Stop writing corrupt catalogs

Q: On Windows 11 using Lightroom Classic I select a set of photos and export as a catalog. I close LR, double click the newly exported catalog to open it, and LR immediately tells me that the catalog is corrupt. Every single time. All the catalogs are stored in my internal C: drive and all my photos are on an internal E: drive.

A: By default, Windows File Explorer (WFE) hides files extensions for known file types.  With this WFE setting, I have seen many complaints similar to yours where the user is double clicking on one of the catalog files other than the “.lrcat” file.   I don’t know if that is your problem, but in case it is, change your WFE preference (in the Options menu) to show extensions for all file types and then assure you are double clicking the “<catalogname>.lrcat” file and not one of the others such as “.lrcat-data” 

This problem is not caused by Lightroom Classic. You hard disk where the catalog is stored is malfunctioning, causing the corruption. You need to run diagnostics on this disk, and most likely replace it.