LRCAT?

     

    Don't you have recent backups of your catalog file?

    kayak107
    kayak107Author
    Inspiring
    November 27, 2023

    I'm back.  I just discovered that all of my photos from 2021 and 2022 are missing.  I'm using a Mac, photos are neither in Finder nor my catalog.  This all resulted from the last time I upgraded to an incorrect catalog.

    Waiting for a callback from Adobe.  I'm not hopeful.

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