Lightroom crashing / encountered error

[aspkara]

For the past couple of days I've been having some dramas with Lightroom 1.4.1 (439926), Camera Raw 4.4.1

I run Windows XP Home Edition, 4GB RAM. Lightroom is installed on a 2''GB hard drive, with the majority of its storage space remaining. When I create image catalogues, I save them on a separate 1TB hard drive, and import images that are also saved on the same 1TB hard drive.

Yesterday I created a new catalogue and imported images (while copying to a new location, on my 1TB drive) from my Compact Flash card reader. I began editing images, but just as I was about to delete my rejected images, images started to generate errors (e.g. Error A2ofMemory - B), plain grey square instead of an image, 'This image has encountered an error', etc. Lightroom then encountered a program error and crashed. I relaunched Lightroom, but just after the splash screen, it again encountered a program error and crashed. I restarted the computer and tried again; the same thing happened. I delete Lightroom preferences from Documents and Settings, which at least enabled me to enter the program long enough to adjust my preferences, but when I went to open the catalogue, after editing only a few images, the same thing happened. I created an entirely new catalogue and imported photos again, but the same thing happened. I tried Optimizing both catalogues, which also didn't work.

I uninstalled and reinstalled Lightroom, which didn't really work either. I have deleted Preferences a few times and hasn't solved anything. After 2 or 3 program crashes just now, I managed to get into my catalogue but all the images in the preview grid showed little triangular symbols with exclamation marks (presumably an error) and when I double-clicked an image for full size, I got another 'This image has encountered an error' message and now, instead of the image, I have a grey square with the 'Error A2ofMemory - B' red error message, upside down in the lower left hand corner.

I'm stuck. I used to get the 'Error A2ofMemory - B' message occasionally if I had been editing heaps of photos, so I always presumed it was the result of too much memory use - I'd just relaunch Lightroom and it would solve the problem. But this catalogue is tiny in comparison to my usual catalogues - only about 1'' photos in RAW format - and relaunching isn't doing anything to help.

Any ideas? I've tried updating but there are no updates left to download. I'm tempted to upgrade to Lightroom 2 but I'd like to avoid the expense if I can (unless someone out there persuades me it's a good investment :cheesy

Thanks for any and all help!

 

[Brad Snyder]

Sounds like you've tried all the correct things. Couple of thoughts. (Some of these are mutually exclusive, I just sorta rambled down the list.)

1) Firstly, make sure all your catalogs are well backed up.
2) After #1, are you having trouble with all your catalogs, or just the attempts with this new batch of photos?
3) If it's all the catalogs, could we be seeing some sort of hardware issue? Lr stresses memory management and CPU pretty hard.
4) The Lr 2.3 3' day trial is free, might be worth a shot. (Everyone here will try to persuade you it's a good investment. Performance is on a par between the two, but 2.3 is far more capable.)
5) Is the 1 TB drive external? USB, eSata, something like that? Have you tried creating a new catalog on the C: system drive, and putting a few pictures there?

That's all I can think of right now, maybe somebody else will have some more ideas.

 

[aspkara]

Ah, I didn't think of the fact that it might be those particular images, rather than just the program itself. I relaunched Lightroom with a completely different catalogue containing completely different images, and so far (after cycling through a number of images and editing a few) there seem to be no problems (fingers crossed). Obviously I'll have to test the theory properly later, but it does appear that the image lies with the images, rather than the catalogue or Lightroom.

Oh, and the 1TB is internal (SATA).

Thanks so much for the tips - I'll post my progress later

 

[Brad Snyder]

While I'm at it, here's our standard generic troubleshooting steps. Seems like you've hit most of these already.