The Lightroom Catalog is empty!

[Kemal_Y]

I changed my Mac to a new one...

I installed Lightroom to the new Mac.

Went to my Lightroom folder - the one with my original library which is supposed to have all my photos.

When opening this "Lightroom Catalog" it is totally empty... no photos.

- This folder and the photos are all together in the same folder as before changing the Mac (they are on a external disc)

- The structure is the same as before. In this folder nothing changed.

- The cloud backup built up in the same way act also as described

Anybody heard about this problem before?

[JP Hess · Accepted solution]

Is it possible that you have created a new catalog? In the library module, go to Lightroom->Open Recent and see if there are other catalogs listed. If there are then choose one of the other catalogs and see if your images were imported to the other catalog.

[Kemal_Y]

Hi...
It is not a new catalog. I opened the catalog directly from the normal position in the server - as always with the former catalog.
The same result goes also when I try to open the backup.

[JP Hess]

Do I understand correctly that you have your catalog on a server? That doesn't work with Lightroom. The catalog must be on a local hard drive. The images can be on a network server, but not the catalog.

[dj_paige]

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Kemal+Y  wrote

Hi...
It is not a new catalog. I opened the catalog directly from the normal position in the server - as always with the former catalog.
The same result goes also when I try to open the backup.

It sure sounds like somehow (accidentally?) you opened the wrong catalog, and you need to check by following JimHess​'s instructions.

[Tana Reiff]

I'm having the same problem and do NOT see the solution here. When I could no longer sign in or sync because I needed to update LR and my computer didn't meet system requirements, I got a new computer, installed LR Classic and went to the cloud to retrieve my photos. NOTHING THERE! I did not create a new catalog. There was no syncing going on for 9 days but I expected my library to still be in the cloud. Where did my photos go???!!!

[Rob_Cullen]

Did you copy the Lr-Classic Catalog from your old computer?

Did you 'open' the Lr-Classic Catalog from your old computer?

Did you copy your image files from the old computer?

Lightroom-Classic does NOT store your photos in the Cloud- so 'nothing to retrieve there' is to be expected.

Post some more details of the Apps you have been using please.

[Tana Reiff]

Thanks ... No to all your questions. I thought (and continue to think) that the cloud does store the complete photos, including metadata. I did not migrate from my old Mac because since the no-advance-notice to upgrade Lightroom, the version on that computer no longer could sync and could not support the LR version to support syncing, so my cloud catalog would be out of date. I got on a chat with Adobe yesterday about this. The agent took over my computer, located my catalog and began downloading all the 72,000 files to my new Mac. This is taking DAYS. Had I known in advance about the new LR version, and that I'd be migrating, I would have killed at least half of those files to reduce the time. Now I'm stuck waiting for the sync to finish. And my catalog is still not visible to me through CC, so that question has yet to be resolved.

[Rob_Cullen]

Because this is a Lightroom-CLASSIC forum and you mentioned "Classic" in your first post I assumed you had been using Lightroom-CLASSIC. Catalogs & Photos are NOT in the Adobe Cloud!

Lightroom (the Cloud version) is a different App completely. If this was the version you were using then it should have been possible to install Lightroom on the new computer and log in to your catalog and photos online, without the necessity to download large amounts of files. And nothing involves "migrating".

Hopefully you get it all working again.

[Tana Reiff]

I guess I really screwed this up. It makes me sick that I'm sitting through what appears to be 6-7 days of downloading to populate LR Classic on my new machine. Long story, space issues ... feeling really stupid and out of my pay grade. If my photos are not in the cloud, I wonder how they're coming from Adobe. Everything was synced until October 25 when I couldn't upgrade LR on the old machine. When I installed and signed in to the new LR on the new computer, no photos appeared until the Adobe person started this long populating process. No need to belabor this but thanks for your input.

[JP Hess]

You have indicated several times that you have opened the catalog "on the server". What does that mean? The catalog for Lightroom Classic cannot reside on a server. It must reside on a hard drive that is LOCAL to the computer that is running LrC. Please explain what you mean by server.

[Tana Reiff]

Did I refer to a server? If I did, I meant the Adobe Cloud. My Lightroom catalog is on my internal HD and is backed up every night to an external HD.