Latest Lightroom Classic Upgrade once again loses catalog and all my settings. Why Adobe??

[markghanna]

So, installed the upgrade that was suggested, and maybe for the third time, Lightroom Classic has decided I must want to use a catalog other than the one I have been using, necessitating stopping it from "upgrading" an old catalog that hasn't been used for years. Once that was sorted, it refused to use my preferred catalog, and opened with a new catalog it had just created, obviously with its srongly preferred name of Lightroom Catalog.lrcat. Fixed that, and then noticed it had once again lost all my personal settings. Why do Adobe do this? Android developers working out of their garage can work out how not to stuff up my personal settings when they upgrade their apps. Even Microsoft don't stuff me around this often, and that's saying something. How can I stop them doing this to me?

[dj_paige]

Most people do not have this issue. I have never experienced it from Lightroom 2 (my first version) until today.

Perhaps you real catalog is in a location that Lightroom Classic doesn't normally look for. What happens if you find (using your operating system's search feature) all .LRCAT files, and then double-click on the one that you want to use?

[markghanna]

Thanks, I knew exactly which catalog I wanted, but Lightroom didn't. I think the problem may be the Preferences file...

[GoldingD]

My suspicion is that your preference file is corrupt and you will need to delete it and let LrC create a new one. The preference file does not get recreated by default at updates or upgrades or even uninstall/reinstalls. 

A  corrupt preference file can lead to all sorts of issues, like forgetting the last few previously used catalogs, locations of add on files, settings, etc etc etc.

Unfortunately Adobe does not include a diagnostic of the preference file within LrC to say let us know it is dodgy.

[markghanna]

Thanks, I think this will turn out to be the correct answer. I'll only know it isn't if it does it again on a later upgrade. Cheers.

[Rob_Cullen]

It happened to me when I upgraded to v11.0 - Upgrade started a new empty catalog.

My Windows Documents folder is on a D-Drive (Not the usual C-Drive of most Windows users.)

Read the answer from @dj_paige again and follow his advice. And when you find your master working catalog- check in preferences > General to be sure that it is set as the 'Default Catalog'.

[markghanna]

Thanks, I'll check the default catalog issue too.