P: Allow Catalog to be stored on a networked drive.

Report · May 01, 2011

I'd love to make LR more multi-computer friendly. I have no doubt that there's probably database architecture issues and a host of other barriers... But I have to believe that the need for either multi-user or at at lease multi-computer use is widely desired. And yes, I know you can do the catalog import export thing but I find this less than ideal.

Report · Jun 28, 2019

Sounds like you somehow turned on "Lock Workspace"

Go to Window > Workspace > Lock Workspace to uncheck it.

Report · Jun 28, 2019

You absolute genius! For some reason it was set on "Lock" after I received the update. I hadn't thought of checking the lock option since my other tab was movable.
Thank you very much!!

Report · Jul 30, 2019

I have over a 100,000 student portraits and there are 5 people at our company that need access to the Lightroom catalog. We are missing a seamless way to collaborate on a shared company-wide catalog that we can store on our NAS.

Report · Dec 12, 2019

Can't believe in 2019 I can't use a catalog on a nas with 2 computers...not concurrently of course. I have to use synctoy and stuff like that with an external ssd to sync the catalogs and this has created way more problems and data loss than the risk of working live on a local nas or file server.
I wonder if CaptureOne allows that, other than being much faster on 4k screens

Report · Dec 13, 2019

You should be using a true client-server package. Lightroom isn't designed for multiple users.

Report · Feb 02, 2020

NINE years on, we're still waiting for Adobe to allow us to use lrcat files over a LAN on a NAS box. Beyond ridiculous!

Report · Feb 04, 2020

I wish that Adobe would publish a list of "Feature requests we don't intend to implement" or some such. Instead they leave us hanging. Too bad Lightroom is the 900 pound gorilla in this market.

Report · Feb 05, 2020

Phil, this is already available to you via this very forum. You can search any product on this forum by Idea and Not-planned using the pull downs at the top of each of the category pages.

Here is an example from Lightroom Classic. https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/categories/photoshop_family_photoshop_lightroom?topi...

Realize that because an Idea is marked as Not-planned, that does not mean it cannot possibly ever be considered. Changes in customer needs, software architectures and many other factors could cause a resurrection of any idea.

Notice that of the 3922 feature requests made here only 26 are marked as Not-planned.

Rikk Flohr - Customer Advocacy: Adobe Photography Products

Report · Jun 18, 2020

I'm dismayed, but honestly not surprised, that this hasn't had any traction or even a mention from Adobe Dev's in the 9 years since it's been requested.

The excuse I've always heard from the beginning was that this isn't/wasn't currently possible because Lightroom is built on top of SQLite. While I don't know if that's still the case, it was implied that it would require much more than a simple feature update and possibly a complete rebuild from the ground up.

I thought that the new Lightroom (not Classic) was going to be a start in that direction, but honestly I'm not enthusiastic about a library existing solely in the cloud or having to "sync" libraries and catalogues across different computers via the cloud.

What I want, and I think many people want, is a solution that has now existed in the Video Editing space for years at this point. Including Adobe's own Premiere Pro!

I would like the ability to host a catalogue and library of images (or libraries and catalogues) on a central, networked location (Server, NAS etc.) and a multi-user workflow that allows for multiple editors to be in the same catalogue and even working on the same images via Virtual Copies/Versions or image level locking.

The fact that this is the second highest "Me Too" requested Idea (1st highest if you note that the #1 is filed as "Not Planned") should give some indication to Adobe that "this is what we want above all else! We want this more than we want support for Centered Crop Overlay and ISO Adaptive Presets! We want this more than we want support for new cameras and lenses! We want this more than we want improvements to panorama editing and library filtering!"

The least Adobe could do would be to give some indication that it's Under Consideration, Planned or even Not Planned. Leaving such a popular request ambiguous is mean-spirited and disingenuous. Given the number of users who have sworn up and down (on this forum and others) that they would jump ship to the first editing platform to implement shared, network access; this feels more like a crowd-control measure. "If we tell you it's planned, we actually have to follow through! If we say it's not planned, we'll lose you all! So we're just going to leave it unanswered in the hopes that we'll be able to string you along as long as we can until we absolutely have to implement this feature."

And no, I'm not surprised that there hasn't been another company to implement this yet but I don't see it as a result of lack of interest. Adobe has been, and for a very long time will be, a market leader in this area. Many companies look to Adobe to see what to implement and what not to. The fact that Adobe is on top of the market further cements the idea that they won't implement this until they absolutely have to.

I would suggest that everyone who wants this feature push it to all the Capture One, Luminar, ON1, DxO etc. forums, community boards and feature request platforms that they can. Maybe the scent of a competitor working on this will be the spark that lights a fire under Adobe's butt.

One can only hope.

Report · Jun 18, 2020

"or even a mention from Adobe Dev's in the 9 years since it's been requested."

Adobe engineer Dan Tull did give a fair amount of technical insight behind the SQLite issue early on in this topic, starting here (you have to read through many messages in the the thread):
https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/multi_user_multi_computer?topic-reply-list[se...

