Files are corrupted by Lightroom: White rectangle

[_Matt_M_87876_]

Hi there,

I updated Lightroom to 1.4.1 yesterday and some time after the update I started experiencing a potentially disastrous problem:

When I click on any photo in the Library view (e.g. old ones from before the update), when the full resolution is loaded, sometimes a white recltangle appears in the picture as if the pixel information was missing there (its size varies between photos). The images were definitely OK beforehand.

I tried opening an affected photo in IrfanView and it reported a corrupted file header and couldn't open it. I'm slightly worried now that Lightroom is (maybe irreversibly) eating my precious pictures! Has anyone got the same problem? Any solutions?

Thanks,
Matt

[_adamapalmer_]

I've been getting this too-- just one or two per shoot. Bought some new CF cards. It's pretty unnerving.

www.adamapalmer.com

[_Ollie_B_]

I have exactly the same problem...

Even I uninstall 1.4.1 and re-installed 1.3.1, the white rectangle is not disappear...!!

Seems that Lightroom is updates the CR2 file wrongly....

Please help...!!!

This guy has the same problem :

http://www.flickr.com/groups/strobist/discuss/72157604906035288/

Ollie

[Lee_Jay-7OQGJF]

> Seems that Lightroom is updates the CR2 file wrongly....

I've used 1.4.1 on quite a few thousands of 20D and 5D CR2 files, without seeing this, even once. If it's a problem with LR, it must be very infrequent. In the past, this type of thing was eventually traced to failing hardware (hard drives, CF cards, CF card readers, USB cables).

[Jao vdL]

Almost definitely a bad card or bad hardware in the camera. As Lee says in the past these problems almost always trace back to that. You're seeing a normal image first because you see the jpeg preview from another area in the file after which LR reads the RAW data and displays that. There must be a malformed block in the RAW data area of the file.

[_Julie_Kmoch_]

Would you be willing to send us the damaged files so we could take a look? If so, please send them to jkmoch(at)adobe(dot)com.

Also, any info you can provide on what cameras these files have come from and what you were doing when you first noticed the corruption would be of interest to us.

[_Melissa_Gaul_]

We'd like copies of the damaged files to see if its something Lightroom is doing (highly unlikely, because we _read_ the files, not write to them, but due diligence is required.

send me copies at mgaul@adobe.com? Please?

[Guest]

Matt-

Wow- two Adobe team members plus a couple of the best helpers in the forum! Could you please post results when this is resolved, and also say how you are downloading the images, plus camera, type of image, etc.?

If you really are convinced LR is borking your files, download and make a duplicate of the images' folder(s) to be safe, before opening anything in LR or any other program. Or, if you still have some 'bad' images on the CF card, check those out, too.

[_Julie_Kmoch_]

Looking at 3 photos sent to me by Ollie (thank you!), the raw files do indeed have some corrupted bits in them. Further details: Canon uses a lossless JPEG and writes from top to bottom the left hand side of the image and then the right hand side of the image. If one bit is out of place on the data 1/2 way down the right hand side you would see the problem you're observing - a blank rectangle.

We've seen this many times over the years, usually due to hardware issues as others here have indicated. We did check out Ollie's photos in Canon's DPP app, and it was able to show the full images from embedded previews. Converting to another format failed, but this might be a way to rescue lower-resolution versions of pictures damaged in this way.

We're not considering the case closed yet, but we're skeptical that this is something that Lightroom is causing. Any further details about:

- camera models used to take the affected images
- your Lightroom import options
- the type of media the files are being stored on (ie. internal or external drive)

would be appreciated.

[David_Lingard]

I'd like to offer a file also but this case is slightly different. After converting to DNG with DNG Converter (not LR)and opening in LR I saw the white block. Converted another from the NEF with similar result, but the original NEF appears OK. I'd be very interested in anything you can find out about this strange behaviour. I'm sending Julie a link to d/l the files (NEF & DNG) because my ISP won't allow large attachments. Thanks for the interest.

[_Ralph_Lee_Hopkins_]

I have two large Lightroom catalogs with hundreds of unreadable corrupt files. Now Bridge won't even read the original files in the database.

Any ideas why Lighroom is corrupting files? Is there any fix for these corrupted files?

help. Ralph

[Guest]

It's unlikely to a high degree that LR is corrupting files, as it doesn't change the file, but rather stores edit and metadata that changes how they appear.

What type of file? OS? A bit of history? Version? etc.

[_Julie_Kmoch_]

David Lingard, if you did send me a note, our spam filter may have blocked it. Please try again without a link and we'll work out the details.

[wbljie]

I just had what I believe is the same problem today. I've created dozens of catalogs in the past with 1.4.1 and no problems. Today I shot with a rarely used CF card. I can copy the contents of the card to my Mac via drag n drop with no problems - the images are fine on the card. I have done an import from within LR twice and each time several images are corrupt in the filesystem when done (although they are different!), and the LR catalog shows them corrupt. Is it possible that LR is doing stuff in such an order and at such a rate so as to either break the card reader / card combination or something like that? Perhaps there is a HW timing issue that LR exacerbates? It's interesting that a simple copy doesn't cause it?

I'm kinda freaked out - I was doing a for-pay job and would've died if the images had been corrupt on the card; I was ready to toss the card, the reader and my hair out the window 😞 The card is a Transcend 120x, the reader is a Sandisk Extreme FW800.

