Updating Lightroom 6 to final version without overwriting catalog

Report · Jan 01, 2018

I see that there are no update files per se for 6.1.4 but a complete app.

If I download and install the app, will it overwrite my catalog?

Will I end up with two versions — my current 6.1.1 and 6.1.4?

Will I have duplicate files to ferret out and remove?

Report · Jan 01, 2018

Generally when updating Lightroom, if it does need to alter the catalog, it will tell you that it needs to be updated when installing lightroom's update. What happens is it creates a new catalog and updates it with your old catalog, leaving the old catalog alone. This allows you to use an older version of lightroom if anything to wrong.

When you are satisfied the new catalog is fine and lightroom is stable for your uses, then you can decide if you want to delete the old catalog or not. You will find all the catalogs together in the same folder normally named with the version number. To make it easier to find. Once you have done this a few times, it becomes very easy to find, next time there is an update.

If you don't receive a message during the update about the catalog, then you don't have to worry, it is using the same catalog and did not change anything.

I hope this sheds some light and did not make anything more confusing.

Report · Jan 01, 2018

Thanks very much, Silkrooster. Very reassuring.

For now I can't confirm the that all is well, as the installer haas thrown an error. It seems I must uninstall Lightroom, find the original installer — haha — and reinstall. Or analyse the installer log. This may take time!

Report · Jan 01, 2018

Because the installer would have made a copy of the catalog, then it would not be affecting the original catalog. So you should still be fine.

As for finding the older version as long as it is the cc version you can access older versions in the adobe manager.

To the right of the name of lightroom in the manager is an icon and a drop down arrow to the right of that. Click the arrow to bring up the menu then choose an older version to install.

This should confirm the old catalog is fine. In fact, the old version should still be on your system. It uninstalls the old version at the end of the install.

Knowing this, if it all fails - keeps throwing errors for example. Then it maybe time to run the Adobe cleaner app to remove all traces of the program from your computer so it can install correctly again.

Before running the cleaner, I would recommend backing up the lightroom folder.

Use the Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool to solve installation problems

Report · Jan 02, 2018

You are a mine of information!

But in the meantime I've realized a couple of things. The first is that the updates are not in fact full versions of the app but are patches. The second is that Adobe doesn't do combo updates. So I am going through each update, one step at a time. The first two have installed. Only another 14 to go.

It's possible I've had the update prompter turned off all this time, because I've been getting no messages to update. I seem to recall that it was prompting me to update some mysterious software that I had no need for. Something called Air something perhaps? Or maybe it was a CS-related prompter. I must check my Photoshop 6 for updates.

Report · Jan 02, 2018

Weirdly the patches don't seem to "take". They tell me they've installed successfully but when I reopen Lightroom it's still at 6.1.1. I've even tried rebooting. Any theories?

Also, I now see that at the top of the page with all the patches there's one marked "All", which may well be a combo updater. Not sure because when I look google the package (Lightroom_6_LS11.dmg) online I see references to CC — don't want to go there. Do you happen to know if it's really an updater for the standalone app and not for CC?

Oh, and happy New Year!

Report · Jan 02, 2018

FYI

I caved and installed "All", which I thought might be a combo updater. Instead it installs Lightroom 6.0, i.e. the initial release without any updates. Strange.

Report · Jan 02, 2018

Duncantho were you able to discover any specific errors in the installation log when you are attempting to update Lightroom 6.1.4? What operating system are you running Lightroom 6 on?

Report · Jan 02, 2018

Hi Jeff (and Silkrooster)

Yes there was an error when I tried installing the 6.14 update. But when I went back to the two updates immediately after 6.1.1, I think they were 6.2 and 6.2.1(?), they reported successful installation — although they did not update the version number. The next update, I think 6.3, failed outright.

Anyway here's the error from the log summary for the 6.14 update:

01/01/18 21:41:24:150 | [INFO] | | OOBE | DE | | | | 6075032 | ERROR: DS015: Unable to read symlink target of source file "/Applications/Adobe Lightroom/Adobe Lightroom.app/Contents/Helpers/DynamicLinkMediaServer/application/dynamiclinkmediaserver.app/Contents/amecommand.app/Contents/Dictionaries"(Seq 451)

I'm on Sierra.

I haven't tried the cleaner yet. It occurs to me that if I do go that route, perhaps there'd be a way of fixing a long-standing issue that prevents me from printing anything other than 13x19" — I always pass to Photoshop when I want to print smaller. In which case perhaps there's a file of some sort I specifically wouldn't want to back-up/update.

Report · Jan 02, 2018

Hmm, now I am wonder if I mistook your request. My fault for not reading correctly. I was assuming you were using Lightroom CC not lightroom 6.

Lets see if we can get an adobe employee to look into your situation. Maybe they will know why your updates are not taking.

Have you tried the cleaner and start fresh? As long as you back up your data, you can make sure you still have your catalog should things go sideways. The cleaner should not affect the data, but it pays to be safe.