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calumlewis
New Participant
August 3, 2017
Question

Lightroom catalog suddenly disappeared

  • August 3, 2017
  • 34 replies
  • 43721 views

So the other night before bed I went to shut down my computer, closed Lightroom and it prompted me to backup, so I did (I always backup when prompted weekly). Next day I fire up the PC, open Lightroom and it's completely empty and starts the tutorial (where the arrows point important sections) as if I had first opened it. The library was completely empty and the catalogue disappeared. I looked in my Lightroom folder (Pictures>Lightroom) opened the catalogue inside and it's empty. I contacted support, they took remote control of my PC and tried to open a backup catalogue, but the most recent backup is from January, and after searching my whole system for a .lrcat file the support advisor just told me that it has gone for good and they couldn't help any further. All the collections photos are still synced to lightroom mobile and web, so I can access them on there, but the desktop catalogue is gone and when opening my old one it will resync with mobile and ill loose all the edits.

I have tried everything I can think of, but how can a catalogue just disappear with 8 months worth of backups?

I'm currently running a disk recovery programme to see if I can recover anything that's been deleted (not by me)

Has anyone else had this issue, and know of anything I can do to recover my catalogue?

I'm using the latest version of Windows 10 and my Lightroom CC is updated to the most current 2015 version.

Thanks

    34 replies

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    raymanningphotography
    Known Participant
    July 30, 2018

    I guess technically, neither of our catalogs disappeared but have been reset somehow to having zero photos.  That is the first issue.  The second issue would be related to backups.

      D
      dj_paige
      Brainiac
      July 30, 2018

      Please start a new discussion instead of adding it to this thread. Please be sure to state all of the relevant details in the new discussion.

      R
      raymanningphotography
      Known Participant
      July 30, 2018

      To add injury to insult, opening a backup and synchronizing shows many missing pictures.  When I display the missing pictures, I can click on them and it tells me "Original + preview".  Well, if the original is there, it's not missing!  Right clicking and selecting "show in explorer" displays the "missing" file which is obviously not missing.

        R
        raymanningphotography
        Known Participant
        July 30, 2018

        Add me to the list.  Lightroom updated, asked to upgrade the catalog and after saying yes, I ended up with an empty catalog rather than the 60k+ photos I had originally. 

          Just Shoot Me
          Just Shoot Me
          Brainiac
          July 30, 2018

          raymanningphotography  wrote

          Add me to the list.  Lightroom updated, asked to upgrade the catalog and after saying yes, I ended up with an empty catalog rather than the 60k+ photos I had originally. 

          That is not the same as the others in this thread.

          Your photos are still on your drive, someplace. The catalog you used with the older, previous version, of LR is still on your drive, someplace.

          Please start a New Discussion and give all the details of the problem you are having.

          R
          raymanningphotography
          Known Participant
          July 30, 2018

          How is this not the same?  An upgrade caused my catalog to become empty.

            L
            Larry_C
            New Participant
            July 21, 2018

            +1 more "totally gone" experience. I searched my drives with a third party tool that works (instead of Windows) and yep, lost data.

            So, maybe it was a Windows update, maybe it was an Adobe update. Good luck, all.

              Samuel Norton
              Samuel Norton
              New Participant
              July 14, 2018

              Mine also did the same today. My computer rebooted from an update and when. I opened Lightroom classic all my photos were gone. Luckily I didn't delete anything off my SD cards but this is ridiculous. Now I have to reimport everything which will probably take half a day.

                ptknight_S4S
                ptknight_S4S
                Participating Frequently
                July 14, 2018

                I finally found a slightly older catalogue that I had backed up on a

                separate external HD. I now keep complete backups of my photos and

                Lightroom Classic CC catalogs in two additional external HDs and a cloud

                backup service (Backblaze). You can never be too safe with your precious

                photos.

                Peter

                Edited by Moderator.

