Catalogs, settings and Back-ups

[Antonio Correia]

Lightroom Version Number

Last one - Classic CC 7.4

Operating System

I have 1 MacBook + 1 iMac + 1 LaCie drive. I work with all my available images stored in the last device with one computer or the other.
Sometimes I make Back-ups
And - sometimes - I used to erase the created folders. Not any more. Each time I erased and old Back-up I had problems about missing Presets. Now "I make collections on Back-ups" Back-ups !
Perhaps this is a stupid solution but it is the way to save some hours of work. However, it is space consuming.

To make it short, I have opened and unzipped two folders. Not randomly but never mind, for now.
Today, when I ran the back-up from 20018-08-03 (blue rectangle) and clicked on the 2002 cat-2-2.lrcat (red rectangle) some UserPresets (red rectangle and arrow) were missing.
Here, you tell me: replace the folder by the old one. One solution. Will it work ? Perhaps.

Well... the question is: how can I have one Back-up (one and only) with all the updated Presets ?

I have posted the same question in m43 forum​

 

[Johan Elzenga]

There is no reason to “run” a backup. A backup is meant to replace the original catalog in case of a calamity. As long as you do not have a calamity, keep using the original catalog.

 

[Antonio Correia]

Thank you Johan !
I rarely do back ups, indeed. And if I have done so many it is because I was moving the external drive from one machine to the other.

The fact is that when I change the portable drive from one machine to the other, the settings are not the very same and the last images are not there, until I synchronise the folder.
My Template Browsers are gone while some Collections are kept. It is very "curious" indeed. I must be missing something here, for sure.

It's looks like I must copy all the "old" Lightroom Presets to the "new" ones (from those made on the 2017-12-07* folder to the 2018-08-03* folder.... But do I have to check all the done back ups I have been making, so I do not miss any preset ?

​

Any comments are welcome. Again, thank you Johan ! Have a nice Sunday !

 

[Jim Wilde]

A couple of things:

1. LR's catalog backup process does NOT backup the companion LR Settings folder (containing the presets)....if you want to backup that particular folder you need to do it manually (or let Time Machine do it).

2. Because of that, if you open any other catalog backup folder you'll see that the LR Settings folder is not present. However, if you OPEN a backup catalog with Lightroom, the LR Settings folder is automatically and immediately created alongside that backup catalog, though all the sub-folders will be empty (because Lightroom does not copy the presets from one location to another, with Develop presets being a new recent exception). Although this is now an old and slightly out-of-date document, it's still sufficient to explain the implications of using the "Store Presets with this Catalog" setting in Preferences: What is the purpose of the "Store Presets with Catalog" option?

3. My advice would be to not worry about this specific issue.....if you plan on promoting a backup catalog to be the "prime" catalog, I'd suggest moving it to the default catalog location (to replace the existing "prime" catalog), where the LR Settings folder (and presets) would already exist.

4. Of more concern is the fact that you are seeing different things when you switch from one system to the other. I'd suspect that you in fact have two versions of the "prime" catalog which are set as the default on the different systems. There is some evidence for this as the backup folders that you have opened in Finder on each system show different catalog names. So my advice to you is to investigate this issue before worrying about presets not being available in backup catalog folders. Start on one system, launch Lightroom, then examine two things: first go to Lightroom>Catalog Settings>General tab and note the Filename and Location of the catalog, then go to Lightroom>Preferences>General tab and look at what is set at the "Default Catalog". There are three options: "Prompt me when starting Lightroom", "Load most recent catalog", or a specific catalog will be already selected. Then do the same thing on the other system and see if things are setup the same, specifically is the same catalog being launched (it sounds as though it might not be).

5. If there IS a difference, you need to decide which catalog is the "master" and then make sure the Preferences on both systems are set to use the same catalog (IMO, "Load most recent catalog" can be quite dangerous so should rarely, if ever, be used by the unwary).

 

[Antonio Correia]

Jim, your fantastic explanation with Julieanne Cost video wraps-up the hole issue.
Thank you so much for the trouble. You have been very useful !
It is a not a very "clean" process but I will get over it with success. Have to study, before going to the field.
Thank you again ! Cheers !