Upgrade to Lightroom 14 - now I lost my catalog

[danielv16745849]

I hopped into Lightroom this morning and lightroom asked to upgrade my catalog. I just hit yes as I have never had an issue with this in the past. It had an error and said it couldn't find a data file and then opened the new Lightroom catalog with none of my pictures. I tried again with the prior year and it did the same thing. Now I also realise when it was doing that it was breaking the old catalog file in the process so I lost my V12 and V13 catalog. I quick made backups of verything else but no matter how far back I go the catalog shows up with no photos. Years and years of edits gone. I checked the "old lightroom catalog"folder but there are just empty folders. The only reason I have stuck with the slow and buggy garbage is I didn't want to have to start over with something new. Maybe now is the time to do it but I would rather not lose two decades of organization and edits.

[moved from bugs to discussions according to the community rules - Mod.]

[KR Seals]

Search your drives for .lrcat files. I bet you will find them some where.

[danielv16745849]

They are there but the catalogs got messed up when it tried to upgrade. The .lrcat file is only 1.66 mb. If I try and open the first lightroom catalog file it tried to convert (lightroom catalog-V14.lrcat), it says could not locate Lightroom Catalog-v14.lrcat-data. Basically in the upgrading it wiped out the old catalog file. I made a backup after realising what happened but if I try and do it from V12 or older it does the same thing. Nothing shows up.

[Darrell T]

Same problem.  There are no usuable .lrcat files to recover all the keywords I had on my photos before this Update for LR Classic.

[GoldingD]

Ok, Stop, take a breath. Make sure that the missing file is not the a .LRCAT-DATA file as opposed to the catalog.

If you were presented with a screen like this:

Then the file that supports the AI edits is missing. It can be recreated, and the various masks can be recomputed. Did you click on Continue?

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/catalog-faq-lightroom.html

[danielv16745849]

That was the first error I got. When I hit continue it opened up my catalog and nothing is there. No files, no presets, everything is missing. It looks like a brand new catalog.

[danielv16745849]

I should also note that the database catalogue won't let me open it anymore. I get this error.

That database catalog is 500 Megabytes. The prior catalogs, V13 adn V12, seem like they got wiped out as they are both only 1.7 Megabytes. I have my old V10 catalog randomly but that is back from 2022. I made multiple copies of it because its the last one that looks not broken and I was able to get that one to convert fine. So now I lose 2 years I guess. Unless there is a way to recover V14.

[Darrell T]

No.  No screen like that.  Just no keywords on my photos.

[F. McLion]

Please post a screen capture of the folder where you store the catalog files.

Something like this:

[GoldingD]

Contact Adobe. This via a Chat. Before doing so, prepare your notes and information ahead of time as to be more efficient in communicating. Your info that you have posted in your Discussion is a start for the description, and probably have a copy of your LrC /Help/System Info/ as a text document on hand, so that you can paste or attach that into the chat.

To accomplish the Chat, bring up an Adobe webpage, and click on the Chat button. (see image below) This will start a Chat. At first the Chat will be with a chatbot, Typing “Agent” into the chat text field will bypass the initial chatbot. If an agent does not enter the chat then be assertive in requesting an actual Adobe Tech join in the chat.

In the Chat include (as mentioned above) a description of the issue, and probably your System Info. And include a link to your discussion.

You may want to ask for a phone call.

And please keep notes so that you can share them in your post for others to see.

For example, bring up:

https://helpx.adobe.com/contact.html

and click on the Chat button, typically found in bottom right corner

[andrew_3236]

I've had the exact same thing happen, have lost 4 years worth of edits 😞 😞

[KR Seals]

That's not likely. Chances are you let LrC upgrade the wrong catalog. Have you searched your drives for any and all ".lrcat" files. Those files are LrC catalog files. I'm certain you will find the one you used most recently with LrC V 13.x

You can also look for the Zipped backup catalog files that LrC V 13.x would have created. Those files are created and named with the date they were made.

[danielv16745849]

Hopefully it isn't true for him but in my case it messed up the old catalog file. The upgrade corrupted the V13 .lrcat file and it is only 1.38 MB.  It did the same to the V12.  The backup zip file failed and is empty. It's a whole thing.

[KR Seals]

It's time to check your hardware for issues, especially the drive(s). LrC does not corrupt the old catalog it upgrades from.

Did you actually do a search for .lrcat file like I suggested?

No backups? That's a mistake and a shame.

[danielv16745849]

I did, I already had pulled them up from before when the catalog failed to convert the first time. I then, like an idiot, attempted to upgrade from my V12 file and it broke that one. Both V12 and V13 that I had attempted to upgrade from got wiped out down to nothing. The catalogs are stored on an NVME drive which is less than a year old. It isn't the drive. Also, a drive failure would not have shrunk a file. That isn't how it works. If I open the old catalogs they work just fine, there is just no data inside them. it is like a brand new catalog. Not backing up the old catalog was a mistake. I have backups of all of my photos. Both on portable drives and in the cloud. I back up everything, I just didn't think to back up a catalog file. I backed up my V10 and older and was able to get the V10 file to update to V14. It just loses my newest stuff. The first V14 catalog that was from the V13 conversion is a huge file, exactly like it should be. It just won't open. It stays the catalog cannot be opened because of a data issue. Meanwhile the V13 file it had upgraded from is under 2Mb.

[andrew_3236]

Yes, it was the first thing I did, the latest file is the one it's 'updated' with the next oldest being from March 2020 which is insane as I've done backups since then. 

[KR Seals]

Did you create the backups using the LrC backup function? Those are zipped files in the format: 24-11-12 1428 for example, the Date and Time of the backup.

[danielv16745849 · Accepted solution]

Final Update:

Both the V12 and V13 files were not recoverable as the original files had been overwritten with a blank catalog. The V14 file that failed could not be recoved either as it failed halfway throug the conversion and the data file that goes with the .lrcat file was never created. I should have made backups of the catalog file but I had backups of all my pictures so I didn't bother. I didn't realise how important the catalog file was or that it was possible for it to get messed up. I always ignored the backup prompt as in my mind "catalog" was just backups for the photos which I already had. I have a very rigid file structure so I will just start over with an old catalog file from 2022 and import all of the missing files. I have everything organized by year/month/day so I know exactly what the last files I have are and everything missing.