7.3.1 advice needed after 7.3 horror show.

[harriettel]

Lightroom Version Number

Lightroom Classic version 7.2

Operating System

1. Windows 10

Hi, I hope you can help me or advise me what my next steps should be. I was planning to write this post before I became aware of the 7.3.1 release, but now that it is out I will address this post pertaining to that also. I’m hoping by sharing my experience I would be able to receive some advice or understanding of why this behaviour occurred and maybe help anyone else.

My system (built by my husband who has been in the computer industry since the late 70s and has built several machines. We have an in home network that runs through his machine to the internet.): Windows 10, Intel Core i5-7500, 500G SSD, 1TB HDD, 16Gb RAM, Wacom Intuos 5, 2 monitors. The SSD will only hold system, programs, and Lightroom Catalog. The HDD holds all personally generated files. I’m also connected to our network NAS and use an online backup service as well. I’ve been using this machine just since mid-March.

Up until the 7.3 update I had no problems with any program on my new computer, which at that point was mostly graphics/photo programs, also malwarebytes and password safe. I was thrilled with the speed of Lightroom, etc. after using a 5 year old HP laptop. I was very happy with 7.3 after first downloading and used a lot of the new profiles on newly loaded pictures of the ocean. I think I only worked on pictures with the new profiles once and backed up my catalog without a problem. I have never had a corrupt catalog before or any backup problems and have never had to use a backup catalog. My presets were also converted fine. Then the problems started:

1. Upon opening LR the catalog was said to be corrupt and and wouldn’t repair.
2. Upon opening Explorer to copy this catalog to a different folder to see if LR would generate a new catalog, I noticed that the lock and wal files were still there. Researched and deleted them and tried to open LR continuing to receive corruption errors. Double-clicking on catalog in Explorer would generate a couldn’t read cache message.
3. Next, I moved my catalog and preview files into a new folder. Then I tried to use two different backup catalogs (separately without previews) and received the same messages--corrupt or couldn’t read cache, even though there were no previews to read. Also received assertion failed message when trying to run LR as administrator. I’m the only user/administrator on this computer. I had also deleted preferences before trying the backup catalogs. I also removed any 3rd party presets. No joy.
4. My Google search started and I landed on the Lightroom Queen website and was impressed with the information, so I decided to register. I use a Password Safe that automatically generates passwords and backs up after any change or addition. This is where the problem became weird. The Password Safe wouldn’t backup. This has never happened before either. I wanted to do some more research on this before I posted my problem on your site. I emailed Password Safe and he suggested that it looked like a failing disk issue. This was concerning because I was on a new computer, however I know this can happen so on to the next step.
5. Before continuing to address the LR problem I wanted to check my system. We ran every system/disk check possible, checked event viewer, malwarebytes, etc. No errors or problems were found. I also checked permissions because of the assertion failed message. Everything was in order. I also updated the graphics driver for my processor. LR would open in Safe Mode but I couldn’t make any test adjustments because LR wouldn’t process any activity in Safe Mode, and since there were no 3rd party presets this showed us nothing. I also opened up several pictures in Camera Raw that I had worked on with the new profiles and made several adjustments with no problems including closing and reopening again through Bridge.
6. I thought this problem had to be database related because both LR and Password Safe use databases. I did a lot of reading about SQLite and programs that will check the integrity of catalogs, however I didn’t want to go down that road yet. So, I did what I’ve read that seemingly everyone does and decided to uninstall LR and reinstall. I hesitated to do this because even though rebooting a computer sometimes fixes problems I never liked uninstalling and reinstalling programs as a fix. I’ve had Adobe products crash before, but they always open again without problem, and I was using a much older and slower laptop.
7. So, I uninstalled LR and tried to reinstall. LR would not reinstall at all. This made no sense. We rechecked all permissions and the event viewer and there were no issues. Before the corrupt catalog message, LR 7.3 had crashed several times and I sent crash reports with my email address but heard nothing. It always reopened though until the corrupt message.
8. So, since this was a new machine and all of my files were on a different drive and everything was backed up, we decided to do a clean install of Windows 10. I had .exe files saved for all of the other programs so there wouldn’t be any problem reloading them except some time spent.
9. The install went fine. Because of all of these issues I slowly installed programs after addressing some Windows 10 issues, keeping a separate notebook with extensive notes of everything I touched in the system. Lastly I installed Creative Cloud and Photoshop--no problems. I created a restore point and installed LR 7.2. I decided on 7.2 because while researching all of these problems I finally hit the bug issues reported relating to 7.3 and the new profiles and that Adobe was working on a fix.
10. So with LR 7.2 I decided to use my original supposedly corrupt catalog to test it. LR 7.2 opened with no problems and also had no problem opening my supposedly corrupt catalog including it’s preview folder that I was hoping I did not have to regenerate. I have had no problems since, which has only been a few days. It also backs up without a problem, which I tested several times. Also, my Password Safe file opens, backs up and saves with no problem.
11. I was getting ready to write this all down to post on your site to see if anyone had insight regarding what I think is a database problem (xml file conversion clobbered my 2 databases, the only 2 files from a program on my SSD) or 7.3 problems in general when I see this morning that there is a fix: 7.3.1.

