Deleted - Recovered - Error Catalog file

[patrik.carlberg]

Lightroom Version Number

Lightroom Classic version: 8.2

Operating System

1. macOS 10.14 Mojave

Hi!

I got myself into some trouble the other day when I deleted my catalog file. Yes, lets not dwell on that for to long...

I got this software to scan my hard-drive and it found a file that should be my catalog file, although it had changed the name, reconstructed it and recovered it back to my external drive.
I tried to open it but got the message "The catalog could not be opened due to an unexpected error."
I tried copying it onto my main drive on my laptop but got the same error.
I changed the name back to what I thought it was before I deleted it, but got the same error.
I tried dumping it into a text file using SQLite and then rebuild it but it did not work either.

The catalog file still holds a bit of mega bites and is recognised as an .lrcat file so I'm not ready to give up just yet =)

Has anyone else experienced this or have any tips? (besides start backing up my files)
I'll be happy to send the file if someone wanted to take a look at it.

Thank you!

 

[Roelof Moorlag]

There is no recent backup of your catalog file you can go back to?

 

[Hal P Anderson]

Did you empty your trash?

 

[patrik.carlberg]

Thanks for your replies.
Unfortunately yes I've emptied my trash and no I have no recent backup. Perhaps one that is about 6 months old from when I moved my catalog from a different laptop.

 

[Johan Elzenga]

Unfortunately, the experience with catalog files that were recovered by rescue software is not good. More often than not you will indeed see this error, and I think that even Adobe’s specialists can usually not solve that. Victoria knows one of those specialists, so maybe she can send your file to him to give it a try, but I give you little hope.