Copy link to clipboard
Copied
My catalogue suffered a catastrophic failure. It would not repair, I could not import to a new catalogue, or any of the other 100s of fixes I tried. Eventually I reverted to a backed up copy and things went fine based on the v13 back up catalogue for several weeks. But then I upgraded this catalogue to v13-3 and worked for several hours without incident, I closed LR and reopened it. But once I tried to back up the catalogue, I was back to square one. The new catalogue was corrupt, the one that had been upgraded was corrupt, and Lightroom can't find a catalogue to open and I cannot get help. The Adobe bot is no help at all. There seems to be a fatal flaw in Lightroom that is resistent to all fixes and continues to pop up and cause problems. How do I fix this gremlin in the works so that I can have a stable and consistent catalogue? TIA
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
I've moved your thread to the Classic forum.
I would suggest contacting Adobe Support by phone/chat and asking them to run the catalog repair script. No promises, but it may do the trick.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
If only you could contact Adobe!!! I tried the chat bot which was pretty much useless. There are no other contact details provided on their website. I'm in Sydney Australia if there are any good specialists here.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
If only you could contact Adobe!!! I tried the chat bot which was pretty much useless. There are no other contact details provided on their website. I'm in Sydney Australia if there are any good specialists here.
By @penmcn
I suspect there was already some corruption in your backup catalog that just became apparent when the backup ran the Test Integrity portion. If I'm right, that would require the catalog repair script that only Adobe holds. I believe phone support number only shows on weekdays when they're open.
That said, does the backup catalog you've got run ok through the Export as Catalog and Import from Catalog scripts? What about the upgraded one?
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
I tried to create a new catalogue from scratch and import my images. The import went fine for several folders (I started with the most recent), LR closed down fine. But when I tried to open it again, I got the corrupt catalogue message. When I tried to repair, the process got exactly the same place as always (screen shot in another reply) and hung up. I've never seen a phone number on any web page and I don't know if that is because I also get redirected to the Australian page.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
If a new catalog works fine initially, and then seems corrupted the next time you use it, it shouts "SOME CLOUD SYNC ERROR' in capital letters. Do not store catalogs in various cloud sync services like OneDrive, DropBox, iCloud and the likes!
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
Except that I don't use the cloud at all. It is of no use in the Austalian outback. Either there is no coverage, or if there is, it is so slow it is of no use. This is why I use an EHD SSD both to store my images, and the catalogue and its back up.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
In some Windows computers, the sync to OneDrive is turned on by default. I request that you confirm that OneDrive is turned off; and that the catalog file is not in a folder synced with one drive.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
One Drive is completely turned off on my computer because it was doing stealth back ups to the cloud. I have nothing synced with One Drive. And I have never used LR mobile version.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
No the back up catalogue failed both as export catalog and import from catalogue. Could you let me know the best number to phone in the US (and the time zone) as there are no numbers available in Australia. I will happily ring in the middle of the night to resolve this issue. Many thanks.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
Try this page? https://helpx.adobe.com/contact/phone.html
Or if you have a Twitter account, @AdobeCare are helpful once you get past the bot.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
Thank you so much Victoria. Very much appreciated.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
Catalog corrupted repeatedly is almost always due to a hardware malfunction; specifically the hard disk where the catalog is stored. Please copy a recent backup to a different disk, and see if the repeated corruption goes away.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
I tried that. Because I keep my catalogue on an external SSD drive (6 months old), I tried using the computer's C drive (computer is 5 months old with no other problems) . It didn't fix the problem at all.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
Just so I am 100% clear on what you did:
Did you try it with a recent backup, or did you jsut copy the catalog to a different disk?
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
Both. And every time I try to repair the catalogue the process gets to exactly the same place and stops. Screenclip below.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
After the initial catastrophic corruption of my catalogue, I started with an uncorrupted backup which worked ok - a bit temperamental though. This catalogue was totally corrupted by the update to v13.3. I first tried to create a new back up in the same place and import the old catalogue. I then created a new catalogue and imported the images again. That didn't work. I have also tried creating a new catalogue on a completely different and brand new SDD EHD, I then imported several folders including the most recent one (the one I was working on when all the trouble started) and got a corrupted catalogue message and the repair catalogue process hung up at the same spot as always. The last thing I tried was to create a new catalogue on the new SDD EHD and import folders of photos that were older. These seemed to go ok until I got a message saying the Catalogue needed to repair itself. But this is the only time the repair seems to have worked (but this catalogue only has about 500 photographs imported). 24 hours later this catalogue still opens. I'm not sure I trust it though.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
As a research scientist I used to troubleshoot problems al the time, technical, software and analysis, I have tried so many things I can't remember them all.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
> I started with an uncorrupted backup which worked ok - a bit temperamental though.
By @penmcn
That sounds to me like there was already corruption in that catalog, but not bad enough to trigger the error.
That said, the fact you're seeing corruption with new catalogs on more than 1 drive makes me think there could potentially be some other kind of hardware error.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
I created a new catalogue (the one that was stable for 24 hours) but now if I import photos not all of them will be imported. I cannot see a pattern to what photos they are except they are all DNGs that were converted on import from NEFs. Other photos taken at the same time with the same camera were imported properly.
It looks to me like something has corrupted the software. I have no other problems on this computer (including doing a complex layout and drawings in CorelDraw and bitmap editing in CorelPaint and working with large data sets in Excel and Word docs).
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
Putting the catalogue on an external disk is asking for trouble. The catalogue is a database with continous reading / writing, and any communication glitches to the disk may result in a corrupt catalgue. If you manage to get it repaired, put it on your fastest internal disk. And keep it there.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
Unfortunately that doesn't work when I travel. I usually spend about half the year travelling. The only other option is the cloud, but as I've said, the cloud is no good in the Australian Outback. I used to use a laptop, but I found more and more the laptop couldn't keep up with the demands of programs like LR.
Copy link to clipboard
Copied
Thank you so much to everyone who tried to help. Especially Victoria Brampton who gave me the number in Australia to ring (very hidden on the Australian site, a common practice in Australia, especially our banks). I had fantastic help from an Adobe agent Praveen who spent over an hour fixing the problem which was an irredemable failure of the catalogue. He managed to restore another catalogue with all the data. I am so relieved!!!