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Repair of corrupted catalogs

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Tomiron

New Member
Joined
May 28, 2012
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3
Location
Sweden
Lightroom Experience
Advanced
Trying to open a corrupt catalog of mine makes LR freeze forcing me to kill the actual LR-process to proceed. I also need to delete the preference files to start LR again. It is not possible to import any data from the corrupted catalog to a new one. (My latest backup catalog works just fine though, but lacks quite a few hours of work...)

Is there by any chance a way to check integrity or do any other kind of catalogue repair of corrupted catalogs that doesn't open in LR? If I'd been more of a tech-pro I'd might been successful in using sqlite3 or sqlite analyzer to check the database. Now is that not the case..

I'm aware of that holding down the Alt-key (on Win) or Opt-key (on Mac) while simultaneously clicking on the LR icon in the dock cause LR to open but not to open the default catalog. Instead it shows a dialog with a list of available catalogs and an option to create check integrity of each catalog. In my case - this doesn't work. If I choose my corrupted catalog following this procedure this will still cause LR to crash.

Working in LR 4, Win7 64 bit, 4GB RAM, accessing catalog and previews from an external drive, images stored on a multiHD-NAS.
 
That one trips lots of people up. It might help to have a read of the Quick Start eBook, which you'll find under the Downloads tab on the menu, as that'll pad out your understanding a bit.
 
I have a catalog that I sent via your earlier instructions. Repaired, sqlite3 with stat4 line errors and a ZERO byte .lrcat output from the process. I sent it to you hopeful you can recover the catalog for me. I haven't backed up since LR asked me to upgrade the catalog where it creates a copy, probably a couple months or more. :(
 
Got it. I've forwarded it on to my contact at Adobe, but it doesn't look promising I'm afraid.
 
Thank you so much, it is what it is. I've realized that I'll probably have to live with the loss. Attention now on preparedness, starting a New Catalog based on recently acquired knowledge, more frequent backups. Can't let this happen again. :D
 
That wasn't recoverable, sorry smcbsme
 
Hello,
New member here. Having a similar problem to what others have mentioned in this thread. Trying to open my catalog and getting a "The Lightroom catalog named...can not be opened because it is not valid." error message. When I look in backups folder there are several backup folders with date/time but no actual .lrcat files in the backup folders, so I am not able to open one of those. Can anyone help me recover my catalog?
Thank you in advance!
Best,
Brandon
 
Hello,
New member here. Having a similar problem to what others have mentioned in this thread. Trying to open my catalog and getting a "The Lightroom catalog named...can not be opened because it is not valid." error message. When I look in backups folder there are several backup folders with date/time but no actual .lrcat files in the backup folders, so I am not able to open one of those. Can anyone help me recover my catalog?
Thank you in advance!
Best,
Brandon
What version of Lightroom are you using? Later versions of Lightroom automatically compresses the catalog backup, so in those time-stamped backup folders should be a ".zip" file. Unzip that file to access the ".lrcat" catalog backup.
 
We had a power outage over the weekend while my wife was editing photos, and that corrupted the database. I started the sqlite recovery thing and am getting a bunch of the references I have seen in this thread to the sqlite_stat4. So I sent the catalog to you via the wetransfer. Hopefully you can send it to your contact and they can save her edits.
 
Got it. I've forwarded it on, and I'll let you know when I hear back.
 
It's on it's way back and looks good. :thumbsup:
 
We had a power outage over the weekend while my wife was editing photos, and that corrupted the database. I started the sqlite recovery thing and am getting a bunch of the references I have seen in this thread to the sqlite_stat4. So I sent the catalog to you via the wetransfer. Hopefully you can send it to your contact and they can save her edits.
Backups?
 
Awesome that it's coming back.

As for the backups, yes, but this was for edits that were literally in progress. I was hoping to save the last chunk of edits. My backups are ... Thorough. However, I do want to learn more on the Lightroom schema and if it's possible to have it versioned out to the network drive for every commit.
 
An uninterruptible power supply might not be a bad idea.
 
Yeah, I'm using this as an reason to push her over to using the new laptop and dock. :cool: Change is always hard, but it's easier when you know there is some silver lining.
 
Hi Victoria, I also have a corrupted cataloge. I started the sqlite recovery and am getting a bunch of the references I have seen in this thread to the sqlite_stat4. So I sent the catalog to you via the wetransfer. Hopefully you can send it to your contact and they can recover it.
 
Hi Victoria, I also have a corrupted cataloge. I started the sqlite recovery and am getting a bunch of the references I have seen in this thread to the sqlite_stat4. So I sent the catalog to you via the wetransfer. Hopefully you can send it to your contact and they can recover it.
Got it. There will be a delay as Adobe Digital Imaging dept is currently on vacation.
 
Hi,

I've also got a corrupted catalogue I really hope you can help with. I made a backup but it shows exactly the same error :-( I tried using the sqlite commands shown at the beginning of this thread but didn't get very far. I've send you the whole thing through wetransfer

Hope you can help...
Jeremie
 
I've also got a corrupted catalogue I really hope you can help with. I made a backup but it shows exactly the same error :( I tried using the sqlite commands shown at the beginning of this thread but didn't get very far. I've send you the whole thing through wetransfer
Got it. Early signs don't look promising but I'll let you know when I hear back from Adobe.
 
Hello, thanks for this amazing forum! I have, what seems like, a slightly more unique issue. I have restored the catalogue relatively ok by the looks of it but the Lightroom Classic startup window is getting completely stuck on 'Reading preferences...'. I have just emailed via WeTransfer to Victoria, really hope that you are able to help! Thank you again, I really appreciate it. Zak
 
Got it and forwarding on to Adobe. I'll email when I hear back Zak. Welcome to the forum!
 
Hi Victoria,
I have a corrupted catalogue file which I will send you via we transfer. I have tried to repair it using sqlite but without success. I am keeping my fingers crossed.
David
 
I have a corrupted catalogue file which I will send you via we transfer. I have tried to repair it using sqlite but without success.
Hi David. Sorry, that's dead as a dodo.
 
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