Catalogs All of my catalogs are corrupted (pictures)

[PatrickMcGuirk]

I have backups from the last year and none of them are working. I don't know how to explain this without showing you. This is beyond catastrophic for me because I have 1,722 wedding photos to go through. I have over 12,000 photos altogether inside LR. I deleted the .lock and .lrpreview files and folders and Tried opening a catalog from a year ago and not even that will open. Please help me fix it. This happens to any and all my backups. When I try to read a different catalog it says "Assertion Failed"

Operating System:
Exact Lightroom Version (Help menu > System Info):

 

[Johan Elzenga]

If all the catalogs are reported corrupted, then this may not really be a catalog problem at all. Try resetting the preferences to see if that helps: How do I reset Lightroom's Preferences? | The Lightroom Queen

 

[criscokkat]

The assertion error might be the solution if the LR preferences above doesn’t work. "Assertion failed" update error in Lightroom | Windows


The good news with your errors is that the chances that multiple backups are bad is virtually nil. But you have gotten the good shock to the brain on how important those backups are.

 

[PatrickMcGuirk]

If all the catalogs are reported corrupted, then this may not really be a catalog problem at all. Try resetting the preferences to see if that helps: How do I reset Lightroom's Preferences? | The Lightroom Queen

Nope. That didn't work

 

[Linwood Ferguson]

Step one is take a deep breath, step away from the computer, and try to reconstruct whatever may have happened, specifically what things you did or have happened since the last time it worked.

That there were .lock files present indicates lightroom was not shut down properly last time.

Knowing how things went bad are the first step to trying to undo whatever happened.

Secondly, what backups do you have of the overall system and images (not catalog backups -- real backups, on another disk)?

Third, my suggestion is unless you know the cause, start with the assumption your disk drive is failing, and try to save what you can. That means making another backup of the drive (on a different disk, NOT overwriting any existing backups as you might need them). Drives, especially spinning media, often fail slowly enough you can save data from them before they fail completely, but there's a fair chance whatever you save is also corrupt.

Fourth (and in this order), I would suggest running the check disk tool in Windows on that drive and your system drive if different (explorer, properties, tools, check). That should give some indication whether the drive itself has become corrupt.

You need more data to really have a good path forward; these are how I would go about getting it. If some of these fail, consider doing a power cycle, but before you do go into Control Panel, Power Options, Define Power Button, and turn off "fast startup". Fast startup keeps the computer from doing a complete boot. Then shut down, power off, wait a bit, and power up and see if anything changed.

That you have multiple catalogs all showing corrupt could be that (a) the drive has major corruption and lots of things are now caput, (b) the drive is fine, the files are fine, but cannot be read and used properly [bug in lightroom or bad install, bad controller or other corruption in windows], (c) you corrupted the catalog long ago, but it did not notice, and it has been backing up corrupt data all along.

(c) seems a bit unlikely if you were using LR for the catalog backup since it closes and re-opens each time.

 

[PatrickMcGuirk]

The assertion error might be the solution if the LR preferences above doesn’t work. "Assertion failed" update error in Lightroom | Windows

I actually looked at the registry and nothing was out of the ordinary

 

[PatrickMcGuirk]

Step one is take a deep breath, step away from the computer, and try to reconstruct whatever may have happened, specifically what things you did or have happened since the last time it worked.

That there were .lock files present indicates lightroom was not shut down properly last time.

Knowing how things went bad are the first step to trying to undo whatever happened.

Secondly, what backups do you have of the overall system and images (not catalog backups -- real backups, on another disk)?

Third, my suggestion is unless you know the cause, start with the assumption your disk drive is failing, and try to save what you can. That means making another backup of the drive (on a different disk, NOT overwriting any existing backups as you might need them). Drives, especially spinning media, often fail slowly enough you can save data from them before they fail completely, but there's a fair chance whatever you save is also corrupt.

Fourth (and in this order), I would suggest running the check disk tool in Windows on that drive and your system drive if different (explorer, properties, tools, check). That should give some indication whether the drive itself has become corrupt.

You need more data to really have a good path forward; these are how I would go about getting it. If some of these fail, consider doing a power cycle, but before you do go into Control Panel, Power Options, Define Power Button, and turn off "fast startup". Fast startup keeps the computer from doing a complete boot. Then shut down, power off, wait a bit, and power up and see if anything changed.

That you have multiple catalogs all showing corrupt could be that (a) the drive has major corruption and lots of things are now caput, (b) the drive is fine, the files are fine, but cannot be read and used properly [bug in lightroom or bad install, bad controller or other corruption in windows], (c) you corrupted the catalog long ago, but it did not notice, and it has been backing up corrupt data all along.

(c) seems a bit unlikely if you were using LR for the catalog backup since it closes and re-opens each time.

I have many backups of everything. I built a lot of redundancy into this computer. I ran diskcheck and everything seems to be in place. I found an old catalog from 2 months ago that seems to work for now. If it was due to improperly being shut down then it's probably my nephew who did it.

 

[PatrickMcGuirk]

The assertion error might be the solution if the LR preferences above doesn’t work. "Assertion failed" update error in Lightroom | Windows


The good news with your errors is that the chances that multiple backups are bad is virtually nil. But you have gotten the good shock to the brain on how important those backups are.

Yes and I'm going to back them up weekly instead of monthly

 

[criscokkat]

Yes and I'm going to back them up weekly instead of monthly

Make sure some are offsite, catalogs and photos. Also make sure your HD is not going bad. Look at those steps outlined above as an inspection done during an oil change. Just good to know everything is A-OK.

 

[PatrickMcGuirk]

Make sure some are offsite, catalogs and photos. Also make sure your HD is not going bad. Look at those steps outlined above as an inspection done during an oil change. Just good to know everything is A-OK.

I actually tried Google Drive and it's so slow that I couldn't upload everything

 

[Linwood Ferguson]

Shutting down the computer with lightroom running will leave the lock files around, but MOSTLY will not corrupt the catalog. It could, but SQLite generally flushes changes to disk quickly after changes. There are a couple of possible cases - lightroom, while just sitting there, sometimes does stuff (purging 1:1 photos, etc.), and you might interrupt that. Or if someone shuts down while it was really working, like previews.

Having corruption suddenly pop up on the most recent, AND also on your backups BUT NOT having shown up when you opened the catalog after the prior backup, seems slight. I would suggest something more is going on, either in the backup process or there's more to the story you may want to dig into.