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T
tl_t
Participating Frequently
January 10, 2020
Question

Onedrive sync having issues with Lightroom classic catalog

  • January 10, 2020
  • 1 reply
  • 4944 views

Hi, new subscriber here!   Also new to Adobe LR classic/PS. 

 

Situation:  I am storing the LR Classic catalog on my Microsoft Onedrive. Doing this so that I can access the catalog from both computers.  I've researched options and I realize you can also do this by putting catalog on external drive, but this way is a lot more convenient and I like having everything in the cloud.

 

Problem:   When LR is open, Onedrive complains it cannot sync the following two catalog files.  When I shut down LR, they immediately sync successfully.

 

lightroom catalog.lrcat-wal
helper.db-wal

preview.db

 

Question:  Should I just ignore the fact that Onedrive cannot sync these files while LR is using them, and continue using Onedrive, since they DO sync successfully after Onedrive shuts down?  Or will this create a problem over time?   (I contacted Adobe support, they don't really know, they just said they don't recommend using Onedrive, there's nothing in the docs about it).  

 

 

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

nikunj.m
Community Manager
nikunj.mCommunity Manager
Community Manager
January 10, 2020

Hi there,

 

Welcome to the Adobe Community!

 

The files you have mentioned are continuously being used and modified by Lightroom Classic when you are working on the catalog due to which OneDrive would have issue syncing when while you have the catalog open.

 

Regards,

Nikunj

T
tl_tAuthor
Participating Frequently
January 10, 2020

Got it, thanks!

 

So my question going forward is:  Is this a problem, should I not use Onedrive (or similar cloud service like Google Drive) because of this?  It doesn't seem like it necessarily has to be a problem.  All it's really saying is "Onedrive can't sync these files right now because LR Classic is using them."  But the moment you shut down LR classic, the files sync and you're good.

 

So I'm wondering if....as long as I ALWAYS properly shut down LR classic when done and make sure those 3 files properly synced back to the cloud...I can go use LR Classic and point to those same catalog files on another PC, and I should be fine.

 

True?   

nikunj.m
Community Manager
nikunj.mCommunity Manager
Community Manager
January 10, 2020

Since the files are being used and synced with the cloud services (any cloud service) at the same time, this may result in corruption of the catalog or related files. That is the reason we do not recommend using a cloud storage like Onedrive to store catalogs and access catalogs directly through them.

If you wish to use the same catalog on multiple computers, you can store the images and catalog on an external drive and connect the drive to whichever computer you wish to access the catalog on.

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