                  S
                  Susan_from_Newark
                  New Participant
                  June 14, 2018

                  Not only my catalogue, but also all my purchased presets! 

                    L
                    lydiakuramoto
                    New Participant
                    July 9, 2018

                    Me, too!! Did you find a solution?

                      SiobhanH
                      SiobhanH
                      New Participant
                      April 3, 2018

                      I've had to deal with a missing collection in the past week. Hours of work wasted, I had a deadline so needed to re-do the whole thing. And no reply from Adobe. However, one thing that has been suggested to me is the problem might be related to a Mac clean-up. I use Clean my Mac and it could be that they deleted back-ups or other important files. Might be worth checking for you too.

                      vincent peters19128073
                      vincent peters19128073
                      Participating Frequently
                      April 3, 2018

                      That could very well be the case. I'm using a PC, but also recently did a disk clean-up. I may do it again just to see if it selects the .lrcat files. No risk since I have not rebuilt anything.

                      flowerLaura
                      flowerLaura
                      New Participant
                      September 28, 2018

                      I have to chime in and say that this just happened to me as well. I am *highly* computer literate, understand directory structure, backups, and how to search for missing or deleted data. I also have regular backup operations installed on all of my computers.

                      Because I have been through the misery of a corrupted Lightroom catalog in the past, I have moved to a system of small subject matter catalogs. I manually backup my catalog folder ever couple of months. As of today, two of the subject matter catalogs (from a wedding and trip over the summer) just went *poof* and disappeared from the folder where I keep my catalogs. All of the older catalogs are still there, but the two newest are missing. Comprehensive drive searches do not show any .lrcat outside of those I know about.

                      Now, because of the way I handle my images, I have the pictures I originally placed in the catalog. I also have exports, including the edits I made in Lightroom, which I saved in Dropbox for sharing. But as to the actual catalogs, there is NO TRACE - INCLUDING IN AUTOMATED BACKUPS. My manual backups are there - but I only do them every couple of months, and these two catalogs hadn't been added yet.

                      This says to me that either Adobe was using some temp storage configuration or bugged cleanup routine in the catalog directory, that the files corrupt in a way that the system no longer recognizes them as valid files, or that some malware or computer cleaning program is manipulating/destroying .lrcat files for its own purposes. It means that I have a pretty serious weekend headache ahead of me scanning these machines.

                      If I find the solution I will report back. But as to the people that are offering the very unhelpful response that "this just does not happen," you are wrong. There are too many people like me reporting this here. And, looking at my personal directory structure in front of me right now, I can tell you there is a missing piece. As an IT professional, I agree that it is one of the weirdest things I have ever seen.

                      To those who may find this thread with this problem, I will only say that my practice now of having multiple catalogs and archiving them on a separate drive every couple of months just saved me this headache for 75,000 pictures. I suggest everyone manually back up their Lightroom catalogs - outside of the Adobe backup system - as well as performing regular Adobe backups.

                      Best of luck!


                      I updated Lightroom and ALL of my backups and catalog files were GONE. I was able to recover them in Backblaze (I think I'm missing some edits, but the majority are still there).  I'm not going to say it's the update but my experience is like everyone else who has posted - always backed up upon exiting Lightroom, Lightroom opened up as if it was brand new after an update and NO lrcat files were there, NO backups were found, and thank goodness for an automated backup system. I'm using a Windows PC and have Lightroom CC.

                        vincent peters19128073
                        vincent peters19128073
                        Participating Frequently
                        April 2, 2018

                        Adobe support SUCKS!!! Catalogs disappeared and no one can help. Now I keep getting emails to close the case. HOW!!! I give up.

                        Just Shoot Me
                        Just Shoot Me
                        Brainiac
                        April 2, 2018

                        So when you search your hard drive for lrcat nothing comes up?

                        I asked this a few days ago and got no reply. You did reply that supposedly some Adobe person remotely searched your drive and found NO files with the extension of lrcat.

                        But have "YOU" done a search for that?

