Lightroom encountered an error while reading its preview cache and needs to quit LRC

[erikaph]

New to posting to the Forum here, I'm hoping someone may have a suggestion or two that I havent already tried...lol.

"Lightroom encountered an error while reading its preview cache and needs to quit". 

I keep getting this error randomly, sometimes when switching between Develop and Library Modules. While restarting LRC (13.31)  always works, its annoying that it happens so often.

• My catalog and images are on an external SSD drive with updated firmware.
• Have have verified the integrity of the catalog and SSD drives
• Windows 11, all updated-even did a clean re-install thinking maybe I had some other conflict
• Nvidia Studio Graphic Driver updated to the latest available- turned off GPU acceleration in LRC performance settings
• Plenty of memory on the graphics and computer-see system info attached
• I have deleted the Previews.lrdata folder multiple times
• I reset all preferences
• I removed all plugins
• I un-installed and re-installed Lightroom after rebuilding the operating system.
• Computer firmware and Bios is up to date as well.
• I built a new catalog and imported from my old one thinking maybe I had something goofy in there as well

This is a Microsoft Surface Studio II, with 32 GB of RAM, and 8GB on the graphics but I'm wondering if LRC is just pushing it to it's limits as it is an older computer. Intel Chip set: =Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7820HQ CPU @ 2.90GHz, 2904 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)

Suggestions would be very much appreciated,

EP

[dj_paige]

In your operating system, you will have to erase the preview cache. Lightroom Classic will rebuild it, but it will be slow scrolling around in the Lightroom Classic Library Module.

Go to the folder where your catalog is located, and delete the folder whose name ends with previews.lrdata. DO NOT DELETE ANYTHING ELSE.

[JohanElzenga]

He said he already did delete the previews several times...

[dj_paige]

Then he deleted the wrong previews. Or there is a serious hard disk malfunction.

[erikaph]

Hi there, thank you for the suggestions, but Ive already done that, and I did not delete the wrong previews folder.  I have checked the harddrives (both the external and internal SSD's multiple times with chkdsk/trim tools and there are no errors.  Johan, one thing I did think about is on this particular machine and Windows version, GPU acceleration on the machine itself is on by default. Im going to try 4 more things to see if I can narrow it down. 1) turn off the GPU acceleration on the computer itself, 2) tryusing a different USB port for the external drive, 3) monitor the system logs to see if I can catch the problem.  And lastly 4) try a  newer computer with enough horsepower to see if I can repo the error.  I'm not a technical goddess anymore...lol,  If you have other suggestions for trying to narrow this down, I'd be grateful. Its more annoying than destructive at this point, and I have good backups.  Thank you!

[dj_paige]

Crazy thought: is your preview cache folder shared with "the cloud" such as OneDrive or DropBox or similar? Could you have turned on this sharing with "the cloud" accidentally? Please check. This has been known to cause file corruption.

[erikaph]

Good suggestion dj, but no it is not, it only resides on the external hard drive. I did a double check though to make sure I wasnt missing something. Thanks for the idea as I could see how that could potentially cause issues. 

[Lumigraphics]

Make sure your av software isn't causing problems.

[Keli Wakeley Photography]

Thank you so much! Deleteting the folder with previews. I was certain my drive was bad or that I would have to rebuild the catalot. It worked great! 

[John R Ellis]

"I have deleted the Previews.lrdata folder multiple times"

Try restarting your computer and then deleting the folder. LR shouldn't be running when you delete it, and in rare cases it doesn't fully terminate when you exit. It's a long shot, but to be on the safe side, just restart the computer first.

[erikaph]

Thanks John, I think Ive done it in that order, but its worth trying again! 

[peters32064433]

No solution I am afraid, but I have a similar problem when importing images LrC will just come up with an error and close.  Spoke to Support 3 times each with a different excuse but no fix, even had one say I was low on RAM, I told him I have 96gb installed.  Last one suggested it was a faulty Agkernal.dll repaired windows still same.  Anyone any clues please?

[erikaph]

I finally solved this I think, Fingers crossed and a big thanks to everyone that tried to help.

I think I had a corrupt catalog that no amount of catalog integrity checking would fix. Exporting to a new catalog didnt solve it either.  I had at one point imported a large number of images from a family member that was not familiar with LRC, and used other editing and scanning software, so I'm beginning to think there were some corrupt files that LRC just couldnt figure out through usual tests.  I solved it by creating a brand new catalog that resides on my main PC's Local drive and re-imported all my images. Drastic I know! While I lost the editing history, I didnt lose the edits themselves and can always reset back to the orginal raw file if need be. I'm going to try one more test and put that catalog back on the external drive to see if that creates issues. (all my photos are on an external SSD) Technically it shouldnt be a problem, but I have read reports of others suggesting it not be stored on an external drive. Time will tell.