Participant

Question

LR Error "attempt to index a nil value"

Forum|Forum|17 years ago
October 23, 2008
10 replies
42968 views

As of this evening, Lightroom has stopped working. At various times including startup (2x) I get a message saying "?:0: attempt to index a nil value". Then when the program is loaded, it appears to have an empty catalog.

At first I thought the problem might be a corrupted catalog file. However, if I hold down ALT at launch and specify another catalog, or if I create a new one, I get the same results.

Within the program, I see the message again when I switch modules to DEVELOP, or SLIDESHOW but not when I switch to WEB or PRINT. Once I've moved away from the LIBRARY module, any attempt to move back to it results in the message and staying on the same module I was on.

I am running Windows XP Pro SP2. There is 2gb RAM on the system and 24gb free disk space on C.

I tried UNINSTALLING the program then re-installing with the 2.1 update, but that made no difference.

Something that may be related: I installed the MS .NET 3.5 framework in between the last time I used LR successfully and the first time I saw it fail. I don't know if there is a conflict there... everything else I've tried seems fine and I've got a BUNCH of software installed.

Problem or error

This topic has been closed for replies.

R

roberth62521040

Inspiring

I have tried all of this and still getting error messge. How can I send you an email that contains the steps and sreen shot! I have it in a word document.

johnrellis

Legend

[This post contains embedded images that don't appear in email. View the post in your Web browser to see the images.]

"I have tried all of this and still getting error messge. How can I send you an email that contains the steps and sreen shot! I have it in a word document."

That error message occurs in many different contexts and is caused by many different bugs. You've posted on a very old long thread, and I recommend that you start a new thread ("post", "conversation") where people are more likely to see it. Copy and paste the steps from your Word document into the post. You can insert a screenshot by clicking the picture icon:

Also, this is primarily a user-to-user forum, in which Adobe infrequently participates. (But don't worry, the support you get here is superior to what you'd get talking to Adobe support.)

[Use the reply button under the first post to ensure replies sort properly.]

LAOMUSIC ARTS

Known Participant

LR v 7.5 Camera RAW 10.5 Win 10

I just had this same error while importing custom presets .
The error message describes the problem :

- Internal error => Adobe Software Engineers at work ! The funny ?:0; means it was unable to print out the error code number;

- attempt to index field '?' => unable to write a proper index in a database-like file (LR´s .xmp files I guess...)
- a nil value => the value that it is trying to write is 'nil', which represents an empty list or a Boolean (truth) value of FALSE.

In my case, I fix it by:

- navigating to this path:
C:\Users\YOURUSERNAMEHERE\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom\Develop Presets\User Presets

and Cut+Paste all the custom presets folders to the Desktop

- Open LR and I just have the standards/factory presets

- I start to Cut+Paste each folder back to:

C:\Users\YOURUSERNAMEHERE\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom\Develop Presets\User Presets

until I´ve found the offender and RMB (RightMouseButton)/Delete Group
- close LR and everything runs smooth now !

Enjoy, have fun and be polite enough to say thank you !

ptsmantua

Participant

This appears to be a clear bug in LR interface to FB.

When I push to FB, I for example am trying to create a group of photos in FB.

If I drag and drop onto the LR publish service, it does accept the 24 photo to pub to FB.

But it only published 1 or 2 before this error pops up in LR.

If I repeat the process and select all of the photo that have not been pub'd to FB, LR runs Publish with the end result of 1 or 2 more are added to the FB gallery, then the error recurs.

Keep reducing the number of LR photos to push - get one or two to push across into FB correctly B4 error.

LR (At) support (dot) com - please reply to ptsmantua (at) GMAIL (dot) com

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niit99713980

Participant

This happened when I tried to export the all the images in my edited catalog to a folder on my hard drive. It turns out that there was a photo which I had previously deleted, but whose thumbnail somehow remained in the list at the bottom of the app. After deselecting that phantom thumbnail, I was able to export just fine.