But I agree that there hasn't been any substantive feedback here from Adobe since then.

Report · Jul 13, 2020

I've been using OneDrive to keep my catalog and previews in sync between computers. The issue I find is that opening Lightroom causes some high CPU activity for OneDrive as it tries to sync files that are in use. I think that is a OneDrive issue. After I exit there is again high CPU as it picks through my 6GB Lightroom catalog looking for the changed bits and added preview files.

Recent upgrades to OneDrive sync engine will only send the changed bits. Before this change, it was sending the entire 6GB file back up to the cloud every time I opened Lightroom.

So far it works pretty well. Every once in a while OneDrive gets confused and makes a second copy of the Lightroom database, as it thinks the cloud version and the local version have both changed. That would happen if I edited from a different computer and my laptop, which I am not doing. Right now, only editing on my laptop and using OneDrive to keep a backup of my critical files. When this happens I just delete the older catalog file, and rename the copy back to the original name.

Report · Jul 16, 2020

When will Adobe, make Lightroom available for multi-users? Now that my team work remotely (Covid-19 rules) they cannot access our extensive photo library catalogue through lightroom. Is there a work around for this? Everyone needs to be able to access the photos and the catalog for work. We use Lightroom Classic.

Report · Feb 23, 2022

I've run into the dreaded "Lightroom Catalogs can not be opened on network volumes, removable storage, or read only volumes." problem, and the lack of documentation or searchable information is rediculous. Someone in another forum - kindly I might add - noted that reading catalogs from a network volume was not allowed.

The question then is: For what good reason?

Protecting me from performance problems is not a good reason - I'm using 10G - and I'm providing more data protection and availability than well, most anyone. The Synology is dual ported with 10G optical to the 10G switch, which itself is connected directlt to the Mac. That switch uplinks to the rest of the network. There is not a network performance problem.

My workflow has always been to create isolated catalogs for each "major group" of photos, because in the early years because of how often the catalog could/would get trashed - it didn't make sense for a catalog DB to support multiple TB of photos and raws. Ergo - my workflow uses many catalogs to limit the blast radius of a failure of software.

Some years ago Apple stopped serving anything resembling a business systems market - and focused on consumer or specific prosumer markets - and as such their data protection is much worse than it was, to the point there are no local data protection solutions for Apple. Neither is APFS ready for even enclosure based solutions (hard lesson there). So, everything I have is in some form of RAID in at least two physically separate locations. Swapped my pegasus arrays for Synology some time ago, and put my User Homes in an external enclosure.

Having a very timely need to do some extensive photos touch up - I unload last months photos into the default catalog, select the 500 pairs I need to work with, write them as a catalog to the network volume, and then try to open that catalog. From the exact location where the catalog exists. I can see the files, I can open the files, and clearly - I can write the files from LR.

So - why doesn't LR Classic allow me to read a catalog from an external volume? I need to know - so I can decide what to do about my workflow and the 10 years of work I have invested in nearly 1000 separate catalogs.

Appreciate everyone's time and thought in advance. Purpose here is discussion - the why.
I'm interested in everyone's opinions. Professionals, part timers like me, or even LR staffers...

Report · Feb 23, 2022

For what good reason? This has been discussed many times, there are technical reasons involving the SQLite data base, as well as user-related reasons (can't allow two users into a database at one time).

Report · Feb 23, 2022

Aprpeciate the response.

So, protecting the datafile from being trashed by a lack of appropriate locking. Maybe better said as - SQLite always expected to be local to an application, presumption is the application mediates with single threaded access. Fair enough.

If it has been well discussed, it would also be fair to say that these discussions should be exposed to search engines, because you cannot get from any form of "lightroom cannot open catalog on external volume" to even the whiff of what you note.

I can see how customers will abuse their licensing by running multiple people against the same file, but for someone who is not abusing the license or intent... seems quite drastic.

Again - @dj_paige thank you for pointing me in the right direction.

Report · Feb 23, 2022

For historical and industry context, it should be noted that the same question was asked — and the same answers given — as to why Apple Aperture did not allow you to put the Aperture Library on a network drive, and this is a result that a search engine did bring me: Aperture Library on network drive (2007)

You have to be REAL, REAL careful with MySQL. It really needs a level of DBA understanding that most of us do not (or wish to) possess. Latency can be a real issue, and you still have locking/contention issues to deal with…Banging 50Mb plus files around at 16k packet sizes at super-high speeds is not what it was intended to do.

If this problem was that easy to solve, then by now, 15 years after Lightroom 1.0, surely some other company would have swooped in and said “Here you go, fully networked DAM” and easily scooped a bunch of customers away from Lightroom. But there is probably a lesson in the fact that this has not happened after all these years, and after all of the other raw editors released since then that are designed to look and work a lot like Lightroom; if any of them support operation off a NAS I am not aware of it. There are networked digital asset managers out there…but they typically are in a much higher price bracket than Lightroom Classic, Apple Aperture, or any of their direct competitors.

