Missing Collections / Smart Collections

[RLMPhoto]

I've recently lost all my Smart Collections and the thousands of photos within them. 

I am using Lightroom 3 which is very old yet usually very reliable.

My Windows PC was updated a couple of days ago and it's since then that everything has disappeared.

I managed to locate a Catalog and tried to backup this way (C Drive, User, Pictures, Lightroom 3 Catalog, Backups) and this did restore a few Smart Collections but only up to 2019. All folders from '19 onwards are still missing - there were around 30 of them with hundreds of photos in each.

Surely my work has been backing up during the last 3 years?

I would really appreciate any help or insight that anyone might have.

[TheDigitalDog]

What do you mean by "Surely my work has been backing up during the last 3 years?"

Did you back up the catalog and all images on a regular basis?

The photos can just disappear via LR itself, although LR can lose track of them. It simply points to the photo's on your drive somewhere. So can you at least search for the location of the images outside of LR and let us know if indeed, they exist or, you somehow, deleted or lost them?

[RLMPhoto]

I don't remember manually backing them up unfortunately; I just imagined there would be some kind of auto back up running in the background. 
The original photos are saved in the D drive and nothing has been deleted from there- nothing has changed on that front.

However they have disappeared from Lightroom, the entire folders (smart collections) and every edit I had made on the photos in the last 2/3 years. Also, Lightroom lets me Import the files as if they've never been imported before (where usually it would grey out the photos already imported in the past).
I hope this helps explain the situation better. 

[dj_paige]

I don't remember manually backing them up unfortunately; I just imagined there would be some kind of auto back up running in the background.

I take this to mean you are not making backups. Which leaves open the likelihood that some of you work cannot be retrieved. You need to change this immediately and start making backups of BOTH your Lightroom catalog (using the built-in backup feature in Lightroom) and of your photos (this backup has to be done outside of Lightroom).

However they have disappeared from Lightroom, the entire folders (smart collections) and every edit I had made on the photos in the last 2/3 years.

You have most likely (accidentally) opened the wrong catalog file. Please go to File->Open Recent in Lightroom and open every catalog listed there until you find the one that shows your recent photos. If that doesn't work, please use your operating system's search feature to search every attached disk for files whose name ends with .LRCAT (probably will be lower case, but I type it that way in upper case because if I don't then l looks like an i) and open each one found.

[RLMPhoto]

Thank you for your response. I've now tried this but sadly to no avail. I opened each one but the latest folders are still 2019.

I'm worried now that my edits and collections are gone permanently. 

Interestingly though, the C Drive on my PC was extermely full due to the Lightroom backups stored within it before the upgrade and that still seems to be the case - so I'm hoping that is a good sign and the backups are there somewhere.. I just can't seem to find them.

[RLMPhoto]

Update:

I have just searched an external hard drive which is used to backup the PC for lrcat files in the same way and the following files were found:

Attempted to open the 2.41GB file (which hadn't shown up on the previous searches in C Drive)

and received the following message:

I'm reluctant to do anything now for fear of making matters worse 😕 

Have you seen this before?  I'd be very appreciative of any guidance.

[TheDigitalDog · Accepted solution]

Not a Windows guy but if like Mac, it's a permissions issue. Can you even move it to another drive or duplicate and rename this catalog and try?

[RLMPhoto]

Tried moving and renaming but still receiving the same message unfortunately.

[dj_paige · Accepted solution]

Move it to a folder where you know you have WRITE permission, such as the Pictures folder on your computer.

[RLMPhoto]

Moved the folder to the D Drive and when checking Permissions I noticed Full Control wasn't ticked; after fixing this I noticed Read Only was selected so I unchecked the box and thankfully LR opened with the missing folders and the 11,000+ photos!

Only 1 month of work is now missing which is no problem at all compared to 3 years!

Thank you both so much for your help - it's very much appreciated @dj_paige  @TheDigitalDog