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KennyBrandon
Participant
October 2, 2013
Answered

"Lightroom encountered and error when reading from its preview cache and needs to quit"

  • October 2, 2013
  • 23 replies
  • 115606 views

I keep receiving this error every time I open LR, "Lightroom encountered and error when reading from its preview cache and needs to quit" and the app won't open. It said LR would try and fix this error next time I opened it but the error remains. I tried uninstalled and installing the app and the error remains.

Any Ideas here? Is there another app that may be telling it where to look for the cache and it no longer there? I was using a ramdisk for a bit but ditched it. Not sure if that has something to do with it but it seems suspect.

Your thoughts?

--Kenny Brandon Wilson

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer dj_paige

You need to delete the Preview Cache.

It is located in the same folder as the Lightroom Catalog. The preview cache name ends with Previews.LRDATA and should be deleted. Do not confuse this with *.LRCAT, which should not be deleted.

23 replies

popsp3520164
Participant
April 26, 2016

not working!!!!

Legend
October 27, 2016

popsp3520164 wrote:

not working!!!!

Could you give us some details?

Did you try the solutions that were already discussed in this thread?

Participant
April 7, 2017

Same here. I tried renaming the file to "Lightroom 5 Preferences.agprefsOLD",however that didn't work. It actually created a second file with the same name and didn't resolve the problem.

Participant
April 1, 2016

I too have struggled with this issue.  I had all my photos and my catalog on an external drive.  Deleting the preview cache did not fix the problem.  So this week I moved my Lightroom folder (lightroom catalog, previews, etc.) onto my laptop's hard drive.  Have not had a problem since. 

Participant
August 29, 2015

It is not a file but a folder of almost 13GB. Do I need to delete this complete folder ?

Participant
June 9, 2015

Did it and it didn't correct my issue. Dam. I'll running windows 8 if that makes any deferent’s.

fototrance
Participant
June 7, 2015

Thank you DJ_Paige!

Participant
May 12, 2015

I am having the exact same issue.

This started after I backed up my catalog to the same drive. I have changed the Lightroom 5 Preferences.agprefs to Lightroom 5 Preferences.agprefs OLD as was mentioned. Opened at least 10 times and still having the exact same issue.  I have gone round and round with your tech support before with a different issue related to your software and am not about to go through hours on end again.

Participant
March 23, 2015

Thank you ...fixed. After I tried to retrieve backup files all of the sudden this happen but I'm glad I found your post.  Thanks!

February 8, 2015

hi!

where do i find the catalog folder?

NanoMyy
Participant
November 16, 2014

Thanks a lot! Worked just fine and LR starts up again.

LR5 on Win 8.1

Participant
August 23, 2014

I'm having the same problem.

Last week LR was working fine. Yesterday I come home from vacation, and LR won't launch, and displays this error before shutting down. I found this post and deleted the preview data and it launched. I did my import and development like normal and close the software. Next time I go to open it, same error.

It's to the point that I have to delete the previews data EVERY SINGLE TIME prior to opening the software. This is ridiculous. Is there a long term fix available?

Thanks,

Ed

Participant
August 25, 2014

Talked to Adobe support this morning, this is their response in case anyone else is looking for help. I'm running a Windows 7 box, LR 5.6.

  Gokul: Click on start and type %appdata%, then open roaming folder.

  Edward: ok

  Gokul: Open Adobe folder.

  Gokul: Open Lightroom folder.

  Gokul: Open Lightroom folder> Preferences.

  Edward: ok

  Gokul: Rename Lightroom 5 Preferences.agprefs file as Lightroom 5 Preferences.agprefsOLD.

  Edward: OK

  Gokul: Please check if you can launch Lightroom without any error.

  Edward: it shows me a welcome screen and is asking me to select my country

  Edward: aka, register the software

  Gokul: You can skip and launch it.

  Edward: LR catalog not found

  Gokul: Please select the catalog.

  Edward: my original catalog?

  Gokul: Yes.

  Edward: testing integrity of catalog

  Edward: loaded just fine

  Gokul: Okay.

  Gokul: Please check if you can re-launch it again.

  Edward: yes, it worked!

  Gokul: Excellent!

  Gokul: Since your preferences were corrupted you were facing issue so we renamed the preferences file to reset it.

  Edward: aha....ok


All of my import/export presets were intact along with develop user presets. I'm happy as a clam for my $10/month!

DivineG
Participant
September 21, 2014

I'm having the same error and have tried every solution in this page with no luck.

I am not finding the Preferences.agprefs file as discussed in the solution from support.
Any suggestions?