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Backup files won't open.

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Mar 2, 2016
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Hi, I seem to be on a role, a negative one, at the mo.
Now I cannot access my backups.
When I click on a backup file the little icon show PS, when I double click on that I get nothing, or photoshop opening up, not my backup or an unzip option.
Following this; Users\[user name]\Pictures\Lightroom\[catalog name]\Backups\

Also yields the PS icon.
What have done wrong now, and what do I need to do to fix.
Thanks in anticipation.
Brian
 
It sounds as though you've somehow changed the file association default of ".lrcat" to PS. To fix that permanently you need to use Control Panel>Default Programs>Associate a file type or protocol with a program.

Alternatively, you can start Lightroom then do File>Open Catalog, then use the resulting browser to select the catalog backup that you're trying to open.
 
Being a Lightroom 6 catalog, the backup should be zipped.
 
Thanks Johan, yes indeed you're correct. In which case it's a bit of a mystery, as changing the .zip file extension to associate with an application such as PS is pretty difficult, I think.

Brian, can you show us a screenshot of your Backups folder using File Explorer, with one of the zip files showing in the left hand panel.
 
Hi thanks for all the help.
Jim, not sure if I have attached what you are looking for, 2 attachments. Maybe the 2nd one is what you have asked for.
Whilst this is off my C drive, my LR catalog is run from my E drive. It is called backup because that's what it was until my main one faulted. Was running 2 ext HD's.
I am awaiting a 2 drive NAS system which I'm told will solve this issue for the future.
Thanks again,
Brian
Screen shot backup 2.jpg
Screen shot backup 2.jpg Screen shot backup 2.jpg
 
Be careful. You cannot store the Lightroom catalog on a NAS, it can only be stored on local disks.
You can store your LR backup catalogs on a NAS. You need to unzip them and copy the unzipped file to a local drive before trying to open it with LR.
 
Brian, there's only one screenshot attached to your last post, and it's not quite what I want to see. However, looking at it it seems as though your catalog backups are being written directly into the root directory of your C: drive. So can you open one of those catalog backup sub-folders (e.g. the 2016-02-28 sub-folder), then take a screenshot of the contents please.
 
You can store your LR backup catalogs on a NAS. You need to unzip them and copy the unzipped file to a local drive before trying to open it with LR.

Correct. What I was warning against is trying to run Lightroom (i.e. having the Lightroom catalog) on a NAS. You can obviously store any kind of backup there, so also a catalog backup.
 
I hope this is what you need. Have 2 attachments. One is what I hope is that which you asked for, the 2nd is what I get when I double click on the 1st. From there if I try to open the 2nd one (PS icon) it goes straight to PS.

On another matter I'm now worried that I'm doing the wrong thing with a NAS. What is the best advice on this please?
You can probably tell that although I have been using LR for many years I am really short on much of the computer technology.
Thanks again
 

Attachments

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  • Screen shot back up sub1.jpg
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One of the (many) dumb decisions that Microsoft made was to hide file extensions by default in Windows Explorer....one of the very first things I do whenever I install Windows is to uncheck the default View option for "Hide extensions for known file types". You obviously haven't done that. So in the first screenshot you are actually seeing the zipped catalog backup which really ends with the (hidden) file extension of ".zip". Double-clicking that zipped folder brings up the next window in which the contents of the zipped folder are revealed (although the contents are not yet extracted), which indicates that the folder contains the file "Lightroom Catalog.lrcat" (though again the ".lrcat" extension is hidden). The mystery here is why that shows the PS icon, which may be due to the suggestion in my first post.

For now though, the first thing you have to do is extract the catalog from the zipped folder, and you do that simply by clicking on the "Extract All" button top right of the second screenshot. Once the catalog file has been extracted you will then be able to open it via the File>Open Catalog option in Lightroom. With Lightroom closed you could try double-clicking on the extracted file, if that causes PS to be launched then you know you have the file association incorrectly set, which you can adjust using Control Panel>Default Programs.

Using a NAS in your workflow can be appropriate, I use one as one of my backup drives, but I know others who use them for storing (and thus sharing) their original image files. Horses for courses. The only you can't use a NAS for, as has been stated, is for running your master catalog from it.
 
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