Corrupt Catalog Issue

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drokpa

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This is a bit of a Crisis for me:

MacBook OS 1'.4.11

I am new Lightroom user, having just downloaded LR2. I've spent the last week, more or less, importing, sorting and editing 12 hours a day. No back up (new user!).

Lightroom crashes. I think this is bad news, so I manually copy the .lrcat file (nothing else) to my desktop (just in case).

I load Lightroom 2 and go into catalog preferences and ask it to back upon the next startup. Close the program, restart.

Check the catalog's integrity? Yes. Corrupt. Attempt at repair fails.

I renamed the copy i had on my desktop, put it in folder and ran it (without checking the integrity). It generated the previews.lrdata file by itself (i think) and ran okay. I have an enormous amount of work into this catalog--and as the project just nears completion--corruption error messages shut it down.

I try more tricks to rename the .lrcat in a new folder and run it (my project/deadline is almost done).

At this point the catalog will no longer even load (presuming i've renamed it so that i can avoid the attempts at integrity check/repair that do not work). All my work comes up on a renamed catalog copy: edits, collections, stacks etc, but then the program informs me of "encountered a catalog corruption" after about 25 sec, and its only option is to shut down.


I know this is probably a bit tiring, but some real advice on repairing this would be a huge help!

Thank you!
 
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There is a Catalog Backup function: Have you been using it? If so you may have backups in My Pictures/Lightroom/Backups (lose the My for Mac)..

As a worst case scenarion you may be able to repair it using SQLite tools, but I'm certainly no expert there.
 
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unfortunately...

unfortunately (being a new user) i left it on its installed presets: this meant back up oncer per week. I used the program 6 days. No such luck.

does anybody know how to use SQlite tools or how they could be applied? surely there is a better solution... it seems strange to lose an entire catalog over simple glitches rather than just (for instance) the last photo you were working on....
 
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Catalog Crisis Lightroom 2

My basic attempt to repair:

Create a totally new catalog. Import from the old catalog all data.

PROBLEM: during import it encounters a corrupt catalog about 3,5'' photos before finishing (about 13,''' photos in this catalog). so the new catalog shuts down, and restarts, checks for errors and apparently comes out clean. BUT NOW i am missing edits, metadata and collection data for 3,5'' photos. I now attempt at making a fresh import from the original source files, checking to make sure there are no duplicates.
PROBLEM: it imports roughly 1,''' duplicates. I'm in an unsynchronized mess.

This is really a crisis: any help would really be appreciated...esp regarding repairing my corrupt catalog--the original and most up-to-date version!

MacBook OS 1'.4.11
Lightroom 2
 
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With the new catalog, are you enable to import any photos from the old catalog?
If so, you may want to try to divide and conquer, i.e. import by folders or subsections somehow, to try to isolate the problem area.
 
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Catalog Crisis Lightroom 2

That sounds like a good idea, but I'm not quite sure how to isolate sections of my corrupt catalog for importing.

My only imagined solution is to open the corrupt catalog, and attempt to export a series of folders as "export as catalog". Hopefully before it crashes.

Is this the way to go about it?

~thanks for your imput, it means a lot!
 
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If the "Import From Catalog" dialog is working, you should be able to select individual folders in the left hand panel of the dialog, and individual photos on the right hand side.
 
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Right! got it, I will try this next.

Currently I am attempting to build an entirely new catalog from the ground up, and then import from my corrupt catalog my massive amount of editing, collections etc. I'm hoping that this will eliminate 1,''' duplicates or so...
 
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Catalog Crisis Lightroom 2

My latest attempt is the cleanest method so far:
1. a complete re-import of the source files
2. a catalog import from the corrupt catalog (which fails) about 3,''' short.

The upshot to this method is that there are no duplicate files, and an enormous amount of editing comes through.

New attempts at importing catalogs a Total no-go: lightroom can't get past the stage of "checking for duplicate files", so i don't have the oppertunity to divide and conquer and pull in the remaining 3,''' edits piece by piece.
 
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