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catalogue problems

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Reddwarf4ever

Active Member
Joined
Aug 2, 2022
Messages
250
Lightroom Version Number
11.4.1
Operating System
  1. Windows 10
Today I did an enormous anount of face tgging and sorting keywords etc. decided i ought to save the cataogue, the only way i know is close light room, i did this and it ran for hours with the whirring symbol, so then i selected cancel, same problem, the only optioon left was to close it with task manager, i restarted my PC, but lots of the changes i made are lost, i have 900 un named faces, where i was at zero, for now im just going to plod through and doit all again.
is there a way of stopping thi shappening ? Lightroom doesnt do any auto backup while its running, so i would need to close the program every half hour or so to create new catalogue, is that what i should do ?

thanks
 
Lightroom writes changes to the catalog as you make changes. Therefore it is always up to date and why there is no need for a "Save Catalog" menu item. So, I find it odd that your catalog lost 900 face changes.

When you shut down LrC after making all the changes, did you get the "backup" dialog and if so, did you have it do it? If so, it is quite likely that the backup is clean and that something corrupted the catalog subsequently. If that's the case, recover the catalog from the backup and see if that version has your updates. If you haven't done this before, see: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/restore-backups-2021/
 
thank you, ive started correcting what i lost, so will continue like this, but have noted the link, in case it happens again.

is it good practice to close down LR every so often to generate a new cataolg ? i did a synchronise folder operation just before shutting down LR, maybe it wasnt finished, there seems to be no way of knowing when its completed ?
 
is it gooAd practice to close down LR every so often to generate a new cataolg ?
When you close lightroom and it asks if you want to create a backup, that is not "techically" a new catalog, although it can be considered as such. It's is a copy of your current catalog whichis placed inside a Zip file so that it won't accidentally be used. And, the answer to you question is YES. This is sort of like asking if it's a good idea to turn off the water if the bathtub is about to overflow.

There are two set of folks in the LrC world. Those who back up their catalog and those who do not. However, there are another two sets of people using LrC, those whose catalog has become unusable and those whose catalog will become unusable at some point - there is no 3rd set. When your catalog has a problem which makes it unusable (corrupted, stolen, lost, mistake by user, etc.) if you are one of those who as a backup, then it's a minor annoyance and perhaps you losed a days worth of edits. However, if you are one of those who do not have a backup, you're in for months of either recovery work or redoing everything you've ever done in LrC. Your choice.

I suggest setting LrC to provide the backup Reminder every time you exit. I also reccomend shutting down Lrc at least once a day - turn it off before you go to bed and leave it off while you sleep. If you start and stop LrC multiple times a day, then have it do the backup the last time you shut it down each day. And, CRITICALLY, this does not back up your images, it just backs up the catalog which does not contain you images. It's on you to also back up your images.
 
When you close lightroom and it asks if you want to create a backup, that is not "techically" a new catalog, although it can be considered as such. It's is a copy of your current catalog whichis placed inside a Zip file so that it won't accidentally be used. And, the answer to you question is YES. This is sort of like asking if it's a good idea to turn off the water if the bathtub is about to overflow.

There are two set of folks in the LrC world. Those who back up their catalog and those who do not. However, there are another two sets of people using LrC, those whose catalog has become unusable and those whose catalog will become unusable at some point - there is no 3rd set. When your catalog has a problem which makes it unusable (corrupted, stolen, lost, mistake by user, etc.) if you are one of those who as a backup, then it's a minor annoyance and perhaps you losed a days worth of edits. However, if you are one of those who do not have a backup, you're in for months of either recovery work or redoing everything you've ever done in LrC. Your choice.

I suggest setting LrC to provide the backup Reminder every time you exit. I also reccomend shutting down Lrc at least once a day - turn it off before you go to bed and leave it off while you sleep. If you start and stop LrC multiple times a day, then have it do the backup the last time you shut it down each day. And, CRITICALLY, this does not back up your images, it just backs up the catalog which does not contain you images. It's on you to also back up your images.
Mmmmm thanks, the catalog backup is set to backup each time I close the program, I am a fanatic about backups, I use the grandfather father son approach, to all my files, it takes a little longer keeping things in order, but I have, touch wood, never had a HDD crash where I’ve lost anything. It’s taken me the best part of a day, to get back where I was, if Lightroom Classic has the catalog within the program and the backup is an image of this, then I shouldn’t have lost anything, but you can’t start Lightroom Classic, without using the back up catalog, which if corrupted due to a PC crash, as in my case, the only option is to go back to a previous catalog backup.
I know Lightroom Classic is more complicated than a browser, but it would be nice if it kept the catalog within it nice and safe, so a crash wouldn’t disrupt it, it would simply say would you like to continue from where you left off ?

thanks
 
For the most part, LrC does very well handling unexpected interruptions. Back in the earlier days it was not as good and a sudden power failure while you were working almost certainly resulted in a corrupted catalog. However in the more recent versions this does not happen often at all. I'm in California and during our recent 5 day heat wave, I lost power 3 times while using LrC, and each time LrC started right back up with no problems. It usually didn't position me back to the same image or even to the same folder or colleciton I had been working on but all my edits were there except sometimes the very last one. I suspect that this has a lot to do with imporvements to the SQLite database (which is the catalog) getting better moreso than the LrC code itself. In DBA (DataBase Administration) terms, this is a process using "commits" and "roll backs" to keep logical units of work intact - either the entire unit of work sticks or none of it does. (Once a DBA, always a DBA)

It's hard to tell what happened in your case that caused you to lose 900 transactions and it's hard to speculate. I had one clinet who was irate that Lighroom had lost a days worth of work after a crash. After working with her on her computer for a bit, we discovered that after her crash (someone had tripped over her computer power cord and pulled the plug out), somehow she had opened a clone copy of her catalog on a different drive rather than her real one and the cloning only happens once a day. So, you never know what you'll find.

Anyway, glad you were able to re-create your lost work.
 
For the most part, LrC does very well handling unexpected interruptions. Back in the earlier days it was not as good and a sudden power failure while you were working almost certainly resulted in a corrupted catalog. However in the more recent versions this does not happen often at all. I'm in California and during our recent 5 day heat wave, I lost power 3 times while using LrC, and each time LrC started right back up with no problems. It usually didn't position me back to the same image or even to the same folder or colleciton I had been working on but all my edits were there except sometimes the very last one. I suspect that this has a lot to do with imporvements to the SQLite database (which is the catalog) getting better moreso than the LrC code itself. In DBA (DataBase Administration) terms, this is a process using "commits" and "roll backs" to keep logical units of work intact - either the entire unit of work sticks or none of it does. (Once a DBA, always a DBA)

It's hard to tell what happened in your case that caused you to lose 900 transactions and it's hard to speculate. I had one clinet who was irate that Lighroom had lost a days worth of work after a crash. After working with her on her computer for a bit, we discovered that after her crash (someone had tripped over her computer power cord and pulled the plug out), somehow she had opened a clone copy of her catalog on a different drive rather than her real one and the cloning only happens once a day. So, you never know what you'll find.

Anyway, glad you were able to re-create your lost work.
Thanks
 
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