I usually update right away with no problems but really hesitate this time because I think the problem is more than preset order, and I want to wait to see if any corruption issues occur or they come out with the profile preference choice and proof of stability. This is where I would really like to know what your thoughts are about my odyssey and any advice you could give me regarding Lightroom going forward. Also I was wondering if I should post this on the Lightroom Family site. I like Lightroom and Photoshop and do not want to move to another program. Thank you for any help you can give me and reading this long post, but I wanted to be thorough.

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Hi harrietel, welcome to the forum!

The fact that you were having issues with other software would make me think hardware issue too. When you reinstalled Windows, I'm guessing you formatted the disk, so you probably mapped out any bad sectors in the process.

They have done a load of work on the corruption detection in 7.3.1, and some catalogs that were reporting corrupt in 7.3 are now fixed in 7.3.1, so I'd be inclined to upgrade and check it remains happy.

 

[MarkNicholas]

I have just upgraded to 7.3.1 from 7.3. Although not being able to pin point any specific issues I found 7.3 sluggish & clunky.

 

[Linwood Ferguson]

@harriettel that sounds like a horribly frustrating process. I have no magic answers, but can offer a tiny bit of info. SQLite is an "embedded" database. By that I mean that it ships inside products. So even if your password keeper used SQLite, it would have its own copy (and probably even a different version) of SQLite. There should be no interaction between the two, even if indeed they were both using SQLite.

In other words, if both went flakey, as Victoria mentions, I would suspect hardware. I'm not sure I would suspect disk (though it may be, but I think you would have seen errors in the event viewer). I am not quite sure what to expect, but error-less flakiness sounds more like a processor/motherboard issue. Could be disk -- just wouldn't be my first guess.

Lightroom 7.3 (and 7.2 back I think the 7.0) had a bug in the catalog backup routine, which would sometimes (I think pretty frequently) corrupt the backup catalog in the zip file. This did not corrupt the catalog itself, but was a disaster for people depending on the automated catalog backup. It also would not impact any regular backup you do of the catalog with regular backup software (which you should also be doing, along with your images, of course).

I heard of people with catalog corruption in 7.3, but I personally never got a real handle whether it was a separate issue from the backup corruption. I think there may also be some spurious corruption indications; I think it is always useful for an independent check on catalog integrity, if you want to do so, I posted a quick tutorial here: Test your catalogs (and backups) - How To

My GUESS is while 7.3 was a bit flakey (though I used it throughout pretty heavily), that it really was not the cause of your issues. I would be concerned if a re-install actually fixed it, so keeping good, versioned backups would be a good idea until you get comfortable all flakiness is gone.

You didn't overclock that system did you? If so, I'd suggest, if any flakiness happens again, try backing down to stock settings and see if it goes away).

And do upgrade to 7.3.1, it's more solid than 7.3.

 

[Samoreen]

And do upgrade to 7.3.1, it's more solid than 7.3.

I don't think so. New bugs have replaced the old ones. Preset management is still impossible. You can't rename a folder (group ?) and you can create a a new folder (group ?) without creating a new preset. So far for the preset management capabilities.

After the installation of version 7.3.1, I had a lot of presets that were duplicated or even triplicated. Some were moved and renamed by prefixing them with the name of the folder they were stored in. Still a total mess.

 

[Linwood Ferguson]

I don't think so. New bugs have replaced the old ones. Preset management is still impossible. You can't rename a folder (group ?) and you can create a a new folder (group ?) without creating a new preset. So far for the preset management capabilities.

After the installation of version 7.3.1, I had a lot of presets that were duplicated or even triplicated. Some were moved and renamed by prefixing them with the name of the folder they were stored in. Still a total mess.

Are you saying 7.3.1 is worse than 7.3? Because I was specifically referring to that comparison.

If someone is on 7.2, I might agree it could be wise to wait for 7.4, though I've gone through both intermediate versions without real issue. There was some preset duplication which I had to clean up (though not sure which version). I think a lot depends on how much profiles and presets are used, as that is where a lot of work occurred.

I have also heard people complain that 7.3 (and 7.3.1) performs worse than 7.2, but I find it about the same.

