Catalogs keep getting corrupted every single day! (v14.0.1, macOS 15)

[makedits]

All of my catalogs keep getting corrupted almost every day (sometimes even multiple times a day), and this is absolutely frustrating!

I am using Lightroom Classic version 14.0.1. Running on macOS Sequoia 15.0.1. MacBook Pro M2 Pro.

My catalog files are stored on external SSDs along with my RAW files. I don't save catalogs on my laptop's internal storage because the Lightroom previews take up a significant amount of space. Before you start suggesting that it might have something to do with my SSDs, I'm pretty sure that's not the case because this is how I have been working with the previous versions of Lightroom Classic and I never had a problem. I have five different external SSDs (some new, some a few years old) with five different catalogs, and ALL of them keep getting corrupted multiple times a week.

Usually, after repairing the catalogs, they start working again, but I don't want it to keep happening since it significantly slows down my workflow. I'm afraid I might even permanently lose all my years of work due to some unfixable issue.

Please fix this Adobe.

[moved from bugs to discussions according to the community rules - Mod.]

[KR Seals]

Does this happen when the external SSD connected to each of the different USB-C ports? It's certainly a hardware issue. For test purposes, I have run the LrC catalog from an external SSD on my MBP M1 Max with no issue.

Do you happen to be using SanDisk Extreme SSDs? There have been problems with those.

Just for test purposes, create a new catalog on the internal SSD and import a bunch of photos to see if it happens then.

I suggest you take the MBP in to an Apple store for diagnosis.

LrC just does not do that to your catalogs.

[makedits]

I knew that the blame on my hardware was coming.

I'm not taking my Mac to the Apple store because it's perfectly fine. It is clearly a Lightroom issue. Everything else on my laptop is working exactly as they should. I also color-grade videos using DaVinci Resolve directly off of my SSDs and it has never spewed out any error messages.

And yes, it is the same case when my SSDs are connected to the other USB-C ports as well.

Creating a new catalog defeats the whole purpose of me posting this so that Adobe can look into this issue and find a fix. Your older catalogs are supposed to work with the newer versions of Lightroom. It is an official feature - it should work as promised.

"LrC just does not do that to your catalogs." Well you might wanna take a look at my post again.

[dj_paige]

It's the hardware. Not only is hardware the only known cause of corrupted files, but 99.999% of LrC users do not have this problem.

[GoldingD]

Creating a new catalog defeats the whole purpose of me posting this so that Adobe can look into this issue and find a fix. Your older catalogs are supposed to work with the newer versions of Lightroom. It is an official feature - it should work as promised.

By makedits

Well, you are not communicating with Adobe, you are communicating with fellow members. Oh Adobe sometimes replies, but do not count on that. 

Moving on:

Contact Adobe. This via a Chat. Before doing so, prepare your notes and information ahead of time as to be more efficient in communicating. Your info that you have posted in your Discussion is a start for the description, and probably have a copy of your LrC /Help/System Info/ as a text document on hand, so that you can paste or attach that into the chat.

To accomplish the Chat, bring up an Adobe webpage, and click on the Chat button. (see image below) This will start a Chat. At first the Chat will be with a chatbot, Typing “Agent” into the chat text field will bypass the initial chatbot. If an agent does not enter the chat then be assertive in requesting an actual Adobe Tech join in the chat.

In the Chat include (as mentioned above) a description of the issue, and probably your System Info. And include a link to your discussion.

You may want to ask for a phone call.

And please keep notes so that you can share them in your post for others to see.

For example, bring up:

https://helpx.adobe.com/contact.html

and click on the Chat button, typically found in bottom right corner

[makedits]

Finally a helpful comment.

Thanks, appreciate it.

[Steff_Adob]

I upgraded to the latest version of Lightroom Classic 1 hour ago and have had several issues. I closed the catalog, saved like every time. When I tried to open it again, it said the catalog was corrupt and I should open another one (???! Yes). I tried it again, then LR started to repair it, but I got the information „Unexpected error opening catalog“. I opened three times copies of the old one. Finally a catalog has opened with nothing but exclamation marks, no connection to my smart previews.

Since I just read Makedits post, I won’t open my other catalogs, since I’ll be forced to make upgrades as well.

Is there any way to tell LR to connect to the Smart Previews? My masters are 9000 Miles away, I’m traveling.

