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Corrupt Catalog with no backup

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mcdunstan

New Member
Joined
Nov 29, 2014
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3
Location
Flagstaff, AZ
Lightroom Experience
Advanced
Lightroom Version
Good afternoon,

My business partner and I share various external hard drives and yesterday before I could shut down a LR catalog, she unplugged it and now when I try to open the LR catalog, it says it's corrupt and cannot open the file. I don't have a backup. :(

I've searched online and came across this site. Is there anyone out there that has any insight on how I could get my catalog back?

I use LR 5.7, PC, Windows 7.

Thank you,
Melissa
 
Yeah, that's fine torrieri, but just to set expectations, catalogs from drive recovery software are usually mangled beyond repair.
 
Victoria,
Hi, I stumbled across this thread while desperately searching for how to repair a corrupted catalog for Lightroom 5, are you still able to try and help? If so what exactly do I need to do? I'm not sure what file to zip and email to you. Please, any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
You'll need to find your catalog Tony. By default it'd be in your Pictures folder. It'll have a .lrcat extension. That's the file I need you to upload.
 
Hi Victoria, I just sent an email to "uploads" a rather large 5.7 catalog file after archiving (with instructions). Seems my backups were corrupt and I'm about to lose a large number of edits. Hope you can help!
 
Hi Victoria, I just sent an email to "uploads" a rather large 5.7 catalog file after archiving (with instructions). Seems my backups were corrupt and I'm about to lose a large number of edits. Hope you can help!
Emailed back, the 7zip is corrupted so no joy so far.
 
Hi Victoria, I just followed the directions about uploading the corrupt LR catalog to see if you or your Magician can help. Over 10 years of using LR, first time I have encountered this. I stopped doing backups a couple of years ago. Horrible choice! I'm using Lightroom Classic CC if that matters. Thanks so much for your help!
 
Hi Charlie. Got it, and forwarded it to the magician. Fair warning however, it didn't look promising as I couldn't open it in a database editor. I do hope you're still backing everything else up. Really no backups anywhere?!
 
Hi Charlie. Got it, and forwarded it to the magician. Fair warning however, it didn't look promising as I couldn't open it in a database editor. I do hope you're still backing everything else up. Really no backups anywhere?!
Wow thank you for the quick response. I actually was able to fix it! I created and edited SQL from the catalog file after watching a tutorial I Googled and luckily got it working again.

And I just created a new backup! I start a new catalog each year and my last backup was in 2016. I'm horrible, I know. I'm a changed man after tonight's freak out. Thanks again for the prompt response. You are awesome!
 
Oh that's great news, well done!
 
Hi Victoria,

I am hoping it is OK to ask you to have your magician friend at Adobe look at my corrupt catalog with hopes of repair. my son is a photography student and has spent countless hours editing in lightroom classic cc and we didn't back up the catalog (shame on us) and it is all of a sudden corrupt, and it would mean the world to us if you could help. All of his assignments and portfolio for college are in this catalog. With hope you can assist, I have followed the instructions you posted and it is on its way to you. We are so thankful for your assistance!!!!

Thank You!!
Ray
 
Hi Victoria, I thionk i may have fixed it. I followed the instructions at this site: Recover A Corrupted Unrepairable Lightroom 3 Catalog With SQLite | More Photography Tips | Photography Blog, Camera Gear Reviews & Photography Tips by Ness BUT since i recieved so many errors it rsulted in a 0kb .lrcat file. BUT it found this site: Recovering corrupt Lightroom catalogs WHICH suggested t edit the .SQL text file and replace the
"ROLLBACK; — due to errors" with the line: COMMIT TRANSACTION; I then reran step two from first site and it worked....happiness!!!! sharing in case others want to try.
 
Hi Victoria, I thionk i may have fixed it. I followed the instructions at this site: Recover A Corrupted Unrepairable Lightroom 3 Catalog With SQLite | More Photography Tips | Photography Blog, Camera Gear Reviews & Photography Tips by Ness BUT since i recieved so many errors it rsulted in a 0kb .lrcat file. BUT it found this site: Recovering corrupt Lightroom catalogs WHICH suggested t edit the .SQL text file and replace the
"ROLLBACK; — due to errors" with the line: COMMIT TRANSACTION; I then reran step two from first site and it worked....happiness!!!! sharing in case others want to try.

