For many years I have been slavishly converting my raw files to DNG in the (apparently mistaken) belief that this would ensure continued compatibility with Photoshop and Lightroom. Going back a few years I have discovered hundreds—possibly thousands—of dng files that won't open at all in Photoshop or Lightroom ("unexpected end-of-file occurred"). These same files OPEN WITHOUT A PROBLEM IN APPLE's PHOTOS APP.None of these images have ever before been opened in any program other than Photoshop and Lightroom. My backup versions of the same files won't open in Photoshop or Lightroom either.Apple's Photos app has no problem with any of these files. They also appear quickly in Apple's Preview. So don't tell me it's my hardware.How is this possible?The tedious task of finding the bad ones, opening them in Photos, exporting to TIF and then importing them again to Lightroom is simply not practical. There MUST be a better way—and a way to prevent this from happening again.This is an emergency for me, as I must have access to all these files for a huge project due this Friday

Known Participant

Question

hundreds of .dng files now won't open in Photoshop or Lightroom—yet work fine in Apple Photos!!!

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
December 10, 2018
6 replies
4829 views

For many years I have been slavishly converting my raw files to DNG in the (apparently mistaken) belief that this would ensure continued compatibility with Photoshop and Lightroom. Going back a few years I have discovered hundreds—possibly thousands—of dng files that won't open at all in Photoshop or Lightroom ("unexpected end-of-file occurred"). These same files OPEN WITHOUT A PROBLEM IN APPLE's PHOTOS APP.

None of these images have ever before been opened in any program other than Photoshop and Lightroom.
My backup versions of the same files won't open in Photoshop or Lightroom either.
Apple's Photos app has no problem with any of these files. They also appear quickly in Apple's Preview. So don't tell me it's my hardware.
How is this possible?
The tedious task of finding the bad ones, opening them in Photos, exporting to TIF and then importing them again to Lightroom is simply not practical. There MUST be a better way—and a way to prevent this from happening again.
This is an emergency for me, as I must have access to all these files for a huge project due this Friday

This topic has been closed for replies.

J

justinguiel

Participant

PROBABLE SOLUTION: to any one stumbling on this question, I know why it happened to me. My photos, which are stored in dropbox, were in cloud-only. They appeared as if they were on my computer with a preview, but Lightroom couldn't open them. I made them available on my machine, and now it works fine. So if your photos are backed up by Apple, Google, or other cloud storage providers, this is probably why.

J

Jao vdL

Community Expert

Ow! Thanks for coming back and giving this update. That is a really important thing to be aware of with more and more people using these cloud services that use these sort of tiny placeholder files to represent the cloud file.

J

Jao vdL

Community Expert

Something is definitely not right with that file. The photos app appears to be taking the preview image, which I have never seen it do. I don't think it is using the raw data judging from the jpeg-like artifacts when you zoom in. Also just looking at the file in a text editor it appears to be corrupted with the imp in the wrong place and cut off at a random spot. I am not an expert but perhaps somebody else can analyze the file to see what is wrong with it.

dj_paige

Legend

So apparently the file is corrupted, and the DNG image is NOT being displayed in Apple Photos at all.

J

Jao vdL

Community Expert

And you think a hardware failure could cause this error on many hundreds of

raw files, while leaving adjacent ones—and many thousands of of types of

files—intact?

In any case, it sounds like I’m screwed.

On December 12, 2018 at 10:13:54 AM, dj_paige (forums_noreply@adobe.com)

Yes it is possible unfortunately. Technology is not super reliable. Nothing has changed in the dng format that would preclude Lightroom or Photoshop from opening an older dng file so something is off with the files. In fact I just tried opening a dng file from a decade ago and it opened fine.

J

Jao vdL

Community Expert

Can you share one of the problem dngs?

M

Mark McQueenAuthor

Known Participant

You can download one here.

M

Mark McQueenAuthor

Known Participant

sorry, here's the correct link: https://Baroness.com/downloads/100506-2836.dng

Just Shoot Me

Legend

When was the last time you restarted your Mac? If you can't remember Reboot your system and test.

Please post the exact version numbers of both LR and PS. Open each program and go to "Help" then system Info and copy then paste the first 5-10 lines of text that comes up.

GoldingD

Legend

Using google to search "Lightroom "unexpected end-of-file occurred"" brings up one question

Close lightroom, close Photoshop. Bring up Finder, Navigate to where the DNG files are. Pick one that you think is having an issue, double click on it, probably select Photoshop, does it come up?

Issue is (or was, mu hunch comes from way way back inv1) if you have a problem with one image while in a Lightroom or Photoshop session, that error may cascade into subsequent attempts. Could one corrupt DNG be fouling things up?

might have noticed that in: An unexpected end-of-file occurred

dj_paige

Legend

davidg36166309 wrote
Issue is (or was, mu hunch comes from way way back inv1) if you have a problem with one image while in a Lightroom or Photoshop session, that error may cascade into subsequent attempts. Could one corrupt DNG be fouling things up?

The problem isn't that a bad DNG file is causing other files to be corrupted. That doesn't make sense. The problem is that the hard disk where it is stored is malfunctioning; it could have a bad sector and all of the photos there are now corrupted.

M

Mark McQueenAuthor

Known Participant

Photoshop 20.01

Lightroom Classic 8.01, build 1193777

Again, I can open these files in Apple Photos, edit them, and export as

16-bit TIFs. So I’ve pretty much ruled out the hard drive as the culprit.

On December 11, 2018 at 6:52:47 AM, dj_paige (forums_noreply@adobe.com)

dj_paige

Legend

Apple Preview probably shows the embedded JPG in the file, which is often uncorrupted when the DNG image is corrupted. So the fact that the image appears correct in Preview is meaningless.

I don't know what Apple Photos does. Can you open one of the .dng files in Apple Photos and actually edit it?

M

Mark McQueenAuthor

Known Participant

Yes, I can edit in Apple Photos.

On December 10, 2018 at 1:37:08 PM, dj_paige (forums_noreply@adobe.com)

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