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Blank Lightroom 8.2 catalogue dismay!

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imagist

New Member
Joined
Feb 17, 2019
Messages
5
Lightroom Experience
Beginner
Lightroom Version
Lightroom Version Number
8.2
Operating System
  1. macOS 10.13 High Sierra
Hi, I just returned to using Lightroom on a Mac (High Sierra) Lightroom V8.2, not having used it for a year or so.
So last night I imported around 700 photos from an external hard drive, spent several hours correcting and selecting images etc.
Closed Lightroom properly, thinking all was well.
Have opened Lightroom this morning, it's set by default to open the last open library, but although the library shows as open it is entirely blank.
I've shut down and restarted, tried double clicking the ircat file, etc. but it remains entirely blank.
I've tried 'Find Missing Photos' but it returns 'No missing photos, All photos in this catalog are available.'
As you can imagine this is somewhat dismaying with a supposedly top end photo library program, having seemingly lost several hours work.
How the hell can this happen!?
Any suggestions please?
thanks
 

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It looks like Lightroom created a brand new catalog. 'Missing' photos are photos that are in the catalog, but the link in the catalog points to a place where the photo is not present. This catalog shows zero photos, which means there are no missing photos.
 
Thanks for your reply Johan, but Lightroom is showing the correct catalog (igloo-all.ircat) as being open at the top of the main window, not a new or unnamed catalog. Please see screenshot of files below.
 

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So I've just tried opening the catalog on another machine entirely with Lightroom 8.2 with the exact same result, the file opens but the catalog is entirely blank, no photos, even though all photos are supposedly present, the file and folder structure is identical to how it was when I closed Lightroom last night!!!!
I don't understand how this is possible, with a supposedly professional program???
It's actually something of a disgrace and just reminds me why I stopped using anything Adobe quite some time ago, after the vey painful process of updating creative cloud to update lightroom on two machines. Lightroom apparently can't even open something I was just working on last night and trashes several hours work!!! I'll say it again 'a supposedly professional program'......!!!
 
Do you want help, or do you just want to vent? If the latter, we'd rather you do that someplace else. This isn't an Adobe forum, so venting about the product here is pointless, as well as souring the mood. We are all volunteers, giving our time freely to try to help others, so please try to remember that.

To your problem.....In Lightroom, do File>Open Recent to see if there is more than one catalog listed there. Also, can you post a screenshot of the Finder "Get Info" command on the catalog file (which, BTW, is Lrcat, not ircat).

To have a completely empty catalog, there are only two logical explanations:

1. Lightroom is not opening the catalog that you expect it to open. There are various possibilities for this to happen, which should be easy enough to figure out.

2. You have (inadvertently) removed all the images from the catalog.
 
Thanks for your reply Jim, it led to me discovering what was going on. I thought I had been working in a catalog I had specifically named, which was present and opening but it turned out I had been working in what I'm guessing is the default catalog 'Lightroom Catalog.lrcat'
Quite how they became switched I don't know, but perhaps being 3am had something to do with it.
Anyway apologies for venting, the thought of losing several hours work into the small hours had rekindled some old bad experiences with Adobe software, and my dislike of the whole creative cloud system, so I was somewhat furious, but it was my mistake.
Thanks all, and apologies again, hopefully someone else might learn something from my mistake.
 
Thanks for your reply Jim, it led to me discovering what was going on. I thought I had been working in a catalog I had specifically named, which was present and opening (as the last open catalog) but it turned out I had been working in what I'm guessing is the default catalog 'Lightroom Catalog.lrcat'
In addition to which Lightroom was set to open the last open catalog, which was (I thought) the one I had specifically named and Lightroom was indeed opening that catalog when I restarted it, thus adding to the certainty that Lightroom was at fault, and that also adds to the mystery of how they appear to have become switched.
Quite how they became switched I don't know, but perhaps being 3am had something to do with it?
Anyway apologies for venting, the thought of losing several hours work into the small hours had rekindled some old bad experiences with Adobe software, and my dislike of the whole creative cloud system, so I was somewhat furious, but it was my mistake.
Thanks all, and apologies again, hopefully someone else might learn something from my mistake.
 
Based on your screen shots, it appears that you tend to use multiple catalogs for different sets of images. For people who like to use multiple catalogs (e.g. one per client or one per location, etc.) the problem of being in the wrong catalog happens all the time (which is very good for my business in providing LR help). In my years of LR experience going back to LR/1 (or actually to its predecessor "Adobe Albums" ) I have found very few compelling reasons to have more than one catalog. One such reason is his and hers catalogs so both partners can work on their own images when they return from a trip. Another is for professional photog's having Work and Personal catalogs. But, in general most people who use multiple catalogs really don't need to do so and by doing so tend to fall into these kinds of errors more readily. I don't know your situation so can't tell you which way to go, but you may want to re-consider your setup. In LR having massive numbers of images in a single catalog is not a problem and there are many ways to keep things desperate if needed (folders, collections, keywords). If you do decide to go to a single catalog model, then I suggest changing the preference from "Open most Recent" to open a specific catalog.

Dan
 
Yeah. my magic fingers can't find the right letters anymore.
 
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