corrupt catolog

[sockit]

I have accidentally corrupted my huge catalog with changes to one photo file.  I did not know that I should have removed it from lightroom before deleting duplicates. It is only a tiny part of the overall catalog. I need to repair it but do not know how to do this. Can you give me advice.All I see is that the file is corrupted and I think the drive has been made read only by Lightroom

Thanks

[dj_paige]

To tell you the truth, your explanation doesn't really make a lot of sense. Changes to a photo file do not corrupt a catalog. Lightroom Classic cannot make a drive read only.

Why do you think the catalog is corrupted? What do you see? Please show us a screen capture of the actual problem.

[sockit]

Hi I tried to reply but as I added screen shots I had to log into the
forum and the reply was rejected. I have been looking for the forum and
don't know how to log back into it. Could you give me directions please.

I was trying to send you images of the failure to open the catalog and
another image which shows the files including a Corrupt Catalog folder
which lists the folder

I have my photos all 640 Kbytes of them on an external 5 terabyte drive.
There is nothing else on the drive. I checked and neither the drive nor
my photos folder are read only.

The problem I have     came from the fact that I have tried to put big
files with duplicate images on lightroom and overwhelmed its ability to
not load duplicates. I had hoped that it would handle them. This was
then crashing lightroom. I therefore tried to sort them out but caused
the problem. I now realise that I should have removed them from light
room before working on them but did it in my ignorance. I was working on
just one file in lightroom and hoped that it would be able to restore
the catalog, but I cannot seem to get it to do that.

Thanks

S

[dj_paige]

Hello sockit, I still am very skeptical as your description of what happened sounds very implausible.

It seems as if you think the catalog is corrupted because you see something that doesn't look right. Is that correct? I want you to stop jumping to conclusions that the catalog is corrupted, and I want you to stop jumping to conclusions that Lightroom did something, and very simply explain what you are seeing without trying to identify the cause. Or better yet, provide screen captures by clicking on the "Insert Photos" icon.

[sockit]

Thanks for your note.  I tried to send you screen shots but couldn't
find the forum.Could you help me to find it?   The problem with the
catalog is that it just will not load at all. there is an error message
that it "cannot load because of some unknown reason." The same occurs
with the back up copy. However other catalogs load without a problem, I
don't know how to describe the problem though  Lightroom has put it in a
folder called corrupt catalog.I will sent you an image of the file as
soon as I can find how to get it to you.

Thanks

[dj_paige]

The third icon from the right is the "Insert Photos" icon. If you hover your mouse over the icon, the pop-up should say "Insert Photos".

Please tell us the EXACT word-for-word error message, with no editing or modifications.

[sockit]

Hi Thanks for the message. I think there is a lag between
communications. I think you mean the third icon in Lightroom when it is
running, however Lightroom is unable to load the catalog as I showed in
my screen shots.

Thanks

Sockit

[sockit]

Thanks  I hadn't seen the icon AS I am still learning the ropes..  Should I repost my previous screen shots? Were they unreadable?

Thanks

Sockit

[GoldingD]

In this community page, when posting

[cmgap]

Hello sockit... have you been making backups of your catalog when you quit Lightroom? If you have a recent backup it may be that using the backup will get you on track quicker than trying to repair the corrupt catalog. That said I have repaired corrupted catalogs before by following the prompts with success.

[sockit]

Hi Yes I have a back up.

I have just replied  to an earlier message which may not have been
entered into the community forum.   I am new to the forum and do not
know if these messages

are getting through. I will try to load the back up and will report back

Thanks

[sockit]

Hi  I clicked on your name and came to this place. I will try to load a screen shot here.

I cannot load this catalog nor the back up I have made.  This next screen shot shows the folders created by light room which had previously repaired the catalog after a similar crash

There you can see the the folder for corrupt catalogs which is where I got my terminology. Lightroom did the same thing a week ago but ended up with a lock file which went away and then lightroom rebuilt itself as you see.  When it was restored and running I made a copy of it before trying again to sort out the problem with that one file.

[cmgap]

Did you make any of these folders? Try dragging the previews.lrdata file out of that directory and put it in the same directory as the .lrcat file.

