Full backup fails to start- error message for System space

[saibalg]

Hello,

I am running Photoshop Elements 2020 on  desktop Windows PC having built-in memory of 16GB & free memory of 7GB, The catalog is stored on the desktop PC Drive D  & its size is 793MB. The catalog cache size is 307 MB.  The D Drive has 135MB free space. All media files are stored on an external drive.

Every time I start the Full backup & during the process of identifying the files, the error message aopears to the effect that the System does not have anough space. Is 135MB of free space on Drive D  not adequate? Does backup process need free space equivalent to Catalog Cache size? I am unable to delete any files on Drive D to create more space!

I have been trying to find a solution quite desperately, but to no avail. Would greatly appreciate any suggestions in this regard. Thanks in advance.

[Peru Bob]

Hello,

I am running Photoshop Elements 2020 on  desktop Windows PC having built-in memory of 16GB & free memory of 7GB,

By @saibalg

If you mean disk space, and not memory (RAM), then you need to get a C drive with a lot more space than that.

[saibalg]

Hi Peru,

Many thanks for your quick response.

Actually I do have a C drive on my Windows 11 desktop PC, with adequate free space. It is a 500 GB SSD drive having 333 GB free. I assume this is where Scratch Disks are  written? 

In PSE 2020, the Edit/ Preferences dialog box does not display any option for Scratch Disk management. So I am not sure which disk is accessed for Scratch Disks.

Mentioned earlier that my PSE Catalog is on Drive D on my PC and this drive has 135 GB free. All Media files are on external 2TB drive having 550 GB free. 

Tried Optimizing the Catalog through the Files/Manage Catalog option before running Full Backup. But error message about System space continues. Since the error message pops up during the "Preparing for backup" stage, and even before the backup destination drive  dialog box comes up, I assume that the constraint is in either C drive or D drive. The installed RAM on my PC is 16 GB & I believe this is adequate. 

  Greatly appreciate any further suggestions for resolving this issue.

Thanks

[saibalg]

Request any expert suggestions  for resolving this matter. Thanks

[Peru Bob]

Just a guess:

Restore default preferences
Preference settings control how Photoshop Elements Editor displays images, cursors, and transparencies, saves files, uses plug‑ins and scratch disks, and so on. If the application exhibits unexpected behavior, the preferences file could be damaged. You can restore all preferences to their defaults.

Note: Deleting the preferences file is an action that cannot be undone.

Do one of the following:

Press and hold Alt+Control+Shift (Mac: Option+Command+Shift) immediately after Photoshop Elements begins launching. Click Yes to delete the Adobe Photoshop Elements settings file.
Go to Edit > Preferences (Mac: Photoshop Elements > Preferences > General), click the Reset Preferences on next launch button, and then click OK. When you restart Adobe Photoshop Elements, all preferences are reset to default settings.
A new preferences file is created the next time you start Photoshop Elements Editor. For information on a specific preference option, search for the preference name in Help.

from here:

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop-elements/kb/preference-file-locations-photoshop-elements.html

[MichelBParis · Accepted solution]

Hi, @Peru Bob 

Practically all complaints for lack of space are not for memory but for disk space to store the backup. Of course, that can also happen but it would help if you show a screenshot of the error message.

You also state that you can't access the settings of the scratch disk:  it's in your preferences, section performance. In your case, if you did not set your preferences, that will be in your SSD system Drive C : nothing unusual, but that can trigger a low system memory error as already mentioned.

A screenshot of your preferences (performance) and of your system info help panel may help, as well as the last step of the backup process where the needed disk space is indicated.

Is your backup folder location on the external drive on a conventional drive or a NAS?

The space on D : is not meaningful. Can you give us the size of your catalog?  It's the total size of the catalog folder , not only the main database catalog.pseXXdb or the thumbnail cache:  thumbs5.db.

The final destination should not be the root drive of the external drive;  it should be a newfolder.

[saibalg]

Hi, @MichelBParis 

Thank you very much for solving my problem!! After reading your insightful comments, I took a close look at the Properties of the destination drive which I had selected for backing up the Elements Organizer. This external 1TB drive had 915GB free, whereas the size of the media file for backup was 931GB. After changing the destination to an external 2TB SSD drive , the Ful backup was completed successfully. Thanks once again.

[saibalg]

Hi, @MichelBParis 

It seems I was exulting too early! Some  more issues have come up post the Restore of PSE 2020 catalog & I am stumped!! Request expert advice for resolving these. The issues relate to :

a)  some files not restored from full backup

b) some disconnected files in the restored catalog due to missing folders 

To start with the basics: there are 3 drives involved:

1. Windows PC internal Drive D. This is the location of the current Catalog for PSE 2020. It has 78960 items & size is 818 MB. Full Backup was taken for this catalog. 
2. Samsung SSD 2TB. This was the drive on which full backup of PSE 2020 catalog was taken. The entire drive was free. Backup was completed successfully without any error messages. 
3. WD external drive 4 TB. This is the destination drive for restoring the catalog backup folders & files The entire drive was free. 

Before taking the full backup of the current catalog ( located on drive D), I had ensured that there were no disconnected files. 

On the backup dialog box I had opted to maintain the folder structure. Entire backup process went through smoothly. 

Restore process was started with usual dialog box. Destination drive was WD 4 TB drive. At the end of Restore process the System displayed a screen message to the effect that the Restore has been completed successfully. However there was also a pop- up window listing files which could not be restored during the process.  An approximate count indicated 350 such files. These were . Jpg as well as .MP4 files. 

Once the restored catalog opened with the thumbnails I checked the location of few random image files from the information panel to the right of the screen. All these pointed to the correct location of the catalog folder on the WD external 4 TB drive. The total number of items on the new catalog after restore was same as in the old catalog,i.e 78960 items. 

I also ran a check to find  missing files if any. This displayed thumbnails  of 6700 files that were disconnected !! 

On investigating further through  the image - information panel of the organizer, I discovered that the respective folders for these image files were missing in the Folder tree structure on the left of the screen. 

So there seems to be two issues:

1. multiple image files could not be restored 
2. Multiple folders with image & video files were not restored. This, in turn, resulted in image thumbnails being shown as disconnected. Tried searching for specific file names on the entire drive where the new restored catalog is located, in case the image or video files had been restored under different folder name. However, no success.

I am at a complete loss  to understand the reason for this situation. There were no disconnected files or damaged files in the old catalog. 

Do I need to try Restore again after deleting the present restored files? Any settings to be tweaked? 

Any suggestions would be greatly welcome. Thanks in advance. 

[saibalg]

Request any expert suggestions  for resolving this issue of Restore errors. Thanks in advance.