My RAW files are stored on external SSDs, my 6 different catalog files are on my Mac Pro´s internal storage (SSD 2 TB, LR 14.01, mac OS 15.01, 2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5, Memory 16 GB) and I work almost always with smart previews. Yes, this needs a significant amount of space. Like Makedits I have been working like this for years.

[makedits]

You're not alone. Many users are having catalog issues after updating to v14. Reddit is full of these complaints. Adobe seriously needs to look into this because it is causing people to lose years of professional work through no fault of their users.

I also faced the unexpected error the first time one of my catalogs got corrupted, and Lr attempted a repair. Fortunately, I had a backup of that catalog, so I was able to restore it from there. But after the repair, all my editing history was gone. My edits were there, but there was no history of how I got to that edit.

[Steff_Adob]

I solved my problem myself. 

Since I had so many corrupt catalogs, I thought I would just experiment. I threw away the Preview folder and simply moved the Preview folder and the Smart Preview folder from the old, corrupt catalog (90 GB and 30 GB) to the new catalog, which finally had opened with question marks and the correct folder structure. I opened it and it works.

So lucky.

Thanks a lot for your time.

[Steff_Adob]

Thanks for your reply, Makedits. I hadn't seen it.

I keep a lot of backups on different SSDs, which always saves me. I also had big problems with the upgrade to v13. Within a very short time, an upgrade came  to v13.1, v 13.2, v13.3. The catalog I first upgraded (three times in a row) worked normally, but was missing 10,000 photos (any, not the first or last). I panicked and contacted support. They didn't know what to do and finally connected me to the American support who connected to my computer. With an older backup, the upgrade finally worked and I only lost a few hours of work. I insisted that I no longer had to upgrade and support turned off the forced upgrade for me (I had previously been told that this was no longer possible). Unfortunately, this only worked for a few months and I'm forced to do it again when I open a catalog. I don't want any more updates. I don't know where I can change this again.

Thanks for the tip about Reddit, I didn't know that, I'll have a look right away.

[johannesh]

I'm gonna chime in on this one - since the last update the catalogue is corrupted regularly.

[johannesh]

One of the recent updates seems to have fixed it for me, at least it hasn't happened again since then.

What I did when it occured to mitigate damage was:

• backup the catalogue every time Lightroom closed.
• in case of catalogue corruption I overwrote the current catalogue with the last backup.

Caused the loss of edits in some cased but got me over the period where things got corrupted regularly.

[alsalphotography]

Same problem here, running OS 15.1.1 on a Mac Mini M4 Pro. Lightroom behaves very wierd lately, even before I changed my computer recently (I had a Macbook Pro before). The catalogue keeps getting corrupted, not every day but often enough to be an absolute pain. I should not happen, I completly agree. Also the merge to panorama and HDR functions decide not to work at all very often and I have to reboot the computer to get them working again. The metadata and info on the side panel sometimes don't show at all and I have to reboot to make them come back but sometimes not even that works.

Really weird and frustraiting behaviour and I agree this is a Lightroom issue of not keeping up to date with firmware updates.

[dj_paige]

99.99% of LrC users don't have this problem. It can't be Lightroom Classic. Now what is different between you and all those other LrC users, that you have the problem and they don't? Could it be hardware? YES! That's it!

[makedits]

These forums exist to report our issues and possibly find a solution. I don't care if 0.1% of the users are having this problem or 99%. Just because the majority of users don't have an issue doesn't mean that problem should be ignored because it can happen to you, too. So stop with these unhelpful comments.

[christinef58502318]

@dj_paige  but the problems ARE happening to different users, both on Macs and PCs, resulting in losing years and years of work because of issues with edit history.  It is not helpful to say that most people don't have these problems, because some of us do!  

[ssemuski]

I disagree with you.  I have brand new SSD drives and I am getting corrupted catalog error messages.  So far I have been able to recover but it is a pain.

I have relatively new computer, with internal Ssd, external Ssd and I create create back ups odd my catslogues and files regularly.  This just started in the past few weeks.  I have been using LR for 15 years, this looks like a bug to LR software to me.

[KR Seals]

I recently had an issue with a corrupted catalog on my brand new home built computer. It turned out to be a defective RAM module. Do a memory test on your computer. Google that.

[makedits · Accepted solution]

Update:

I couldn't find a solution to my issue.

I ended up making a new catalog and then importing all the photos and folder structure from the previous catalogs. The new catalog is working fine, and there has been no corruption so far.

[christinef58502318]

Unfortunately this didn't work for me.