Lightroom has stopped working

[adogslifephoto]

Hi there,
I searched through the forum discussions and tried all of the recommendations before posting this. Nothing is working. My issue started 2 days ago when I opened Lightroom and all of the images in the Library folder that I was in had a message saying that the file was no longer available. Then I received a message that Lightroom stopped working and it closed. I tried to open lightroom again and kept getting the same error. For some reason, my folder of images that I was last working on (my main folder with all of my client images) was moved to another location and it took me 2 days to find it on my computer.

The "Lightroom has stopped working" message still keeps coming up every time that I try to open it. I have moved all files out of the Roaming/Adobe/Lightroom/Preferences folder and then recreated the files by holding Alt and double clicking, then creating a new catalog. I have tried renaming the preferences and catalog files. I have completely uninstalled and reinstalled Lightroom and nothing is working. Does anyone have any other suggestions?

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Hi dogslife, welcome to the forum!

All of your pictures miraculously moving would explain why LR complained it couldn't use the files, and suggests it was nothing to do with LR as LR should have known where it put them. That said, miraculously moving files are a slightly worrying sign that something bigger is wrong, so I'd make sure you've got good backups before you go any further.

From there, hmmmm, ok, well, sounds like you've done the right things.

So, even the clean catalog wouldn't open LR? Just nothing happens, or does it give an error message?

If a clean catalog doesn't work, I'd go looking in that same Roaming/Adobe/Lightroom folder itself (not just preferences) and move all of the presets elsewhere temporarily, as a corrupted preset could cause LR not to work.

Are all other programs working as normal? Anything else changed on your computer lately? Are your image files on an internal or external drive?

 

[adogslifephoto]

Hi Victoria,
Thanks so much for your response!!Yes, I have a good online backup through Carbonite. The moving files is quite a mystery!

When you say, " a clean catalog", what exactly does that mean? I deleted every trace of Lightroom on my computer when I uninstalled (knowing that I would no longer have images in my catalog. That was ok with me because I had already processed all images that I had been working on in my library). I deleted the Catalog.lrcat.lock files. By the way... is that file supposed to have .lock at the end of the extension? Does the work Lock imply that somehow my catalog is getting locked up?

There are quite a few folders in that directory that reference presets. Should I go into each folder individually and move any .lrtemplate files elsewhere temporarily. I attached a screen shot of the directory. I see 7 folders with presets.

All other programs are fine except my Wacom tablet keeps failing. I have had to reinstall the software a few times in the past few days. My image files are on an internal drive.

 

[adogslifephoto]

Forgot to reply about the error message. The attached is what I get when I try to open Lightroom

 

[Victoria Bampton]

I'd pick up and move all of those folders you can see there into another location. If that solves it, we can move them back one by one to find out which contains the problem.

One other thought - have you tried the 32-bit version? Might be interesting to see if that would work?

The Wacom software could be a key - there have been a few reports of incompatibilities with one of the driver releases. Try this recent thread: http://www.lightroomqueen.com/community/index.php?topic=8983.'

 

[adogslifephoto]

BINGO! The Wacom driver appears to be the source of my problems. I uninstalled and removed a few remaining Wacom files and I could open up Lightroom just fine! The strange thing is that even though all of the Wacom files are gone from my computer right now, the tablet is still working (although the curser drags quite a bit). I will reinstall the older Wacom drivers that are recommended on their forum as soon as they respond to me to let me know where to find them because they are no longer available on their list of drivers on their website.

Now that I think about it, the Wacom tablet was freaking out a few days ago and everything on my screen kept jumping around uncontrollably. I'll bet this was the source of my mysteriously moving folder of photos.

Thank you so much!!

 

[Brad Snyder]

Yes, I think, at least on Windows, that a 'naked' tablet will function a bit like a dumb mouse, even without its drivers. You would need the drivers to access the extended tablet features.

As you suggest, if your cursor were jumping around 'out of control', perhaps with Windows Explorer open, that well could explain unintended consequences.