P: Backup to NAS hangs at "Copying Catalog"

Report · Dec 22, 2020

Hi! After losing a hard drive to a spilled cup of coffee (thankfully, not a single file lost), I just upgraded to new M1 MacBook Air with Big Sur 11.1. I have Lightroom Classic version 10.1 installed and working well, except when I backup the catalog to my Synology NAS as I close out of Lightroom, it hangs on the backup at "Copying Catalog". I've let it run for hours and nothing.

If I backup to the local SSD everything works great. Lightroom has no issues accessing the NAS for import and access to the original raw files that I keep on the NAS. It does seem to start the backup as the NAS will show the dated folder along with the Catalog.lcat file and lrcat-wal file, but it never zips and completes the process. I found a post that suggested giving Lightroom access to Full Disk, which I've tried, but that didn't seem to make any difference.

I've been manually copying the backups to the NAS without issue, but really want this to work automatically to ensure I always have good backups. HELP! Thanks in advance!

MacBook Air M1

Big Sur 11.1

Lightroom Classic 10.1

Synology DS718+

Report · Dec 22, 2020

Backup the catalog to the local SSD and then Copy and or Move that backup over to your NAS.

Report · Dec 22, 2020

Yes, that works, however a backup that is not automatic is not a true backup. I'd like to actually fix the problem.

Report · Dec 22, 2020

As you should know, the backup via LrC just backs the catalog, not the photos.

Better options exist for accomplishing automatic backups.Better options exist for regular timed backups.

Your NAS may have come with such software.

Report · Dec 22, 2020

Yes, I understand, I am only trying to backup my CATALOG off the SSD where it resides. The photos themselves reside on the NAS which is backed up nightly with bi-monthly offsite redundancy.

This is a simple function that has worked flawlessly for several years. When I close Lightroom I want to backup the CATALOG to a NAS that I have mounted on my MAC. I am able to backup to the local SSD, but then my working catalog and my backup would be on the same SSD, not much of a backup. I would also prefer not to have to wait for Lightroom to backup to the SSD and then manually copy it to the NAS, as that depends on a manual step that is too easy to forget or to be in a hurry and have to wait for.

Report · Jun 28, 2021

Just tried it with my NAS and set the backup location to the NAS instead of the internal SSD in the Classic catalog backup dialog. It took a very long time with the indicator at 50% but Classic did back up the catalog to the NAS correctly and remove the .wal file and created a usuable zip file. While it was doing this it was only accessing the NAS at a fraction of its real speed (I can easily get 200 MBytes/second out of it during normal use in Classic using SMB multistream support in Big Sur and in my NAS and dual gigabit ethernet connections but it was only accessing it at about 5MB/s) so it appears that the built-in backup function is very unoptimized and just takes an extremely long time to complete when going over a network connection. I would guess if it is connected through a wifi connection it will be even worse.

Report · Jun 28, 2021

Quote, " Yes, that works, however a backup that is not automatic is not a true backup. I'd like to actually fix the problem."

I am not sure if it's a good idea to be backing up the Catalog file while LrC is functioning and writing to the file continuously. Just my opinion and gut feeling.

If this was feasible then Adobe could write the Catalog info to an additional drive location as it functions. This would likely hamper the performance of Lightroom.

Regards, Denis: iMac 27” mid-2015, macOS 11.7.10 Big Sur; 2TB SSD, 24 GB Ram, GPU 2 GB; LrC 12.5,; Lr 6.5, PS 24.7,; ACR 15.5,; (also Laptop Win 11, ver 23H2, LrC 14.0.1, ; ) Camera Oly OM-D E-M1.

Report · Dec 22, 2020

Did this work on your older machine before? Curious if you've ever had it work this way. This might be a file locking issue. Does it work well if you move files within Classic to the NAS drive or if you import images with a destination on the NAS?

Report · Dec 21, 2021

I can report it did work on my previous Intel Mac machine before. It "broke" when I moved to an M1Pro Mac with the Universal Lightroom Classic App.

Report · Dec 23, 2020

If its of any help to your situation I am using LRC on an iMac and I use Transmit very reliably to backup/sync files to a NAS.

But I'm one version of the Mac OS down from you.

I'm really cautious on updates.

Report · Dec 23, 2020

Have you talked to the NAS vendor? Adobe software is notoriously picky about working with a NAS device and there may be incompatibilities or a need to upgrade firmware/drivers.

Report · Dec 21, 2021

If this use case was working on an Intel Mac just fine, and now it's not working on the Universal app, same exact settings, do you think some investigation would be useful?

I understand catalogs are not supported in being on NAS, however, it's recommended many places that backups be kept there, as well as YouTube videos encouraging NAS directories to be used when backup location is selected. Lightroom lets you do this.

Report · Feb 23, 2021

Until last week I had LR 6.14. Bought me a Fujifilm X100V, and LR 6.14 doesn't read its RAWs. So I upgraded to LRC 10. With LR 6.14 the catalog backup to my Synology NAS worked like a charme. With LRC 10.x I have the samer issue: During copying the backup hangs for 2 to 3 minutes. Then it continues very, very slowly til end. This has to be an issue of LRC. Nothing else.

