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As the title says I lost all my catalog files and the back-ups.
So I tried to open my lightroom this morning but it gave me the message it couldn't locate the catalog.
When I went ahead and looked at my files on my SSD I saw that even though the original folder in which the catalog files and the back-ups were placed was still there but everything in the folder is gone.
And now when I open the folder it shows a lot of new files that I have no idea what they are for (these files show when lightroom is closed).
I have no idea what could have caused the files to disappear no other files were lost from the disk and all the photos are still there. The disk was also safely removed and Lightroom was closed normally the day before.
Is there any way I could recover the files or solve the problem?
Currently on macOS Monterey, Lightroom version 11.2
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Using your operating system's search feature, search all hard disk(s) for files whose name contains .LRCAT
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I tried to do this but the only thing it shows is another catalog then the one I'm missing
and .LRCAT-wal and .LRCAT-shm files.
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When people first started reporting this, I felt it was simply a user error. But there have been too many reports of this happening recently. I would definitely go to the "Bugs" category and report it there.
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Definitely will, is there in the meantime anything I can do to recover those files or even just thee edits made to the photo's?
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It does indeed look like your original catalog is somehow disrupted. You need to look for a backup catalog. As these are zipped, you won't find them by searching for .lrcat files, but must search for .zip files. Do you use Apple Time Machine for general backups? If so, you could also use that to restore the catalog.
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Thanks for the answer but sadly the backup files are gone as are the .data files.
And normally use an HDD for backup but because it was full the last backup made was from 3months ago.
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@StafB wrote:
Thanks for the answer but sadly the backup files are gone as are the .data files.
And normally use an HDD for backup but because it was full the last backup made was from 3months ago.
Data files are not important. They can be rebuilt. I find it hard that to believe that you did make catalog backups and that these are gone too. I could imagine that Lightroom somehow ruins its catalog in special circumstances, even though I have never seen anything like this before, but I find it very hard to believe it would somehow trash all backups at the same time as well. Anyway, if you do not have any backups, then I have no suggestion how to salvage anything.
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I'm 100% sure I had catalog backups if not from this month definitely from the months before that or even my older catalog versions.
I definitely know it sounds hard to believe but it's because I have no idea at all what might have happened that I wanted to ask if anybody knew a problem, fix.
A friend of mine thinks it might just be that my SSD went corrupt since it removed everything in the folder but I guess the best thing now is just to rebuild my catalog.
Anyway thanks a lot for taking your time to try and help me, it's definitely appreciated.
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If you make catalog backup, then use another disk as destination. You just found out the hard way why that is essential. If your disk is hosed, then your backups are also hosed if they reside on the same disk. By default Lightroom stores the backups in the catalog folder, but you can change the destination in the catalog backup dialog.