The (take your pick: Great News or Problem) with adobe and recent versions is we are getting quite a lot of functional change, both addressing performance and now a lot of work underneath the develop covers for profiles. That comes with the usual corporate rush-to-the-door for new versions, leaving some bugs to be fixed. To imagine that 7.4 will not bring its own problems along with some cleanup of 7.3 is likely misplaced.

 

[johnbeardy]

The OP says "my presets were also converted fine." So I wouldn't extrapolate the continuing problems that some have with preset management into general advice to avoid the update.

7.3.1 solved some serious problems with B&W, and appears to solve the major problem with backup catalogue corruption on Windows, the OP's platform.

John

 

[tspear]

I have not had time for photography in months, so I am on 7.2 still.
What is the general consensus; upgrade to 7.3.1 or wait a bit longer?

 

[Jimmsp]

I have not had time for photography in months, so I am on 7.2 still.
What is the general consensus; upgrade to 7.3.1 or wait a bit longer?

I can't talk to the general consensus - but I have upgraded with no real issues. The older version hung up on me 3 times, so far this one has been fine. I don't use many presets - but they all seem to work, though they are sorted in a order I don't prefer, and I can't seem to change them. A very minor issue.

 

[Zenon]

Just updated my MacBook Air and it went smoothly. That is not a heavy usage machine. Just for travel. I'll update the iMac later. The presets with the Air were always in order no matter which update. iMac is out of order. We'll see but I'm also not worried about that either. Air with SSD and AFPS has been smooth every time. I have had update issues with the iMac, HD and HFS+. I set everything up the same way on both devices.

 

[Zenon]

iMac went fine. Presets are in order. I still can't right click in the Presets area to create a new one or rename them on either device. I have to use the + and create a new group. Anyone else having this issue?

 

[Zenon]

Well you can still delete or rename the individual presets in the group and when you do the last one the group is deleted. You just have to make sure you name the group the way you want it the first time when creating a new one.

 

[Gronlund I]

After the latest update to Lr 7.3.1 I have had similar problem like harriettel (If with my inadequate english I have understood right harriettel's description). In any case when I
close Lr and want to backup I get a message that the catalog is corrupted and cannot backed up and fixing also does not work. But this only concerns my biggest catalog (lr.cat -file 3,41Gb). I have also three smaller catalogs ( 546, 39 and 31 Mb). And also the corrupted catalog -message comes only when the
Test integrity and Optimize are marked.
The biggest one also works fine until I try to backup. After that it really is corrupted and cannot be opened. So I have to replace it with older one.
Can this have something to do with the size of the Lr.cat -file and zip compression?

 

[Zenon]

I just checked both devices and backups were fine.

 

[Linwood Ferguson]

@Gronlund (and everyone) I the backups produced by 7.x (up to 7.3.1) are very likely to be corrupt.

That is a known problem Adobe has admitted with the 7.3.1 release. Backups of the catalog produced by lightroom may be corrupt.

If you are on a 7.x release and not planning to update to 7.3.1 you should back up your catalog manually. Immediately, and regularly. Do not trust the backups from any 7.x release prior to 7.3.1 even if some backups look OK.

This does not mean that the catalog itself is corrupt. The problem occurs when LR copies from the catalog to the backup; that but does not affect the catalog itself.

 

[mcasan]

No problems noted with 7.3 or 7.3.1 on my iMac running High Sierra. Is this another set of Windows centric problems?

 

[Gronlund I]

So is it a good method to just copy the lr.cat -files manually to another place? That's what I have done since the corruption begun to occur.

 

[Samoreen]

So is it a good method to just copy the lr.cat -files manually to another place?

Absolutely. You just need to copy the .lrcat file, not the folder containing the previews (which name has the .lrdata extension).

Actually, I have always advocated for considering the Lightroom catalog as a document like any other. It should be added to the user's "standard" backup process. I have set the backup option in LR to Never. My catalog is backuped incrementally every night along with all the other important files and folders. This assumes that you have a solid backup strategy for your data. But I'm sure everyone has one... .

 

[PhilBurton]

Absolutely. You just need to copy the .lrcat file, not the folder containing the previews (which name has the .lrdata extension).

Actually, I have always advocated for considering the Lightroom catalog as a document like any other. It should be added to the user's "standard" backup process. I have set the backup option in LR to Never. My catalog is backuped incrementally every night along with all the other important files and folders. This assumes that you have a solid backup strategy for your data. But I'm sure everyone has one... .

I do both kinds of backjup (belts and suspenders). The standard OS - based backup covers all my changed files, but does not check the LR catalog for integrity. The LR backup does check for catalog integrity, which is important.

Phil

 

[Gronlund I]

Thank you!
But is there any way in LR to check integrity except when using LR's backup procedure?