Froat

Participant

Go to your publishing service's website. Chances are it has populated a placeholder gallery for your images. Delete the empty gallery on the website. You should be able to republish. Just worked for me.

A

AbrahamFriedman

Participant

I got this error when I created a collection using the Facebook plugin. When I created the collection I had a dash in the name. After deleting the collection and recreating it without a dash everything was fine. It seems that special characters can sometimes trip app Lightroom.

sportshots

Known Participant

I just received the same message when I tried to upload to one of my SmugMug pages. I was able to upload the same images to my other SmugMug page with no problems. Any suggestions? everything else works fine

johnrellis

Legend

Make sure you have the most recent version of the plugin. Go to File > Plug-in Manager, select the Smugmug plugin, and then scroll the right column to the Status pane, where you can see the version number. The most recent version is 3.0.9: How do I install or update the Lightroom plugin? | SmugMug

sportshots

Known Participant

I have the most recent, but it says 'installed may not work'

But I'm uploading to my other page, they both use the same plugin right.

J

jpsnuffy

Participant

Had the same thing happen to me, but I thought it had something to do with the size of my catalog. I was creating a new catalog with LR3B and it was creating 1:1 previews when it hung at 34%. I have 340GB+ pictures that I wanted in one catalog (don't know if that is best practices or not, just what I have been doing). I had to kill the program (end task) and when I reopened it I got this same error as the previous gentleman: "?:0:attempt to index a nill value"

I did what you recommended above and it fixed the issue, but upon restarting LR3B it didn't ask me for the location of the catalog. All my pictures are there, but my Develop Presets and possibly other things are not, oh well.

If you want my Prefs folder let me know.

Glenn

G

Gary_Rowe

Participating Frequently

I get this message randomly as I delete unused keywords - when I try a second time they ususally delete Ok ... but it is annoying!

I just ignore it, but when my wife gets stuff like this she doesn't know what to do - and usually then I get the grief for telling her to use shoddy s/w :-(

Gary

J

Jeannine_c

Participant

While uploading images to smugmug for a wedding I just did I got this message. It really freaked me out so I just started backing up all my stuff. Here is my concern, is it in one of my presets that I used to edit my images? Is there a way to figure out which preset it is. I have only 347 images left and I could look for the presets left that are on those photos. Maybe I could then just delete that preset instead of all my wonderful presets? I haven't had any issues but an error message when my computer is trying to finish the last 347 images of 1580 already uploaded. LR still seems to be working just fine. So I went in and exported all the images to a folder on my desk top because I don't have a current back-up....lessoned learned and cross your fingers for me.

Any explanations or advise would be so amazing...thank you ahead of time.

_

_Mike_Fulton_Author

Participant

Julie, that did the trick!

I'll email you a ZIP file with the old presets folder right away.

Thanks very much!

_

_Julie_Kmoch_

Participating Frequently

The .NET framework shouldn't be a factor. I suspected your catalog at first, too, but your note that multiple catalogs exhibit this makes me suspicious of something in your preferences.

What I'd suggest trying:
1. Launch LR. Go to Edit > Preferences > Presets tab > click "Show Lightroom Presets Folder"
2. In Win Explorer, rename the "Lightroom" presets folder to "Lightroom-x"
3. Quit and relaunch LR. It will ask you to manually find your catalog.
4. See if the problem went away.

If that fixes the problem, I'd appreciate getting a copy of your problematic presets folder (most likely the prefs file) at jkmoch at adobe dot com.

If it doesn't fix the problem, you'll probably want to get rid of the new Lightroom presets folder that was recreated when you launched at step 3, and restore the old -x one. Then we'll have to look at your catalogs.

A

Anonymous

Help! I tried this and now my catalog has reverted to a previous time where thousands of images are not showing up...I renamed the preferences folder. it didn`t work so i changed it back and now I appear to have lost thousands of images from the catalog..any ideas anyone??

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