                        I find it hard to believe that there are no files on your entire drive that don't end with LRCAT.

                        If I search my system for that this is what I come up with.

                        There are 39 different LR Catalog files from several different versions including numerous backups of my current working catalog, with the Zip extension, and backups of previous version catalogs. And then there are backups of the backups and main catalog files on external drives.

                        So I find it hard to believe you don't have any LR Catalog files anywhere on your computer.

                        The only way for that to happen is YOU the USER Deleted them or your had drive is failing and they got corrupted in some way and lost the file extension, LRCAT.

                        So the reason your help request ticket number was deemed finished is because with NO LR catalog there isn't anything Adobe can do for you.

                        Now as to why you have no backups of the catalog file although you say you create one every time LR closes I have no idea. Where are you supposedly storing the backups?

                        By default LR selects the same main folder the working catalog is in and creates a subfolder called Backups and places the catalog backup files in dated subfolders. But if YOU (And I do mean YOU) Deleted that main catalog folder then both the actual working catalog file then all of the backups for that catalog would of been deleted also. You could of done this not knowing what you were actually deleting when trying to clean up your hard drive

                        The Default location for the LR catalog file is in your User Name folder, in the Pictures subfolder then in another subfolder called Lightroom and all that is in the Users folder on the ROOT of the OS drive. That is true for both Windows and Mac OS X.

                        So if you had recently done some Computer House Cleaning that is where your LR catalog files went, IE Out with the TRASH.

                        Simple fact is IF for whatever reason there is NO LR Catalog file on your hard drive there is nothing anyone on this forum or at Adobe can do for you. You will need to start from scratch and create a catalog and import all your images into it.

                        vincent peters19128073
                        vincent peters19128073
                        Participating Frequently
                        April 2, 2018

                        I spent an hour going over this with Adobe tech support. He took control of my laptop and searched every way possible. Even checked the trash. NO LRCAT files existed. I use the same laptop every time. I did not delete any folder or files. When LR closes down each time it prompts to back up and I always say yes, but nothing exists.

                        F
                        fuji yama
                        New Participant
                        March 28, 2018

                        Oh no... I though I was the only one. It look like something is going on with lightroom. Today my galleries disappeared as well. I have spent all day trying to find them. The only galleries that I found are from 2015 and befpre. Everything else is gone!!!!

                        This happened after the updating of Lightroom:  It said: THis catalog was previously upgraded during the Lightroom Classic Update. WOuld you like to use the newer, upgraded catalog instead?... I clicked yes and when it opened the catalog was from 2015.... the rest of my 2018 backups were not there anymore

                        This is a terrible situation . Please, if someone find the fixing post it here.

                          vincent peters19128073
                          vincent peters19128073
                          Participating Frequently
                          March 28, 2018

                          I had this happen to me today as well. 2 years of collections gone. Spent 45 minutes with Adobe tech support and they're gone. I backed up after every session but nothing. Lightroom acted like it was my first day and the only catalog was the empty one it created today. Very sad and disruption to me.

                            Just Shoot Me
                            Just Shoot Me
                            Brainiac
                            March 28, 2018

                            https://forums.adobe.com/people/vincent+peters19128073  wrote

                            I had this happen to me today as well. 2 years of collections gone. Spent 45 minutes with Adobe tech support and they're gone. I backed up after every session but nothing. Lightroom acted like it was my first day and the only catalog was the empty one it created today. Very sad and disruption to me.

                            What do you mean by "I backed up after every session but nothing".

                            Do you have backup catalogs?

                            Have you searched your drive for .lrcat.

                            vincent peters19128073
                            vincent peters19128073
                            Participating Frequently
                            March 28, 2018

                            When closing down Lightroom, it asks if I want to back-up. I always said yes. But no back-ups could be found. Both me and the Adobe Tech searched the entire drive for .lrcat files, and the only one found was the empty one created today, like it was my first time using the app.

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