Lightroom could not import this catalogue because an unknown error occurred.

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
March 3, 2025
4 replies
865 views

Adobe Lightroom Classic: Importing LR catalogues to existing one - import issue

Hey everybody, I need help and can't find anything in the internet. I edit all my pictures in Lightroom Classic and have one master catalogue. One day I thought it would be clever to create new catalogues from time to time, as they can grow quite large. However, this was not a good idea. Since them I have trouble to update them or to merge the catalogues again.

I finally managed to update my old catalogue to the latest version, however I still have issues to import / merge the rest of my photos into my master catalogue. I have merged about 80%, but then I always get the same issue, it basically says "Lightroom could not import this catalogue because an unknown error occurred." (in German "Lightroom konnte diesen Katalog nicht importieren, da ein unbekannter Fehler aufgetreten ist.")

I searched the internet, but issues are often: old computer, not enough storage/RAM, outdated LR software, catalogues in cloud, ... My Macbook is new and very strong Macbook Pro, 36GB RAM, Chip Apple M3 Pro), I have 600GB free storage on the SSD, the catalogues are fresh and updated, everything stored on my main drive.

I have exported the missing files into a fresh catalogue and tried to import it into my master, I tried to import them in a new fresh catalogue, ... I always get the same issues.

I don't export the DNGs and when importing, I chose to import new photos without copying - to keep it simple. However my master catalogue is quite large now (~500.000 photos), but it works well, as I do my backups etc regularly.

Has anybody of you ever occurred this error? Or any ideas how to merge catalogues when having this error? Thank you!!

macOS

Africadunc

Known Participant

I had the exact same issue... I did a post on how I fixed it and re-merged all my catalgoues...

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/quot-unknown-error-quot-while-importing-from-another-catalogue/idi-p/15249883

DdeGannes

Community Expert

Just a thought, during LrC version 13 there there was a transition to a version 2 of the Sync to Creative Cloud engine. Due to this event LrC version 14 is unable to open a Catalog created earlier than LrC version 13.2. To enable this to happen you have to first use LrC 13.2 to upgrade the Catalog.

This may be causing the problem you are experiencing.

For sync to Adobe Creative Cloud you need to be using LrC 13.3 or later.

Have a look at the info at the link below for an understanding of what took place.

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/whats-new-in-lightroom-2024-10/

Regards, Denis: iMac 27” mid-2015, macOS 11.7.10 Big Sur; 2TB SSD, 24 GB Ram, GPU 2 GB; LrC 12.5,; Lr 6.5, PS 24.7,; ACR 15.5,; (also Laptop Win 11, ver 24H2, LrC 15.0.1, PS 27.0; ) Camera Oly OM-D E-M1.

Africadunc

Known Participant

I'm having the same issue with multiple catalogues. The actual catalogues themselves can be opened without problem, but I get this error when I import them into my master catalogue, despite having just created it.

dj_paige

Legend

I'm having the same issue with multiple catalogues. The actual catalogues themselves can be opened without problem, but I get this error when I import them into my master catalogue, despite having just created it.

By @Africadunc