trying to restore LR catalog from time machine backup

[brearob]

I just had an external drive fail - ugh.  It was only 2 months old!  I have backups of my LR catalog on my time machine drive.  I'm trying to open lightroom from a backup on the time machine and it won't allow it - it says:

The Lightroom catalog cannot be used because the parent folder “/Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/Brea’s MacBook Pro/2018-12-28-181332/Brea Robinson 4 TB Drive/Brea Robinson Lightroom Catalog” does not allow files to be created within it.

Does this mean it won't allow it because the drive is designated as the time machine?  If I make it not the time machine will it then work?  I was able to open it with a backup from 12/12 (the backup that happens upon exiting LR), but that's missing some recent photos.  I'm hoping to open it from the most recent back up.  Maybe there's something I'm not understanding about how this works?  Any advice for me?

Thanks!

[Just Shoot Me]

You need to Copy the catalog file out of the TM backup and place it in a folder on your main computer drive.

Alternately you should have multiple catalog backups as by default LR makes one every week. If the version of LR you are using is 6 or above then the backups are ZIP files and first need to be Un-zipped (Extracted) before you can open it in LR.

[JohanElzenga]

You need to learn how to use Time Machine. You can’t open and use items directly in the backup. Read this, particularly the part about restoring files: https://www.imore.com/how-back-up-mac-time-machine