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Question

Initially Lightroom Classic would not backup, now my Catalog appears corrupted.

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
October 8, 2020
4 replies
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I'm a long term user of Lightroom. I have roughly 40K photos managed in a single Lightroom Catalog. Initially, back at the end of August Lightroom could not complete a good BackUp and started giving me a PopUp that said something like it could not complete the backup and a crash report was being sent to Adobe. I never heard anything even though I provided my email in the crash report. I have my system set to backup each day I use it. My last known good backup was 8/29/2020. I continued to use Lightroom and processed several shoots. Changes were retained in the Catalog but still could not back up. Thought it would eventually work its self out, or that my hard drive was getting full. I was at about 90% usage. I photographed an event with a large amount of photos. Lightroom would only import about 30% of the photos even though I still had plenty of room on the hard drive. I then removed files from the hard drive and opened up plent of space but Lightroom still struggled to import all the photos. I later found them in a temporary file. Upon exiting Lightroom backup wanted to check integrity of my system which I let it. I then hung and told me it had to shut down and would retest my system upon relaunching Lightroom, which it does but just crashes. I'm assuming at this point I have a corrupt Catalog. I do have the backup from 8/29/2020 which works, but I loose all of my photo processing since. At this point, I am thinking about uninstalling and re-installing Lightroom as it seems wonky even with a good Catalog. Any ideas on trying to fix my latest Catalog from 10/5/2020 to see if I can retain my photo processing from September? I am working on an up to date Windows 10 system with the latest versions of both Windows and Lightroom. I have attached the LR Systems Info below.

LR_System_Copy.txt

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Geoff the kiwi

Community Expert

Use a hardware test software to check the HD and RAM.... if you are keen I could look at your catalog. You could zip it and send to me .. PM me if you would like me too look at it (it would just be the .lrcat file, not previews or images.

PaulMassiePhotography LLCAuthor

Participating Frequently

Thanks. I'll look into the hardware. I would send you Original Corrupted Catalog if it hadn't changed during the integrity check, repair catalog, etc. It was around 600MG originally, now it is down to around 560MG so something has changed or been lost. When I have been able to get LR up with it, prior to it shutting down I can see many of my folders say "..." so I'm assuing I've lost edits and settings in them. I have BackBlaze backup however, it didn't save the multiple versions of my .lrcat file so I could revert back to "before repair attempts". I'm trying SQLite on the latest version but I'm afraid if that doesn't work I'll just have to move on with backup from August that is working. I'll only loose post processing on a few shoots from September so not the end of the world.

dj_paige

Legend

"It was around 600MG originally, now it is down to around 560MG so something has changed or been lost."

Catalogs can decrease in size and that's perfectly fine ... the catalogs can be compressed, this is a normal thing that happens in the backup routinge. Or, catalogs can decrease in size and that's corruption.

Just Shoot Me

Legend

First PLEASE STOP Posting your phone number. I think this is happening because you are Emailing in your replies from your Phone and it is automatically adding in your name Company Name and phone number. Please stop doing that.

I have Edited those parts out in your replies.

You have a Hardware Problem. No file becomes corrupted all by itself. It is 99.99999% caused by a Hardware Problem. More than likely your hard drive is failing although it can be caused by other faulty pieces of hardware.

PaulMassiePhotography LLCAuthor

Participating Frequently

My bad on the phone number. I was just responding to the email in GMAIL and it was adding my salutation. Lesson learned and thanks for cleaning it up for me. Also, thanks for the headsup on my hard drive. I'll replace it before it fails. Too bad I didn't catch all of this prior checking the integrity of the catalog and attempting to repair the catalog in LR. Those actions appear to have made it worse.

Geoff the kiwi

Community Expert

Greetings...

It does sound like the catalog has issues.
First make a copy of it ... then!

Try optimizing it

try creating a new catalog and importing the faulty one into it

don't panic and take things cautiously a step at a time without rushing

And do turn on Write to xmp in Catalog settings as a precaution

PaulMassiePhotography LLCAuthor

Participating Frequently

I have tried optimizing it in the past and checking integrity. It would
just hang, crash and eventually close down LR. Multiple attempts at this
seemed to make matters worse. Originally, I could start up LR with the
Catalog, but I just could not execute a good clean BackUp. Then things got
worse.

I'm using an older Catalog now and things seem to be running OK (lost post
processing for the month of September)... however, I have it set to BackUp
everyday on Exit. When I exit it just closes down. No backup process and
nothing created in my backup folder. Back to the Backup problem, but no
PopUp asking me to back up which just hung up. Now it just closes without
any popup.

PaulMassiePhotography LLCAuthor

Participating Frequently

Just tried importing my corrupted catalog into the updated backup I
created. The import process failed trying to create a temporary file.

I went back in and set my Backup preferences to everytime I exit and this
time the backup worked successfully. So, now I think I am down to trying
SQLite3 on the old Corrupted Catalog to see if I can fix it or just moving
on with the losses to my September Post Processing. Thanks for all the
help. I'll come back and update if I find a successful solution.

--
Thank you,

dj_paige

Legend

Uninstalling/reinstalling will have no affect on your catalog file. Don't waste your time.

Your catalog has problems, and you should probably stop using it and begin using the backup from 8/29/2020. If you have turned on the option to automatically write to XMP, then if you import the photos since 8/29/2020 the edits will be there. Otherwise, not (but you should turn on that option from now on).

PaulMassiePhotography LLCAuthor

Participating Frequently

That's where I think I am at. I've seen some old posts using SQLite to
save Catalogs... but they are several years old. Not sure if that would be
a problem with newer LR Catalog versions???

Can you tell me where I might find the XLM files? I believe I have gone
back and forth on using them. I have turned them on in the past but I
believe I have turned them off. Where would I find them if by some luck I
left them turned on?

Good think is I have JPG versions of my post processed photos, but I would
like to have the originals I created in Lightroom.

dj_paige

Legend

"That's where I think I am at. I've seen some old posts using SQLite to save Catalogs... but they are several years old. Not sure if that would be a problem with newer LR Catalog versions???"

I don't know. You'd have to give it a try.

"Can you tell me where I might find the XLM files?"

XMP not XLM. They are in the same folders as your photos.

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