[_frankgindc_]

I also have had a problem that sounds similar: using a Canon 870is. I read the images on the back of the camera, with no problems. Shut off camera, put SD card into the reader to import into LR and LR reported a corrupt card. Out of 60+ images, fewer than a dozen are readable, and they are interspersed throughout the card. Putting the card back into the camera, the camera then showed corrupted images -- point being, that they were indeed workable images on the SD card when it was in the camera.

The images are NOT recoverable using Photorescue and my local pro camera shop also was unable to recover them. Some of the images show streaking, or blocks in the thumbnails where data has shifted or been corrupted. And, about 20% are fine, in random order.

Very disturbing that perfectly workable images seem to have gotten corrupted during the LR import process OR during the very brief handling with the reader (?). Anyway, all the image corruption seems to have happened in span of less than 5 mins. That's important, because I think only the LR import process would have accessed all of the images over that short of a time span. BTW, I have had no problems before or since with this same card reader importing .CR2's from CF cards (from XT)or with .jpgs from the same 870is and a new Promaster SD card of the same type and size.

Vitals:

Promaster 2GB SD card
Mac OSX Leopard, MBP
LR 1.4.1
Canon 870is
SanDisk Imagemate 12 in 1 card reader

I am happy to send a few files showing different types of corruption. If folks at Adobe are interested, please let me know how to send.

Thanks,
Frank

[_R__S__Ross_]

I've got the same problem. On my desktop...dozens of folders with hundreds of photos that previously were imported and viewed cannot now be viewed. I only get blank squares. The photos were previously downloaded to either my hard drive over a long period of time, or stored toan external drive, and have been viewed and worked with priviously using LR 1.4.1. Importing photos that never were imported before, but that reside on the hard drive, or external drive, only give me the same result...blank squares.

Adobe Bridge and Photoshop CS2 will open these photos, so the photos themselves are not corrupt. And LR 1.4.1 on my laptop will also open photos.

I have uninstalled and then re-installed LR 1.4.1 on the desktop but this does not help.

If Adobe Bridge and CS2 will open the photos, the photos are not corrupt, the hard drive has not crashed, and the USB cables are not corrupt. So what is wrong?

Most pics taken with Canon 30D
Windows XP Pro
Storage on hard drive or external drive
Import options: Sometimes from current location; other times storing to external drive

Help!
Ron

[Jao vdL]

Ron, your symptoms sound like a corrupt monitor profile or a bad video card driver. You might want to check that out. You might also want to start a blank catalog and import some photos into that. Perhaps your catalog file is corrupt.

[Guest]

Just out of curiosity, are the people seeing the initial file corruption problem using the Lightroom/Adobe download utility?
I do all my downloading / time synching / renaming with either Downloader-Pro or Photo Mechanic, and have never had a problem with corrupt files.

[David_Lingard]

Edward,

Can speak only for myself but I'm an old fashioned user. Card goes in USB reader and files are copied by Windows into a folder for processing in Bridge and/or LR. I'm with those who would like an option with the LR installer as to whether to install the downloader, for me it makes a simple task more complex.

Edit

Julie, I've been away, you should now have mail. Thanks.

[_Matthew_Boyle_]

I have had a number of corrupt files in at least 5-10 of my lightroom folders, some are part of an important photo project. They were taken with my 40D and imported into lightroom and automatically converted to .dng I used, printed from and edited these without issue, but when the update, I think to 1.4 was installed, as I opened folders to check them, the coloured rectangular blocks of various shapes and colours appeared. I can't seem to fix them and my backups sadly have synchronised with them, a mistake in retrospect! I have to say that I find it hard to believe this was card-reading error since they were fine for a couple of months before the update. It does shake my faith in using .dng in this way. Has anyone had any success in repairing these?

Matthew Boyle
matthew@matthewboyle.net

[chmoss]

I had a white rectangle appear during an import operation yesterday for the first time. It was an import from disk, and a re-import was successful. The original image was not damaged. The original was a D300 NEF.

[_Greg_S_Miller_]

Just thought I'd chime in here because I'm having _similar_ issues but I actually _do_ have reason to believe its a lightroom problem (sorry Adobe... I still love you =). My process is:
1) Copy all CR2s onto desktop from flash card
2) Import CR2s into lightroom using the convert to DNG option
3) Get fun white rectangles, sometimes with weird color bars in them, in the converted DNGs and re-convert the affected images from the original, non-corrupt, CR2s

I'm going to start using the stand alone DNG converter like I used to in my pre-lightroom days until I hear more.

PowerBook G4
OS: OSX 10.4
LR: 1.4.1

Any interest in me emailing one of the corrupt DNG files? I can include a corrupt DNG and the non-corrupt CR2 also.

[_Sav_Schulman_]

Hi all, I've been getting far too many corrupted images through LR. I'm shooting jpegs on a 5D, downloading through PCMCIA onto a Toshiba laptop using LR 1.4 for initial download & CS3 for manipulation. The corrupted images either have no thumbnails & can't be opened, or look totally distorted or have .swp after the name. After selecting the images in LR all I do is give them a red or blue label. When I re-look at the images on the CF card they are all perfect. Can some-one PLEASE help? Ta Sav

[Guest]

First off, use 1..4.1, not 1.4.

Second, in order to eliminate one set of causes, can you simply D/L to a folder on your DT and check for image integrity, then Import into LR?

[_Sav_Schulman_]

Thanks John, will give that a bash. Cheers