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johna44498209
johna44498209
Participant
August 24, 2017
Answered

Lost connection to my photos since restart of Lightroom! Can anyone save the day??

  • August 24, 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 287 views

Hi

I have done something seemingly very stupid! I have just pressed the re-start button in lightroom (due to a brush tool suddenly stopping working and some advice to do this on an internet search as a way of resolving) and hadn't realised that Lightroom was going to restart completely. It has lost contact with most of my catalogue. There aren't any missing photos in the catalogue (in other words images that Light room can't open). It has just reconnected with only a fraction of my catalogue - showing about 6,000 images rather than 100,000 images!

When I try to reconnect light room to the folders where the original missing images are stored it tries to re-import the images (which will take a thousand years). Please can someone tell me a way of just reconnecting Light room to the images again without re-importing?? Do I need to connect with another catalogue or am I missing something really obvious?

Any help very gratefully received as I am meant to be finishing an edit today....

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer 99jon

    Try the menu:

    File >> Open recent

    If there is more than one catalog listed try launching each one.

    Otherwise go to your last dated backup, unzip the file and double click on your named catalog with the ending .lrcat and that will launch it in Lightroom.

    2 replies

    Abambo
    Community Expert
    AbamboCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    August 24, 2017

    Lightroom does not loose the connection to your pictures like that, and I do not think that you will loose your edits except may be the latest operation.

    The most plausible cause is that when LR restarted, it loaded the wrong catalog. in this case, do as 99jon​ says.

    If your working on a Windows PC, it may be, that the drive letter, where your catalog is located changed for some reason. You may look here for more information on where to find your catalog: Photoshop Lightroom catalog FAQ

    ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer
    99jon
    99jonCorrect answer
    Legend
    August 24, 2017

    Try the menu:

    File >> Open recent

    If there is more than one catalog listed try launching each one.

    Otherwise go to your last dated backup, unzip the file and double click on your named catalog with the ending .lrcat and that will launch it in Lightroom.

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