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J
jtk1
Participant
January 8, 2020
Question

I'm trying to backup my catalog in Elements Organizer 2020 and it crashes

  • January 8, 2020
  • 3 replies
  • 1625 views

I'm trying to backup my catalog in Elements Organizer 2020 and it gets to prepare for backup and then crashes, the size of file approx 880GB. 

Any ideas

 

Thanks

 

[Moving from generic Start/Help forum to the specific Program forum... Mod]
[To find a forum for your program please start at https://community.adobe.com/]

 

 

This topic has been closed for replies.

3 replies

K
keithE 53
Inspiring
February 29, 2024

Having the same problem with Elements 2023, only 17k photos no video.  Have will it work when I have transfer all of my photos

MichelBParis
MichelBParis
Legend
February 29, 2024
quote

Having the same problem with Elements 2023, only 17k photos no video.  Have will it work when I have transfer all of my photos


By @keithE 53

Hi Keith,

We have seen several examples of problems in the same step of the workflow. In my last full backup (nearly 1TB and 90 000 files) that step lasted a bit longer than usual (a few minutes). So, it's possible that there is a new issue. It will not be long before I try another one on my newly installed laptop. I'll come back with my results. I am on Win 11 and I don't use face recognition which is a factor of slowness in the backup process.

 

Michel

L
LemonPeeler
Known Participant
November 27, 2021

Same here, a major problem.  Have a little over 1TB of photos and videos and can never backup the catalog.  Elements Organizer stalls and becomes unresponsive when generating the backup while displaying the screen message that it is "generating the catalog".  Have let it run for over 24 hours and still fails to backup.  The problem has been ongoing and is sufficiently well documented to merit a resolution from Adobe!

MichelBParis
MichelBParis
Legend
November 27, 2021
quote

Same here, a major problem.  Have a little over 1TB of photos and videos and can never backup the catalog.  Elements Organizer stalls and becomes unresponsive when generating the backup while displaying the screen message that it is "generating the catalog".  Have let it run for over 24 hours and still fails to backup.  The problem has been ongoing and is sufficiently well documented to merit a resolution from Adobe!


By @LemonPeeler

 

The problem is as old as the organizer, and can be summarized like this: the backup process scans all media files, creates a renamed version of each file, updates the backup.tly file and makes a few checks about the validity of the file. We would expect a clear error message when such a non valid or corrupt file stops the process, but that's still not happening. There is an urgent need to at least publish a procedure to retrieve the 'log' files for errors in the process. There is also no official way of using an alternative backup procedure which ensures keeping the links to the restored location on a different drive.

 

From the many complaints we are getting, there is a major issue with a few video formats, but also with some specific photo formats. The general advice was to create a catalog folder copy - use it to delete all video files from catalog, not from disk. Most of the time that worked. Then you could start the same copy, deleting one type of video only, until you find the unsupported one. If you can find the error log and a corrupt photo file, that can also help. I don't know if the suggestion from Akash Sharma about some other external drive or USB hubs is frequent, but I have had issues with some external drives configs.

 

If you can't run the organizer backup succesfully, use other alternative backup or syncing solutions for both your photo files and your catalog folders. Reconnecting a big library like yours (a bit larger than mine) is nearly impossible.

I suspect that if your photo library is on its own drive, a 'clone' could work with the same catalog (with same drive letter) since the internal serial number of the drive would be also 'cloned'. Maybe something to try.

 

 

    L
    LemonPeeler
    Known Participant
    December 5, 2021

    Michael, thank you for your thoughtful response. It is almost incomprehensible that Adobe has not addressed such an important issue.  We have spent weeks and months identifying people in our photographs or videos and certainly cannot afford to lose all this work.  Unfortunately, we don't have the time to work with thousands of photos and videos in order to find a 'Problem Child' in the mix somewhere, as suggested by some articles.

     

    One of our observations, so far, is that Adobe Elements seems to struggle handling the processing demanded by face recognition, cataloging, and catalog backups.  Our computer has a great CPU, ample memory, and tons of disk space, but runs endlessly or hangs up trying to perform these tasks for the Organizer.  We can understand the  demands of face recognition, but that is palatable since we can turn it off by exiting the program and continue later.  On the other hand, the catalog backup simply does not work.  We're assuming that the catalog is just that, and not a backup of all the image files.  So, not sure why the program has such a hard time archiving just file locations, types, or other cross-reference information in the catalog database.  In the end, we wonder if this program can even handle such tasks.

     

    From our perspective, we don't understand all the problematic technical implications of connected USB devices or incompatible video formats, but should not have to worry about that anyway.  We buy good programs so we don't have to worry about technical glitches like this!  Although, we are fairly advanced computer users and, fortunately, have great NAS redundant backups for all our data.  Regardless, we can't afford to waste a lot of time searching for answers trying dozens of  potential work-arounds.  The product developers should be doing this work to polish off the program features that simply don't work.

     

    Thank you again for your response, we certainly hope Adobe can address this important issue.

      Akash Sharma
      Akash Sharma
      Legend
      January 9, 2020

      Hi there,

       

      Sorry that Photoshop Elements 2020 crashes when you try to take a backup. Do you have any USB hubs connected?
      Or any external disk drives connected to your system? If so, try disconnecting those drives, reboot, then see if the Elements Organizer will allow you to create a new album.

       

      Also, does this happen with all catalogs? Or if you created a new catalog do you see the same crashes when creating a new album or backing up?

       

      Thanks,

      Akash

      P
      precise_user154A
      Participant
      April 17, 2020

      Hi - I am having the same problem as the above user.  Brand new laptop, just purchased Elements.  My Catolog is cover about 600GBs of pictures.  When I try to back up to my external Hard Drive, it gets all the way to "please wait while Elements Orgnaizes prepares for backup..."  The App takes a few minutes and then becomes unresponsive and crashes.  I have tried pointing back up to an external hard drive (my preference) and the laptops own hard drive.  I have tried shutting down and restarting.

       

      Any guidance for a fix?  If I can't back up to an external drive, also seems to defeat the issue of creating a backup.

      Greg_S.
      Community Expert
      Greg_S.Community Expert
      Community Expert
      April 17, 2020

      Try repairing and optimizing the catalog in File>Manage Catalogs.  Also, make sure that you have no missing files in the catalog by using the Find>All Missing Files command.

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