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Shaun Lotay
Shaun Lotay
Inspiring
January 29, 2023
Answered

Lightroom won't backup anymore.

  • January 29, 2023
  • 1 reply
  • 3194 views

Until today, Lightroom backups were working fine.

I had some photos (2022 onwards) on my ext. drive. The rest were on my main PC drive.

I moved the 2019-2021 photos from the PC to the ext. drive.

They are all in the catalog as usual.

 

However, since then, backup has no longer worked. I get the following error.


Lightroom was unable to back up the catalogue named "Lightroom Catalog-v12".

Please check your folder permissions, and make sure you have available space on your backup drive and main catalogue's drive.

I get the options to Try Again, Choose a Different Backup Folder, and Exit.

 

Try again doesn't do anything. It returns the same error.

Choosing a different backup doesn't solve it. I have tried renaming the backup folders, changing the storage location, reducing the file path name length, and more. No luck.

How can I get the backup working again? 

    Correct answer Shaun Lotay

    Thanks @GoldingD.

     

    D:\ is a filepath to the second internal hard drive on my PC. 

     

    I think my reference to OneDrive is potentially distracting. The OneDrive folder referenced backs up automatically to the cloud. The cloud mirrors in full a copy of that folder location from the second hard drive. (@DdeGannes, I think this answers your query).

     

    As I say, I doubt OneDrive is the issue. I've tried backing up to multiple locations since the issue starting today, attempting various external hard drives, internal hard drives, and reducing the filepath name length. None have worked.

     

    It's a bit strange. I have since tried the same on my laptop, remembering that the Lightroom catalog and photographs are stored on an external SSD. I normally switch between the laptop and PC without issue backing up on both, but now can back up on neither. 

     

    All seemed to happen following the moving of file folders from 2019-2021 to the same location as the 2022 onwards photos. Previous go moving the file folders, the photographs were all still in the same lightroom catalog but instead were split between two hard drive locations. When moving the hard files, I updated the location of them in Lightroom, which completed the import. 

     

     


    Dear All,

    Thanks for all your help with this. I figure there isn't a straightforward explanation for why this has happened. However, after some experimentation, I exported my current catalogue (with all the new files) to a new catalogue and was able to back that up successfully. 

    If anyone runs into the same issue, this is what I would recommend you try first.

    I hope this information is helpful. 

    1 reply

    JohanElzenga
    Community Expert
    JohanElzengaCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    January 29, 2023

    Moving photos has nothing to do with making catalog backups. That is probably just a coincidence. The error message gives three possible causes: 1 Lightroom does not have permissions, 2 the backup drive lacks space, or 3 the drive of the main catalog lacks space. You tried two out of three without a result, so what's left is lack of space on the main catalog drive: i.e. your internal drive.

     

    -- Johan W. Elzenga
      Shaun Lotay
      Shaun LotayAuthor
      Inspiring
      January 29, 2023

      Hi @JohanElzenga. Thanks for the reply.

      I understand that moving photos was not likely to be the cause, but I had completed a backup before moving the photographs and could not complete it after. I was highlighting the only change that had occurred.

      My apologies for not making it clear in my initial post, but the lack of space is not an issue. There is more than 1TB of free additional space. As noted previously, the lack of space was not raised as an issue before moving the photographs.

      To be clear, when I say moving the photographs, it was only that the location of the pictures in the catalogue from 2019-2021 was on a different drive, and now they're on the same drive as the other photographs in the catalogue.

      My initial troubleshooting attempted to determine whether the suggestions in the prompt may have been contributory causes.


      Any further actions to try would be appreciated.

      V
      Vic-86
      Known Participant
      March 4, 2023

      Dear All,

      Thanks for all your help with this. I figure there isn't a straightforward explanation for why this has happened. However, after some experimentation, I exported my current catalogue (with all the new files) to a new catalogue and was able to back that up successfully. 

      If anyone runs into the same issue, this is what I would recommend you try first.

      I hope this information is helpful. 


      I had the same problem this morning. While I'm happy you found a way around it, the whole thing sounded a bit sketchy. Why would this happen all of sudden when none of the previous settings were changed and backups were never a problem before? Strange.

      I was getting ready to follow your example, and for all I know may still need to do so in the future.

      So, here's what I did:

      • Several failed attempts to backup to different locations
      • With the catalog open I optimized it and got a dialog box saying that it was done and Lr would restart.
      • Lr did not restart
      • I started Lr. It seems fine.
      • I backed it up. No problem. Original location and settings.
      • I restarted Lr and backed up again. It worked.
      • Whew! What a workout 😉

      Someone will need to check me on this, but I think when you export a catalog you lose the develop history for the files you worked on. Not the results, because those are in the XMP files and the catalog, just the history. If that is important to you, and it may not be, you could open the catalog that was giving you trouble and try what I did. No guarantees, but... (Of course since it's been a month that may be a road you don't want to go down.) 🙂

       

      Win 10 on NUC w/Intel I-7, 32G RAM, M2 SSD, Current Lr & Ps
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