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Participant
January 20, 2022
Question

random image file corruption

  • January 20, 2022
  • 3 replies
  • 617 views

I am finding a very small but growing number of image files in my LRClassic catalog have an odd corruption (see attached screenshots). I understand this may not be a LRClassic issue but have not been able to find any similar descriptions elsewhere on the web, so thought I might start here. Anticipatory thanks...
Dave

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3 replies

TheDigitalDog
Inspiring
January 20, 2022

Be useful to zip one or more of these files, upload to something like Dropbox so we can examine if this is indeed in the document or another issue outside of the files themselves.

If you disable GPU in preferences, does anything change?

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management/pluralsight"
dave1332Author
Participant
January 20, 2022

Thanks for the ideas - turns out it is an issue with the .dng files - I'll summarize in a reply to KR above... 

GoldingD
Legend
January 20, 2022

If you delete the previews, and let LrC recreate them, does the problem go away?

 

dave1332Author
Participant
January 20, 2022

Appreciate the idea - done a bit more digging and it's not a problem with the previews.

KR Seals
Community Expert
Community Expert
January 20, 2022

File corruption can be caused by hardware issues, bad memory card, bad card reader, bad cable from reader to the computer and failing hard drives.

Were these images free of the corruption issues when initially imported?

If this is a recent shoot, are the files still on the card? If so, try another card reader and cable.

 

Ken Seals - Nikon Z 9, Z 8, 14mm-800mm. Computer Win 11 Pro, I7-14700K, 64GB, RTX3070TI. Travel machine: 2021 MacBook Pro M1 MAX 64GB. All Adobe apps.
dave1332Author
Participant
January 20, 2022

A bit more digging...

The corruption IS in the .dng files. So suspect it is a hardware problem, as KR mentions.

 

I have about 50K images (from 2005 to today) and so far have discovered 27 with this corruption artifact. What concerns me is that I don't know if the problem occurred during import - or worse, if it is an ongoing and developing issue due to a progressive problem with the drives I use - meaning I could expect more files to become corrupted over time. So my new question relates to back-up strategies.

 

I keep the working folders of images on an external Samsung T7 SSD. I back up to two older Samsung T5 SSDs as well as to a spinning Seagate HD, a spinning drive on a Synology NAS, and finally to Backblaze and Amazon Photos. I've compared these images on all the back-up devices and they ALL contain the corruption.


Therefore, if this IS an ongoing and progressive problem with the primary working SSD drive, seems I am certain to overwrite uncorrupted files on the backups with corrupted files, each time I back up. Is there a better back-up solution? For the local back-ups I've used GoodSync - but of late have been using Carbon Copy Cloner. Thinking I need to learn how to tell CCC "don't overwrite existing files."

 

Thanks again, all...  

TheDigitalDog
Inspiring
January 20, 2022

Lightroom Classic (and ACR) can check validation of DNGs which is a useful feature to look into:

https://jkost.com/blog/2013/08/dng-verification-in-lightroom-5.html

https://www.dpbestflow.org/data-validation/dng-validation#lightroom

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management/pluralsight"