 

[Victoria Bampton]

But is there any way in LR to check integrity except when using LR's backup procedure?

If you hold down the Ctrl key (Windows) / Opt key (Mac) while starting LR, it brings up the Select Catalog dialog. You can test integrity from there too.

 

[harriettel]

I actually hadn't seen the updates to this post until Monday even though I had it on Watch, so I don't know if I did something wrong there.

--Anyway, I followed the SQLite integrity test instructions that Linwood Ferguson outlined in his linked tutorial and discovered some interesting things about my Lightroom generated backups. I first checked my current catalog and got an ok. Then I checked backups from 4-24-18 and 5-8-18 that used LR 7.2 and both were not ok. There were lines of text that I assume are corruption errors. I next checked a backup from April 2016 that used whatever was the up-to-date LR release at the time, and it was ok. Then I checked 2 backups from 12-29-2017 and 03-13-2018 and they were both ok. All of these catalogs came from LR zipped backups and the most up-to-date LR release. However, all of the catalogs opened successfully in Lightroom except the one from 5-8-18, which is the most recent backup. Even the 4-24 backup opened even though it came back not ok. The only difference between the "ok" backups and the "corrupted or failed integrity" backups is the OS used. Post March 13th I used Windows 10. Previous to that I used Windows 7 on a different computer. It didn't matter what LR release it was or that they were zipped. So, is this a Lightroom problem or a Windows 10 problem. And, what should I do next? Do I pass this information on to Adobe, and if so where? Should I bother sharing with Microsoft because I'm not sure they would know what to do with this information. And last but not least, should I still hold off on updating to 7.3.1? I really like those profiles. I found a little workaround to use them. I can open a raw file I've worked on from LR into ACR and use the profiles there but for them to stay I have to save the file in Photoshop. And, I'd like to stick a profile on before messing with the other sliders. I prefer using Lightroom because ACR doesn't have history states, a navigation box, and I don't like its crop tool. I'm looking forward to your thoughts. Thank you.

 

[Linwood Ferguson]

It didn't matter what LR release it was or that they were zipped. So, is this a Lightroom problem or a Windows 10 problem. And, what should I do next? Do I pass this information on to Adobe, and if so where? Should I bother sharing with Microsoft because I'm not sure they would know what to do with this information.

Adobe has acknowledged that this is their error, and is fixed in 7.3.1. They may have said when it was introduced but I am not sure, it pre-dates 7.3 certainly.

That it occurred only on Windows 10 for you may or may not be significant, but is largely irrelevant now, as Adobe knows what they did wrong and has fixed it in 7.3.1. I have heard of no one finding integrity errors in backups that were made with 7.3.1, and quite a few people have tried (everyone just loves to say "you didn't fix it" to Adobe ) .

I am using 7.3.1 and not having issues. I have heard others saying it "crashes all the time" though without details about it (they went back to 7.2). Most people I talk to on 7.3.1 seem satisfied with the stability of existing functionality; there are still some usability gaps in managing the new profiles, not sure if there are actually bugs there or just gaps.

And 7.3.1 does fix the backup issue, which is definitely in older versions (though not really old versions).

I'd say it depends on how badly you want to try profiles.

 

[harriettel]

So, this corruption issue didn't necessarily occur because of 7.3? It was around before but was more noticeable with the 7.3 release for some unknown reason. But even though this issue is fixed with 7.3.1 are you still recommending backing up a catalog manually as well as letting LR do it? This catalog backup corruption is new for me because I have never had to use a backup catalog but am concerned that I don't necessarily know what is corrupt/usable or not since one catalog that was not ok in the SQlite test still opened in LR and one did not.

 

[Linwood Ferguson]

So, this corruption issue didn't necessarily occur because of 7.3? It was around before but was more noticeable with the 7.3 release for some unknown reason. But even though this issue is fixed with 7.3.1 are you still recommending backing up a catalog manually as well as letting LR do it? This catalog backup corruption is new for me because I have never had to use a backup catalog but am concerned that I don't necessarily know what is corrupt/usable or not since one catalog that was not ok in the SQlite test still opened in LR and one did not.

Yes, as best I understand, the corruption of the LR produced backups pre-dated 7.3. That 7.3.1 was rushed out to fix the backup problem was because it was discovered and fixed too late for 7.3, not because it was caused by 7.3; that and the fact that 7.3's handling of profiles and presets and such was not really stable and need some corrections.

Me personally? I believe you should be backing up your LR catalog with your images with an independent program on a routine basis. I think the LR produced backups are an additional safety net, especially since people may keep more versions longer, but I believe you should never rely on any single backup technique or program. I personally use two different backup programs and three separate media on which to backup (and keep versions for years of each). But I'm paranoid.