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
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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
I am only deducing that from the very strong noise reduction artifacts in the file even with noise reduction at the default zero in the edit settings in Photos. Photos and preview normally always use the raw data but it might fall back to whatever is available if it can't read the raw data.
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.
The failure rate and corruption rate on hard drives is surprisingly high. You can find a lot of info on this on the internet. You really can't trust a single hard drive to keep your data intact for many years unfortunately.
33
Replies
AdChoices