[sockit]

No they were made by light room when it was rebuilding my catalog on a
previous crash when I was working on the same file. At the end the
catalog was running just fine. So I made a back up and then foolishly
repeated what I had done before trying to clean up the specific folder
and crashed lightroom and was again unable to restart that catalog nor
the backup catalog which had been running a few minutes earlier. There
is much more detail in the rebuilding process which is noted in a folder
logging intermediate steps.

I think that if I could get lightroom to repeat what it was doing in
those steps that it would be up an running again, but I don't know how
to trigger that. I am therefore a bit hesitant to do anything  that
might disturb that sequence.

[sockit]

Hi cmgap   I tried to move the files as you suggested, but was not allowed to. Thanks for your suggestion. I'm wondering whether the photos I am also locked out of are like that from the time LR crashed?  On my previous crash of LR I found a message that there was a copy of the program already running only when that spontaneously disappeared was LR able to rebuild the files leaving the trail that I have posted. It also prevented me from doing more that looking at lower quality images in many of my photos. On this second crash I also am gradually over time able to see more of my images in my photo folder. Does LR continue to oversee the photo folders that it is linked to even when no one is running the main program?

[TheDigitalDog]

Before throwing the baby out with the bathwater in terms of this catalog, maybe try a preference reset and try again? Can't hurt. 

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/help/setting-preferences-lightroom.html

Now if it doesn't work, move to a backup, and of course back up your catalog and ALL your documents, photo's etc, on a regular schedule. 

[sockit]

Thanks I will try that though I have never set any preferences as I am
too new to know anything about them.  I do have backups for the catalog
but they also seem not to work. It must be something to do with the file
(I think)

[sockit]

To add mor information here is a screen shot of the steps that lightroom was making as it rebuilt my catalog. It is obviously a complex process and I am very hestitant to emulate this sorcerers apprentice

[sockit]

I had just said in a reply that there must be something wrong with the photo file. So I went back into the folder that I had been working on, and now find that there are some photos with an intact thumnail ( In Windows 10) but I could not open them. The files have properties such as size and security information etc  but I cannot open them. I could not find any indication that was not allowed to access them. Maybe this is a source of the problem I don't think they were like that previously.

[sockit]

I have follow up information that might be important. I wondered whether the problem might be resolved if I restarted my computer. I therefore tried to restart it in the prescribed way. The result was a blank screen with the circling boot up loop running for 1 hour.I therefor stopped the boot process removed the external hard drive which contained the photo files and rebooted.The machine went through the start up process to give me my logrompt  in within 4 minutes with the usual picture.  However logging in was not successful as the machine sat their for 30 minutes.

As it seemed that the operating system was running smoothly I tried the Control/Alt Delete  commandwhich worked and I tried to switch users.  This gave me the login option again and I was able to instantly get into my files.

I will explore the external hard drive and Light Room perhaps I will be able to rebuild my files again.

[sockit]

I reinstalled my external hard drive and initally had difficult the screen went blank but then  restarted. there was also a transient error message "proxy unobtainable". I therefore removed the external drive and then re connected it. This time it opened up without a problem I verified that there was a correct number of files on it and then opened the picture folder. They were all present and I could open and scroll through them without a problem even in the file that crashed Light Room initially the files were all at their original resolution. The question is whether the catalog in Light Room will be  able to connect to the drive.I will try that tomorrow.  I apologise for the long entries, but I thought I should document this as well as possible.

Sockit

[sockit]

Hi have loaded my backup catalog without any problem. Everything is intact. There was no need to rebuild the catalog. I am now going to back it up on a daily basis until I am certain that everything is stable.I want to thank everyone for helping me. It seems that when lightroom crashed it left some part of the program blocking access to my photo folder which prevented lightroom from restarting. The difficulty I had restarting my computer makes me concerned that if I had stored my photos on an internal drive that I would have had a major problem restarting my machine.I don't know why there was an additional problem logging in after the photo  drive had been removed. I will not edit any files on my photo drive unless I have removed the containing folder from the light room catalog. Hopefully that will eliminate any future problems. If anyone can enlighten me further I would be very grateful as I am a new user.

Thanks

Sockit