Next: Do a full 'Optimize catalogue'. Indeed, I would be minded to create a new catalogue and migrate everything to the new one (though there are downsides to doing this too). Once corrupted, a database becomes suspect. Just because it passes the checks that LR can do, does not 100% mean it has all your correct data in the right places, it means that the rules LR applies to check the data are passed, no more.
For something as critical as a student dissertation, consider keeping the parallel XMP (sidecar) files somewhere else too (as well as the source files).
 
Yep, no problem Linda, got it.
 
Hello,
I am a girl from Belgium who is hopelessly looking for someone who can help me with the restoration of my Lightroom catalog.
I have been searching the internet for hours on how to solve the problem, but nothing helps.
Can anyone help me here? My catalog just fell out the day before yesterday and I can't open it anymore. There is a message that an unforeseen error has occurred... I have lost hours of work. Someone who can help me further? Please?
Thanks a lot! :)
 
Hi Lisa, welcome to the forum! Happy to give it a try. Zip it up, use www.wetransfer.com to send it to [email protected] and I'll forward it to my magician at Adobe to see if it can be recovered. I'm guessing you don't have any backups?
 
Hi Victoria - no idea if this thread is still active, or if I can still beg for help? But I'm in a pickle! I have a catalog that has all of a sudden decided its not writeable. I followed all the tips to fix permissions and what not, and now it says its corrupt. There is no lock file (that I can see anyway), and I cannot even access the security settings of the file as they are blocked. Other catalogs are working just fine...

Any suggestions? Thank you in advance!
 
Sure, send me the catalog and we’ll take a look. It might be a few days as my usual contact is at the Adobe Max conference
 
Sure, send me the catalog and we’ll take a look. It might be a few days as my usual contact is at the Adobe Max conference

Hi Victoria,

I, as many others on here, have a corrupt catalog. I don’t have my Lightroom backed up and have tried everything. Would it be possible to follow the above steps and send it to you to forward to you Adobe contact?
I would be really appreciative if you could help as I am desperate!!
Thank you so much in advance.
Alan
 
Hi Victoria,

I, as many others on here, have a corrupt catalog. I don’t have my Lightroom backed up and have tried everything. Would it be possible to follow the above steps and send it to you to forward to you Adobe contact?
I would be really appreciative if you could help as I am desperate!!
Thank you so much in advance.
Alan

Hi Alan

Zip it up, use www.wetransfer.com to send it to [email protected] and we'll get our contact to take a look. Specify the Lightroom version when you send to us please. Please note as it's the Thanksgiving holiday, there will be a delay.

General to all - please make sure you're backing up your catalog, ones that can't be repaired mean you lose so much work!!!

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/why-should-i-let-lightroom-run-its-own-backups/
https://www.lightroomqueen.com/backup-lightroom-files/
 
Hi Alan

Zip it up, use www.wetransfer.com to send it to [email protected] and we'll get our contact to take a look. Specify the Lightroom version when you send to us please. Please note as it's the Thanksgiving holiday, there will be a delay.

General to all - please make sure you're backing up your catalog, ones that can't be repaired mean you lose so much work!!!

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/why-should-i-let-lightroom-run-its-own-backups/
https://www.lightroomqueen.com/backup-lightroom-files/

Hi Paul,

Happy Thanksgiving! It is Version 5. I have sent it over via wetransfer. I really do appreciate your help! I certainly won’t be making the mistake of not backing it up again.
Thank you again in advance.
Alan
 
Hi Alan

We did receive the transfer but unfortunately...it contained the Lightroom program, not the catalog. So, look for the file with the extension .lrcat and send please (zip that, not the previews or other files, and send onto us)
 
Received, leave it with us (but as mentioned bear in mind with Thanksgiving people are on vacation!)
 
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