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Help with restoring catalog location for PSE 18/19

New Here ,
Jun 28, 2020 Jun 28, 2020

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My PC had a catastropic failure that required Windows 10 to uninstall PSE2018/2019 (and dozens of other programs).

Upon reinstall of PSE 2019, the PSE catalog was empty- in spite of the images still being in the original locations on my hard drive.

 

I attemtped to restore the catalog but coudn't find a *.tly file anywhere on my computer. (All of the source data for the catalog is intact andin the original locations/folders on the computer.)

I have a 6 month old backup on an external drive, but before I resort to that, I hope someone has suggestions for how to restore the catalog with current data. Is there another way to ressurect a catalog other than by using a *.tly file? I'm hoping I can simply force teh new PSE install to start up in a specified folder to restore the catalog without having to formally restore with a 6 month old backup. Please advise.

 

TOPICS
Crash or freeze , How to , Import and export , Organizer , Problem or error , Windows

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LEGEND ,
Jun 29, 2020 Jun 29, 2020

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The calalog data base is usually found in this location:

C:\ProgramData\Adobe\Elements Organizer\Catalogs\My Catalog

Would you possibly have a back up of the catalogs folder. If you can find the named catalog folder the catalog database should be inside – see image (you may have version 16 or 17). It can be opened with PSE Organizer.exe

PSEDB16.jpg

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Community Expert ,
Jun 29, 2020 Jun 29, 2020

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. . .  or search your computer for a file named catalog.pseXXdb, where XX=16 or 17 (the version numbers of Elements 2018 and 2019, respectively).  Make sure that the File Explorer View menu has the File name extensions box checked.  Then double-click on the file.  The Organizer should then open with the catalog. 

 

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Community Expert ,
Jun 29, 2020 Jun 29, 2020

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Why is it more urgent in your case to search for 'catalog.pseXXdb' files rather than .tly ones? (as suggested by 99jon and Greg)

The backup.tly file only exists in a backup folder, never in a normal catalog. From your description, the only one in your computer is in the backup folder.

By default the catalog is a folder located in a hidden location in the C: drive. There is a small chance that the latest catalog folder has not been wiped in the reinstallation of Windows.

Without such a catalog folder, the best you could do would be to restore the catalog from your last backup, on 'original location'. That should not delete all the files imported after the last backup, but you would have to re-import your library, knowing that already present files in the catalog (most of them) will be skipped and not imported as duplicates. If you have 'written metadata to files', you'll recover your media tags. Do a test with reimporting a relatively small folder tree to get acquainted with the process.

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