LR2 power glitch locks up catalog

[windwatcher]

Hello all, new to LR2 and new to this forum! One little problem.

While running LR2, my Vista PC received a power glitch and did a shut down/restart. After reopening LR2 again after all that, it said that my catalog "cannot be opened because another application already has it opened."

I just copied my original catalog file and pasted it with a new name. It opened just fine, no loss of data. I am concerned that the original catalog is flagged somewhere as being in use. Since I can move forward with a catalog with a new name, no problem. But...

Is there a way to unlock the original catalog? There is a file in the catalog directory that is named "Lightroom Catalog.lrcat.lock. Maybe just delete this file?

Any suggestions would be a great help. Thank you,
Gary

 

[Bruce J]

Is there a way to unlock the original catalog? There is a file in the catalog directory that is named "Lightroom Catalog.lrcat.lock. Maybe just delete this file?

Any suggestions would be a great help. Thank you,
Gary

Yes, that's it exactly. The .lock file is created when LR opens the catalog to prevent other applications from accessing the catalog at the same time. When LR shuts down, it deletes the .lock file. If it (or the computer) crashes, the .lock file is not deleted and the next time LR tries to open the catalog, it thinks another application is using it. Delete the .lock file with LR not running, restart LR, and it should open the catalog w/o problem. Cheers,

 

[Denis Pagé]

You can delete the lock file but never attempt to delete the Journal file! This one is used to track what is not yet written to the HD. This is the first thing SQLite check for when it opens. SQLite is the database engine behind Lightroom.

 

[Kiwigeoff]

And a big welcome Gary, did you get sorted??