Report · May 26, 2021

I have same problem with USB HDD and LRC 10.2 & windows10:

Photos are in 3TB usb drive which is connected to USB3.

Catalog locates in my pc ssd drive. Catalog backup location locates in usb drive.

After closing LRC catalog backup process stuck about 50%...

It will continues, if there is not any changes/adjusts on pictures...

Report · Jun 28, 2021

I've been a Windows user for my photograpy workflow until last week when i migrated my LRC from Windows to Mac. Everything seemed to work great until i tried to backup to my NAS. Mine NAS is UnRaid. This feels like something is broken in Lightroom. I'm also using BigSur. Tried it on an older MBP (also running BigSur) same problem as i'm experencing now on my lovely little M1 Air.

Really depressing to have to manually copy the zip to the NAS.

Oh and if you're seeing the same failure as me, it leaves an lrcat file and an lrcat-wal file sitting in the folder on the nas. Do NOT trust that lrcat file. It's corrupt.

Hopefully they'll fix this soon.

Report · Dec 20, 2021

1. Version of the App: Lightroom Classic 11.1 (Universal)

2. MacOS Monterey 12.1, MacBookPro M1 (M1Pro chip)

3. Attempt regular catalog backup, set destination to NAS drive ( e.g. /Volumes/NAS/folder)

4. Expected result - catalog is copied, optimized, and compressed

5. Actual result - Lightroom Classic hangs at "Copying Catalog" step

- NAS shows that the catalog is copied in full, however it is not compressed

- Lightroom Classic has to be force quit and restarted again

- Cancelling the backup process still requires Lightroom Classic to be force quit and restarted again

6. Changing catalog destination to home drive (SSD) allows backup to complete successfully

Same issue as reported in this post

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/backup-to-nas-hangs-at-quot-copying-cat...

** Note, this use case was working on previous Intel based machine running MacOS Monterey **

Report · Dec 21, 2021

You can manually copy the catalog file to your device.

Report · Dec 21, 2021

Yes, that is the workaround.

Does this serve as acknowledgement that this is a bug? This was my purpose in posting it to the bug forum.

I did not have this issue when I was on my Intel Mac, which allowed me to set my NAS directory as the copy location. The Universal app allows this as well, it just hangs when you do that.

That sounds like a bug to me. Am I wrong about that?

Thanks again.

Report · Dec 24, 2021

Beats me, Adobe would have to determine if there is a bug or not.

Report · Dec 24, 2021

Exactly why I filed it as a bug report. Cheers.

Report · Dec 25, 2021

@TDC3000 Can you share the link for the bug you reported so I can follow that one?

Report · Dec 25, 2021

@spvb49713624

Certainly - my bug report is above - I posted it as a bug, but it was apparently moved to this discussion wihtout any commentary by moderators.

I just re-posted it in the Bug section with this clarity so it can be fully considered as a bug report.

Thank you for adding your experience / hope this helps. We of course want to have our catalogs backed up on media other than our local drive, and this functionality appears to have broken when I moved to an M1 / Universal Mac app.

Report · Dec 25, 2021

Reposting here for consideration as a bug. Previous post was moved to Discussions without any commentary. Multiple users are now reporting this behavior, thank you.

Version of the App: Lightroom Classic 11.1 (Universal)

2. MacOS Monterey 12.1, MacBookPro M1 (M1Pro chip)

3. Attempt regular catalog backup, set destination to NAS drive ( e.g. /Volumes/NAS/folder)

4. Expected result - catalog is copied, optimized, and compressed

5a. Actual result (M1Pro Mac) - Lightroom Classic hangs at "Copying Catalog" step

- NAS shows that the catalog is copied in full, however it is not compressed

- Lightroom Classic has to be force quit and restarted again

- Cancelling the backup process still requires Lightroom Classic to be force quit and restarted again

5b. Actual result (Intel based Mac) - Lightroom Classic copies and compresses the backup successfully on the NAS.

Workaround:

1. Change catalog destination to home drive (SSD) allows backup to complete successfully, copy backup to NAS.

2. This, however, defeats the purpose of entering a NAS based volume for catalog backups for the purpose of maintaining backups external to home drive

3. Again, this behavior did not exist on previous Intel based mac, same NAS setup (Synology, volume mounted as SMB drive on Mac)

Happy to provide any log information or screen shots for clarity.

Tags: #Catalog, #Backup, #NAS, #ApplicationCrash. #LightroomClassic

Report · Mar 26, 2022

Having exactly the same experience on a M1 MacBook pro runing Monterey 12.2.1 and Version 11.2 LrC

Report · Mar 26, 2022

Having exactly the same problem - latest versions of both MacOS and LrC - can you point me to your bug report so that I can reinforce the importance of a fix or tell me how to submit a bug report on this problem.

Thanks