Drobo and LightRoom 2.1

[doherc]

Hi everyone - great forums; thanks for all of the time and help.

I received Drobo for Christmas and I have successfully added it to my Desktop machine. All photos are now on the Drobo drive (Z:\) - moving them in Lightroom2.1 took most of the time (11k photos), but it was relatively painless.

I need to share the Lightroom 2.1 catalog so i can use my laptop as well. I have shared the drive but i cannot open the catalog via the Laptop. Error message is:

"Lightroom cannot launch with this catalog. It is either on a network volume or on a volume on which Lightroom cannot save changes."

I can create Word docs in this folder (same folder as catalog).

I really don't want to export the catalog and then merge it back between the two machines - feels like it will be a pain.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Chris

 

[Gene McCullagh]

Hi Chris! Welcome to the forums! When you get a minute please fill out your signature via the USER CP link near the top of the page.

If the Drobo is attached to your laptop you shouldn't have an issue. However, if it is attached to your desktop and you are attempting to access it over the network it will be considered "network storage" from your Laptop's perspective. LR catalogs cannot live on network drives but must be on drives local to that machine.

 

[Brad Snyder]

Chris, as Gene correctly says, the Lr catalog can't be opened on a network share. There's an interesting article by forum guru Denis Pagé in our Tips/Tricks forum here, on how to accomplish this. You will note that Adobe's engineers recommend highly against the practice.

 

[schlotz]

Ok, this is going to raise an eyebrow or two!
Remember the old DOS command " subst x: y:\path "
Lets assume you have set the drobo to be drive " T: " on your system and there is a "photos" subdirectory that has a catalog file in it.

In Windows: START>RUN>cmd <enter>
type in this: subst Q: T:\photos <enter>
The command prompt will come back
type in: dir Q:\ <enter>
You should get a directory listing that of T:\photos
exit out of the cmd window.

Now go into LR, FILE>OPEN CATALOG, at the bottom where it asks for File name punch in Q: and hit enter. You should be presented with a listing of what is in the T:\photos directory, assuming you have a catalog there, dbl click on it and sure enough, it opens!

hmm.......

Regards,
Matt

 

[Brad Snyder]

And the Adobe engineers say, "Place one bullet in pistol, spin the chamber, press barrel to temple...."

I'm being facetious(<--- Hey Don, one of two words in the English language with all the vowels in alphabetic order), but seriously, I wouldn't do it with my livelihood on the line.

 

[schlotz]

Agreed, as LR is currently not designed for a "network" environment. Now, if it's only a single user & single pc environment then the risks get substantially lower. User also has to remember to re-establish the substituted drive after each reboot.

Use stritckly at your own risk, of course!

Matt

 

[Denis Pagé]

Agreed, as LR is currently not designed for a "network" environment. Now, if it's only a single user & single pc environment then the risks get substantially lower. User also has to remember to re-establish the substituted drive after each reboot.

Use stritckly at your own risk, of course!

Matt

My tip explain how to avoid to manually re-establish at each reboot with two methods. 8) It may also be interesting to look at my SAFE multiuser tip on same machine too... Note that I opened a thread specifically dedicated to discussions on success or failures with this tip. You can also find it near the end of the article.

 

[doherc]

thanks for all the replies.

I will need to invest some time in learning how to merge catalogs :-(

Chris

 

[Gene McCullagh]

If memory serves me LR is using a flavor of SQLite for its database. SQLite is definitely not meant to be multiuser or networkable. So do proceed with caution. I am confident that Adobe hears our cries and is working on a more robust engine that will allow for networkable workflows. We'll just have to wait and see!