Report · Feb 23, 2022

Allowing catalogs to be stored on network volumes is one of the most popular all-time feature requests:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-ideas/p-allow-catalog-to-be-stored-on-a-networked-d...

For an understanding of the issues, start with my summary:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-ideas/p-allow-catalog-to-be-stored-on-a-networked-d...

Here are some posts in that long thread that give more details:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-ideas/p-allow-catalog-to-be-stored-on-a-networked-d...

(The last post from Adobe engineer Dan Tull describing the limited experiments he did with SQLite circa 2007.)

Report · Feb 23, 2022

Moderators, @Rikk Flohr: Photography, please merge with the existing idea:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-ideas/p-allow-catalog-to-be-stored-on-a-networked-d...

Report · Feb 24, 2022

@johnrellis- I skimmed through the first several pages on the Summary. Quite a popular subject without doubt.

Nothing wrong with SQLite, in the ensuing 10 years it may well have solved its ACID issue which leads to the curruption when you yank the network cable out from under the application (love that test). I think the real issue is avoiding multi-user, which should be solved with a lock file. Its easy, well known, and the customer support for it obvious and cheap.

But ACID in SQLite does not address the issue with the application architecture and how it interacts with SQLite, since the application is clearly writing complex transactions which need explicit atomic behavior (write 10 rows to 7 tables for example) - all those DML operations must complete or fail as a unit. The application has to understand what its transactions are in order to encapsulate with begin/end transaction semantics.

A quick look finds that SQLite supports both WAL logging and rollback behavior. https://sqlite.org/atomiccommit.html
So this really does not have anything to do with the network.

At this point the reliability of a locally attached Array device (my Pegasus3 R6 & TB3) and a network attached device like my Synology NAS - is the same. I'm not certain there was much difference 10 years, when yours and others well said comments were made in 2011 - this restriction makes zero sense +10 years later in 2022.

At any rate, just my opinions.

Report · Feb 24, 2022

LR does indeed use SQL transactions, and it uses an application-level lock file to prevent multiple instances of LR from accessing the catalog concurrently.

The underlying issue, according to SQLite, is that some network file systems do not correctly implement POSIX locking or Windows locking, which SQLite relies on to implement concurrent database access:

https://www.sqlite.org/lockingv3.html#how_to_corrupt

Bugs in third-party network file systems are outside the control of SQLite to fix. Since LR performs concurrent accesses to the SQLite database, its use of SQLite requires correct locking behavior on the part of the network file systems.

Report · Jun 16, 2022

I am an avid Lightroom user and a marketing director for a small real estate firm. We need to process and archive thousands of photos a year, and I don't have a good tool for this. Even with a small team, we don't have a good solution for rating, batch processing and archival of photos. I would hate to have to manage this across a large team. Does anyone have any idea how I should be doing this? Looking at the Adobe product set, I'm frustrated. Lightroom is not keeping pace with modern workflows.

Lightroom Classic is not able to be used collaboratively across teams in a professional environment. Want multiple retouchers working within one catalog? That's impossible! Want a master catalog that a marketing department can use as a digital asset management system? Too bad! I'm tired of not having an adobe-based system for photo editing, storage and collaboration. This is a glaring oversight on Adobe's part.

2. Adobe Lightroom CC has a completely hamstrung feature set designed for toddlers compared to the power behind Lightroom Classic. I can't even batch rename photos which is one of the most important parts of my workflow.

3. The best solution for using lightroom collaboratively is to have a separate machine with the catalog that is accessed by remote desktop. FAR from ideal especially when you're dealing with extremely high-resolution photos which just slows down the remote desktop process.

4. Because it's such a pain to collaborate I have to be the one person processing photos on my team which is far from an ideal workflow.

Who has solved this problem and what tools are you using?

Report · Dec 05, 2022

Hi, I've read a few posts about this and understand it's intentionally not allowed but I think this design needs reconsidering. I work with multiple people and computers and we use the same data stored on a network volume (specifically a Synology NAS). Lightroom is the only software I've run into that doesn't like this and it's a huge inconvenience. This working environment is common and a lot of people will be driven to other photo editing packages.

PLEASE! Enable Lightroom Classic Catalogues to save onto network volumes so that the catalogue can be edited on different computers (even if not at the same time) without needing to copy locally first.

Thanks for your consideration!

Report · Dec 05, 2022

Moderators, @Rikk Flohr: Photography, please merge with the existing Idea:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-ideas/p-allow-catalog-to-be-stored-on-a-networked-d...

Report · Dec 05, 2022

It's sad that it's been over 10 years since this request was posted and it still hasn't been implemented. PLEASE ADOBE!

Report · Dec 05, 2022

Problem is the LrC catalog is a SQLite database. The SQLite database engine does not work properly over to a server environment.

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P: Allow Catalog to be stored on a networked drive.