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Hi, I have 2 catalog issues I'm confused about;
1.) My Lr backups, that I have saved into a folder on my TimeMachine backup HDD, are showing greyed out. I thought it may have had something to do with that extenal drive becoming full recently. I decided to replace it with a new drive and start TM backups for my iMac again but before I made that decision I tried to just make some room on the old full drive by deleting some files. I did this and then I noticed that my LR backups were not showing greyed out anymore (although I didn't try to open any). I then dragged 2 of my LR backups from the full drive to another external drive I use for photo storage but they then appeared greyed out there. I then went ahead and replaced the full TM drive with a new one and started TM backup again. Im running with a single Lr catalog that is being zipped because its a few Gb in size.
2.) When I close LR and then re-open, it opens in an old catalog from the past stored in a old backup folder on a different extenal drive, instead of the selected folder Ive assigned it to backup to when Lr closes. Its been a little unsettling seeing it open in this old catalog and then going to the last backup Ive made and finding it greyed out. But I managed to get back into my last backup, and this is the weird part, I had to go back a few in the backup list, into last year, and found one that wasnt zipped and not greyed out, opened that one and Lr was up to date, showing my last shoot a few days ago. I have no idea why an old catalog would be up to date. Or why the others are greyed out.
I'm running LrC (release 2015.14) on Mac OS Sierra 10.12.6. Old stuff I guess but I'm terrified of updating my OS or LR on this old iMac, or if I should even try.
Bill
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Regarding #2, you can go into preferences and select which catalog opens by default. Or you can find the catalog file you want to open in your operating system (Windows Exporer or Mac Finder) and double-click on it to open it.
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Ok, thanks, I will change the default.
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I don't fully understand your story, but I get the feeling that you are trying to open a backup catalog from within Lightroom Classic, using the 'File - Open Catalog' menu. You can't do that because catalog backups are zipped. Lightroom cannot unzip the catalog backup upon opening it, that is why it will be dimmed in the 'Open Catalog' dialog. You need to unzip the backup first using MacOS' unzip function (double click should do it).
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Sorry if that sounded confusing, but I was actually going direct to the hard drive outside of Lightroom to get access to the backups but like I said the latest one was greyed out. The backups were saved on the full time machine backup drive I've now replaced. The 2 catalog files I dragged off it to a different drive; the old unzipped one that I could open (which saved me) and last weeks greyed out zip backup, which I hoped I might be able to open again somehow. Anyway, since posting, I've been back and checked those two backups and the latest one is not greyed out any more and I was able to unzip it finally. I'm wondering if the reason it, and the others, were permanently greyed out on that full Time Machine drive was because there wasn't enough space to allow them to be unzipped as they are over 5 Gb. And the reason that latest zipped, greyed out backup I kept had such a delayed opening was for the same reason; it's just a huge catalog backup.
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If the zip file is over 4 GB then you may need to unzip it using a third party utility (like StuffIt Expander) rather than the MacOS built-in option. There was a problem in MacOS that it could not unzip > 4 GB files and I'm not sure if that problem was ever fixed by Apple.
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I guess they may have fixed that as it opened by double clicking once it came out of its greyed out coma. Why the delay in doing that I'm not sure. I'm also not sure what best practice is for managing a single catalog. It's nice just having one to deal with but it's very big.
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I guess they may have fixed that as it opened by double clicking once it came out of its greyed out coma. Why the delay in doing that I'm not sure. I'm also not sure what best practice is for managing a single catalog. It's nice just having one to deal with but it's very big.
By @Seaquence
Big is relative. There are photographers who have millions of images in a single catalog.
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I bet you're even more confused now. 😂 Thanks for your reply anyway.
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Thank you! I did not realize why the backup catalog would not open. Once unzipped I am back in business!