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JP Hess
Inspiring
May 7, 2015

P: Possible problem with catalog backup zip files

  • May 7, 2015
  • 48 replies
  • 2822 views

In the Lightroom forum there have been a couple of threads where users are saying that they have tried to open the zip file that Lightroom created with the catalog backup. They say that the zip file is corrupt and won't open. I have tested the whole process of backing up and opening the zip file on my Windows 7 computer, and haven't experienced the problem. But it seems to exist. Has anyone else seen this?

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48 replies

Participating Frequently
July 21, 2015
Just an extra comment, in the hope that it may mean something to PC-smart folks. I've noticed that after closing LR and having it go through the "crashing" backup, when I the shut down the PC there is what I think is some sort of error message which appears just after the "closing down" screen. It's only there for a split second - not long enough to read it - but I see it only after using LR.
ssprengel
Inspiring
July 13, 2015
Going black seems like a hardware issue, unless you're on a Mac and that is how OSX signals that keyboard and mouse import are being ignored, by going black. On Windows, the app gets a light-colored foggy layer the comes in front, when it's "Not Responding" and you continue to click or type with it being the foreground app, but it doesn't disable the computer for other operations.
Adobe Employee
July 13, 2015
It sounds like the backup would finish if you let it runs to the end.

In the short term, my advice would just let the backup finish its job even though it appears crashing. We'll look into hooking up more fine grained progress report for the zip compression or shuffle the task into a worker thread.
Participating Frequently
July 13, 2015
Steve - It's not just a "not responding" message. It may involve the screen going black, and for a few minutes the machine showing every sign of having crashed.
ssprengel
Inspiring
July 13, 2015
"Not Responding" merely means that the program isn't accepting mouse and keyboard input, which would be allowing clicking on the Cancel button the middle of whatever it backup step is doing.

I would guess that optimizing the catalog and zipping the backup are both non-cancellable steps, so having LR say it is not accepting keyboard input during those phases doesn't seem like a concern.
Participating Frequently
July 13, 2015
That is exactly what happens to me, Bob. Not comfortable.
Inspiring
July 13, 2015
Even with 6.1CC I still get LR going into a Not Responding state part way through backing up the catalog. It does recover eventually, and the zipped backup seems to be OK now. It 'freezes' part way through the Optimize catalog bit, but turning off optimize does not prevent the 'freeze'.

Win8.1, 95K images, 2.5GB cat.

Bob Frost
Participating Frequently
July 13, 2015
Good to know it's not just me! Thanks for your comment.
HRphoto
Participant
July 12, 2015
I had the same problem with the compression step of backing up a catalog larger than 4GB (on a PC, Win 8.0). With the latest version of LR CC, the backup does actually finish each time, but it takes a looong time and just after I think that LR has stopped again. Hope this helps.
Participating Frequently
July 12, 2015
Simon - I spoke too soon. The same problem again - not every time. The first couple of days it was fine, yesterday and today I have had exactly the same stalling when backing up on exit. Any ideas?