Freezes after a few clicks each time reopened

[touheyphoto]

I haven't had problems with my primary LR Classic catalogue for years, however recently encounterted an odd bug:

Clicking to different collections didn't yield the proper photo count (below the toolbar), even though the correct images were shown. No menu options could be selected and attempting to quit out didn't register anything. Strangly, there was no "not responding" note in the force-quit menu when I'd inevitiably have to do that. 

Just a note, the mouse doesn't freeze, I can click around to different collections, however most actions are not occuring. 

Other cats works fine but going back to this one, the same problem recurs. I updated LR Classic, which updated the catalogue. That along with restarting the computer didn't fix the problem. 

LR .cat backups only occur monthly, though I can possibly nab a much more recent one on time machine, I hope that'll have to be a last resort. Any suggestions greatly appreciated by me AND my deadlines! 🙂

[touheyphoto]

So I pulled a backup of the catalogue from my second most recent Time Machine backup. LR is now detecting that even the previous version is corrupt and running repairs at the moment: "

The Lightroom Catalog "XYZ Photography LLC" is corrupt and cannot be used until it is repaired.

The repair process may take several minutes."

Crossing my fingers. If this doesn't work I'll have to pull an older backup.

Good luck all with this issue!

[GoldingD]

Time Machine may not be the best way to backup a LrC catalog, or the Photos. At the very least you may be backing up to the same hard drive as your working files. Backup practices should be based on 3-2-1 concept, Backup to two different media plus one off site media. Typically two hard drives (including external, and can include NAS) other than the hard drive the working files are on, and one off site hard drive (that you ship off site) or the cloud.

[touheyphoto · Accepted solution]

Good advice and I do follow the 3-2-1 however each catalogue I pulled appeared to work on my backup computer, but then require repairs on my main (Mac Studio) setup, which would run indefintely ( I let it go 3 hrs). 

I did fix the issue though! I pulled JUST the LR Classic catalogue file from Time Machine from a few backups previous. Tested on my backup computer (MBP),  then opened it on my computer. No preview file, no smart previews, no plugin files, and it worked! It's generating nearly 1 million previews from scatch but it's back at least, and all preferences preserved!