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Catalogs Photos missing after corrupted catalog

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hafeatherston

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Premium Classic Member
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Jan 28, 2020
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98
Lightroom Version Number
Lightroom Classic CC subscription
Operating System
  1. Windows 10
I am using the subscription version of Lightroom Classic . My photos and catalog are on an external hard drive. Last night the catalog got corrupted (no idea why that happened) and could not be repaired. (It actually crashes a lot, but its never corrupted before) Fortunately I backup often, so I followed the instructions on this site to restore my catalog. I can now open the catalog, but a number of photos are marked "Lightroom has encountered problems reading this photo", so no photo is displayed, but the file name and metadata are there. Other photos are marked "Photo is missing". The photo is displayed, but can't be accessed. I tried the normal procedure to relink those photos, but when I checked my file where the photos actually reside, the photos are not there. And in that folder about a third of the photos now have another file with a jpg-1 extension represented by a blank page (and the files cannot be opened).
Can a corrupted catalog corrupt the actual photos too? I have backups of my photos, so I could just add those that are missing back into the file or I could try an earlier backup, but I can't see how that might restore my photos.
I would appreciate any insight into my predicament. Thanks.
 
I have never heard of a corrupted catalog corrupting original photos too. Lightroo only (sometimes) reads photos, it does not write them, so I would be surprised if this happened. One exception makes the rule: if you set in the preferences that Lightroom should automatically write changes to XMP, and your originals are not proprietary raw files but DNG, or RGB files like JPEG or TIFF, then Lightroom does write to these originals... Some people advocate writing to XMP as a kind of backup, but this would mean you better do not do so.
 
I have backups of my photos, so I could just add those that are missing back into the file or I could try an earlier backup, but I can't see how that might restore my photos.
I don’t understand this remark. Of course that would restore your photos. What else is the purpose of backing them up?
 
Thanks so much for the quick responses.
I meant an earlier catalog backup wouldn't restore my photos.
I was writing xmp data, so I turned that off. It sounds like I should just add back the missing and unreadable photos and hope that fixes it? Do you agree?
 
Thanks so much for the quick responses.
I meant an earlier catalog backup wouldn't restore my photos.
I was writing xmp data, so I turned that off. It sounds like I should just add back the missing and unreadable photos and hope that fixes it? Do you agree?
Yes, start with that.
 
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