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I've had Lr for years and have never made this mistake. When asked to upgrade current catalog to latest version -instead of selecting yes- I selected "older catalog". That resulted in my active catalog being deleted. Spent 2 hours with Adobe tech support. Was able to select a catalog (not my current one). All folders had a ? next to them. So I then had to sync all folders with those stored on an ext drive.
When completed I discovered that there were no images in catalog from last year and all of this year. We went into the time machine, to a specific date and I was able to see images shot on that date.
HAS THIS HAPPENED TO YOU ????
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Catalogs should not be deleted by Lightroom Classic. There is, as far as I know, no such "feature" in Lightroom Classic to delete a catalog when upgrading, or at any other time. Upgrading should not cause (and doesn't cause for everyone else) the deletion of existing catalogs, whether it is the catalog being upgraded or some other catalog on your hard disk.
So, did you, or Adobe tech support, use your operating system's search feature to search all hard disks for all files whose name ends with .LRCAT?
Don't you have recent backups of your catalog file?
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I'm back. I just discovered that all of my photos from 2021 and 2022 are missing. I'm using a Mac, photos are neither in Finder nor my catalog. This all resulted from the last time I upgraded to an incorrect catalog.
Waiting for a callback from Adobe. I'm not hopeful.
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A couple of more items From time to time whenever I go into my catalog I will find several files that are grayed out. This last time I went into a collection folder and there were about 20 files that were grayed out.
Lastly - the custom filter toggle always stays with whatever the last filter was chosen. I don't recall that happening before. Before it seemed like it always defaulted to FILTERS OFF. If I've posted all of this in the wrong place please let me now and I will repost. Thanks
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No, this has never happened to me and I'm not sure what exactly happened to you. The upgrade dialog does not have an 'older catalog' choice, as you can see here: https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/help/create-catalogs.html , so I am not sure what exactly you did to lose your old catalog. One thing is clear however. Lightroom Classic offers you to make catalog backups. The default is once a week, but you can change that to every time Lightrolm quits. Use this option, and if possible, then select a different disk in the backup dialog. It is also a good idea to use Apple Time Machine to make a backup of your entire disk. Not only because that could also have saved you from all these problems, but because I assume you have other stuff on your hard disk that you do not want to lose either.
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Great news. problem solved. I poked around the computer and found all of my missing images. adobe tech supoort showed me how to import them into Lr. don't know why they didn't show up when I synced folders.
thank you for your feedback.
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Did you or Adobe tech support try to find the catalog on your hard disk(s) as was suggested above? Did you or Adobe tech support look for recent backups of your catalog file?
Importing photos into a catalog is not the best solution; in fact in my opinion it is a poor solution that should only be used as a last resort. By importing, depending on what you did previously, you could lose all of your edits and user-provided metadata; you will lose all of your collections, edit history, pick flags, virtual copies and a few other things. I would not consider this "problem solved". The fact that Adobe tech support helped you do this makes me queasy and somewhat angry (unless they looked for catalogs and recent backups first and were unable to find any).
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We went through everything with a fine tooth comb. Whatever I did caused a whole bunch of iamges to be separated from my working catalog. Of the 3 or 4 different Lr Classic catalogs in my computer only one had folders and images. That's the one that we chose to use. The others had no images at all. They should have been deleted long ago. I could tell there was something wrong by checking the "previously imported" images. They were very old. We did find the catalog on the hard drive but it was not complete-seemed corrupted. 2 hours with Adobe yesterday cocluded with him telling me to sync folders in Lr with folders under images on hard drive. After doing that that's when I discovered the last 2 years worth of images were missing. I found all of those images on the hard drive and sorted by "date added". I agree with you about the edits- they are all gone. But the keywords were still intact. The one hour with Adobe today concluded with her showing me how to import from the hard drive. You can tell by all this that even though I have been suing Lr for many years, my knowledge of this software is limited. Thank you.
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How else would I have gotten those missing files into the catalog had i not imported then from the hard drive? What makes you quesy about Adobe tech support?
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Okay, with that explanation that thorough searching could not find the catalog file, and no backups exist, then the only solution is the solution of last resort, which is import the photos. In this case, I'm not queasy about it, you have the last resort solution, that was the only thing they could do.
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Very frustrating. The good news is that 1 1/2 years worth of images did not dissappear into a black hole. Thanks again to all.
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You need to be making regular and automated backups of your catalog file, and regular and automated backups of your photos. No excuses!
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Your right!!!
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Johan - there is a choice as to which catalog you want to upgrade. For years I've never had a problem. I've always gone with the highlighted catalog (working catalog).
For whatever reason I decided not to do that and chose to go with a different catalog.
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Johan - there is a choice as to which catalog you want to upgrade. For years I've never had a problem. I've always gone with the highlighted catalog (working catalog).
For whatever reason I decided not to do that and chose to go with a different catalog.
By @kayak107
You can upgrade a different catalog, all right. But that does nothing to your current catalog, and will certainly not delete it.
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ok.
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Your right -it deleted delete it.