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Lightroom CC won't recognize catalogs - Please help

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bestremera

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Nov 5, 2011
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Latest CC
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  1. Windows 10
I don't know what happened. I recently ran a backup and deleted all my old dated catalog backup files but left the last 4 catalogs in my backup.
When I navigate to the backup folders in Windows Explorer, I DO see the LR catalog .lrcat files. But when I go to open in LR, it shows an empty folder!
What's the fix for this?

Thanks, Bob
 
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Update, the catalogs somehow changed themselves to zipped files. I extracted them using 7-Zip. This time, LR launched and opened normally, for only a brief second or two when an error message appeared, 'Lightroom encoutered an error when reading a catalog file and needs to quit'.
Now what? This is getting scary.
Thanks
 
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You say you use ’Lightroom CC’, but clearly you use Lightroom Classic CC. And you say ‘latest’, but people often say that and find out this is not true. That is why we ask for the version number. On this case that is extra important, because there has been a problem with Lightroom corrupting backups...

You say you try to open a backup, but why do you do this? Do you have a problem with your current catalog?
 
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Also, if you merely open the zip file and try to launch LR with the catalogue you find there, the launch will fail. You would need to move the catalog to reside within an ordinary folder. But Johan is correct, there is normally no need to go to a backup catalogue.
 
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Holy Molly. Just spent 4 hours on a remote login with a guy from Adobe tech service. He fixed it all. I have no idea why LR wouldn't open my catalog files and why they would appear as 'corrupted'. But I had to re-link a bunch of photos to their respective folders. Good thing I backup LR almost every time I use it. I have to say, I have found the CC subscription version of this stuff to be an extraordinary value. That guy wouldn't stop until everything was working.

Thanks though. I'm sure you haven't heard the last of me.
Bob
 
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LR since v6 now zips all catalog backups - there is no way to change that. Also on Windows machines, ALL catalog backups made from [now LR Classic CC] v7.0 until, I think, LR 7.4.1 were being corrupted. So if something had caused you to needing to revert to a catalog backup that was made from versions 7.0--7.4.1, you would have gotten such an error.

So if you don't want any more nasty surprises in the future, MAKE SURE that you are using a version AFTER 7.4.1 if you want to rely on LR's own catalog backup mechanism. And since I was at the time, I would have been very glad that I always make a religious habit out of 'saving metadata to files' as a tertiary measure of backup.

It was actually due to this bug, that I'm still sort of looking for solutions to backup a stable unopened LR catalog as tertiary/quaternary/quinary form of backup. My search was kind of put on hold as I was transferring to a new computer - and am still trying to learn things about it. But I'm slowly getting back toward LR, so my search is continuing. I'm thinking though, that the best solution for me is to just do it with a manually started backup task every once in a while... So I'll still rely on LR's own backup procedure along with saving metadata to files as primary [known stable-state] backup measures. Now that I got an 8TB spinner for backup purposes, I'm also starting to do imaging - but that may end up backing up an open catalog.
I'll just try and make sure I test LR's own backups every once in a while with an SQLite tool.
(Hmm.. Maybe I'll try and incorporate that into a backup plugin I might eventually try and create some day. ;) )
 
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A couple of minor corrections....the problem did not affect ALL catalog backups on Windows. Some of them for sure, but not all, and it was fixed in 7.3.1 (there wasn't a 7..4.1).
 
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... Shows what happens when I shift focus for a bit. :)
Or was it the case that for Windows people that did have problems, it affected all their backups made with LR 7.0-7.3.1 - but some Windows people didn't have problems at all? I was always kind of fuzzy on that part. All I know for sure is every catalog I tested from that time period turned out to be bad here.
 
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On my Windows system I had both good and bad backups.....
 
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Oh wow.. I think that's the first time I heard of it happening that way. Live and learn!
 
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