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Bella Carolina
Known Participant
June 2, 2019
Question

Latest LR update deleted my catalog and emptied file folders

  • June 2, 2019
  • 7 replies
  • 3852 views

I spent over an hour chatting with tech support. He could not explain why this happened or how to avoid it or prevent it from happening again. I had set up auto update and have now disabled it.

Has anyone else experienced this? Or have any ideas about why this happened? Has it happened to you?

This topic has been closed for replies.

7 replies

J
Community Expert
Jao vdLCommunity Expert
Community Expert
October 22, 2022

I read in another thread that apparently there might be a bug in LRC v12 when catalogs are on external (read non C: drives on windows) they are not upgraded correctly upon opening them in LRC v12. I would recommend you revert to LRC v11 and open your old non-upgraded catalog for now. 

GoldingD
GoldingD
Legend
June 3, 2019

Based on your screenshots, the issue is not a new catalog, and probably not a wrong catalog issue, but of a catalog failing for some reason.

B
Bella CarolinaAuthor
Known Participant
June 3, 2019

Thank you, David for your help. I believe there is a catalog failure and I don't have any clue how to go about trying to figure it out. What is your opinion if I uninstall LR and re-install it?

Geoff the kiwi
Community Expert
Geoff the kiwiCommunity Expert
Community Expert
June 3, 2019

Have you tried File>Open Recent?? What shows in there??

What is the name of your catalog?
Do you have more than one catalog??

Can you search for Folders named Lightroom please??

GoldingD
GoldingD
Legend
June 3, 2019

Adobe Lightroom - Find moved or missing files and folders

B
Bella CarolinaAuthor
Known Participant
June 3, 2019

I don't know if this is viewable but now I have a new issue. I relinked a folder of images and it shows 0 images in the catalog instead of the 294 that are in the file. Any ideas?  The folder is called 227 51st St. Its the 1st one in the E drive.

GoldingD
GoldingD
Legend
June 3, 2019

That your Windows File Explorer shows images existing in a folder, but your Lightroom Classic Folder Panel, is not showing those images just means either they were never in the catalog, or got removed from the catalog (but not deleted from the computer)

The Folder Panel in Lightroom shows what images exists that are indexed into the catalog. It does not act as a file manager, it acts as a database file reporter.

Now, do you keep your images on multiple hard drives? Your Folder Panel indicates either you do, or that you have moved images or drives around, and Lightroom is confused. But, to each their own workflow, and their own file management approach. If you do file here and their Ok, if you do not, then an issue is occurring.

A more glaring issue is the ? mark in multiple folder locations.

Will post a link on missing images

B
Bella CarolinaAuthor
Known Participant
June 2, 2019

Hi Johan,

You can find it hard to believe but it's true. I'm a PC user and honestly that is neither here nor there. In my research today I found a thread about this very problem that was started in 2017 and has it's last post on Dec 2018. Many others have experienced this deleted catalog problem. It's sad to read as the Adobe rep took such an aggressive tone continually insisting that the posters didn't know what they were talking about. That he couldn't believe it and that the problem was obviously user error. Lightroom catalog suddenly disappeared

Thanks for asking but I don't think that posting an image of my screen with a catalog of greyed out folders with 0 next to it will really tell you anything I haven't said. The tech support had access to my computer twice and performed a search and gave up. I performed a search for any extra .lrcat files and found none.

Thanks for your responses. Clearly there is a problem with some LR updates. And clearly Adobe is refusing to admit and troubleshoot. I appreciate your effort on my behalf.

Just Shoot Me
Just Shoot Me
Legend
June 3, 2019

Have you searched all of your drives for .lrcat? That is the file extension of the LR catalog file.

Have you searched your drives for the file extension of the RAW (various extensions are used) or JPG (.jpg) files you think have been deleted?

There is nothing in the LR install routine or the LR Update install routine that would delete a catalog file or image files from your hard drive.

It does not happen by installing LR or an update to LR.

B
Bella CarolinaAuthor
Known Participant
June 3, 2019

Hello Just Shoot Me,

Yes, I read your similar response to people having the same trouble last year. Lightroom catalog suddenly disappeared   I have to say your tone and attitude to them was aggressive and downright nasty. That you would yell at someone clearly in distress (blame them "user error") and in need of help who is reaching out in a forum meant to be a helpful community, speaks volumes. 

I have no doubt that this happened to the folks in the link I shared. It has happened to me. And I have searched my harddrives and external drives and have only found this one and empty catalog and empty folders. And no, I did not delete them on purpose or by mistake. I am a professional and that is my work.

I would appreciate that if you choose to reply you keep your tone civil and helpful. If you can not, please do not reply.

    B
    Bella CarolinaAuthor
    Known Participant
    June 2, 2019

    Thanks Johan. Unfortunately there is no new catalog in the Pictures folder or anywhere. I ran a search. Also, even if it created a new catalog why would it delete the photos from the file folders in my drive? LR is not suppose to touch the original file folder, right?

    All of those final images were exported to Smugmug. When I checked Smugmug they were gone from there as well.  Do you have any ideas why any of this happened and if it'll happen again?

    Thanks for your 1st answer. Bella

    JohanElzenga
    Community Expert
    JohanElzengaCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    June 2, 2019

    I have never heard of this and quite frankly I find it very hard to believe that an update would do that. I still think Lightroom started with a new catalog instead of your old one. A new catalog won't show any of your photos, but that doesn't mean they are deleted from your disk. They are just not in the catalog.

    Posting to Smugmug is not part of Lightroom, so I assume you used a third party plugin to do that. I don't know what that plugin does when it gets started from a new catalog, but it may delete the published photos.

    Can you post some screenshots that illustrate the problem? Right now, we don't even know whether you use Mac or Windows and what versions, so that makes it impossible to help you sort this out.

    -- Johan W. Elzenga
    J
    Jeff234411630h79
    Participant
    October 22, 2022

    It did it to me as well.  But now all of them, just 200 I took last month and spent hours editing at an event where I caught Covid.  Needless to say I'm not happy.  

    JohanElzenga
    Community Expert
    JohanElzengaCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    June 2, 2019

    Sounds like a rather simple problem. Installing Lightroom does not remove catalogs or images. Most likely Lightroom created and opened a new catalog rather than the existing one. I can’t tell you the name or location of your catalog, but the default location is a subfolder in your Pictures folder. The Lightroom catalog has a .lrcat extension. That should help you to find it.

    -- Johan W. Elzenga
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