Catalogs "Unexpected error opening catalog". What is the issue?

[hbwilliams22]

Lightroom Version

Lightroom Classic version: 8.4

Operating System

1. macOS 10.14 Mojave

I am running Lr Classic. "8.4 Release" on Mac Mojave Version 10.14.6.

My catalog that has all of my pictures, and that I have always used on a daily basis, will not open and giving me the error: "Unexpected error opening catalog".

What is the issue?!

 

[Victoria Bampton]

I've got your catalog. It's properly corrupted. The database image is malformed even in database software.

I can send it on to a contact to Adobe to see if it's possible to recover it, however he's on vacation until 3rd September. In the meantime, you could try Adobe chat support and ask for the catalog to be run through the corrupted catalog recovery script. I think there should be someone on their support team with access.

 

[hbwilliams22]

Thanks for the update, Victoria. Bummer news! What causes this? Anything I can do in the future to prevent this?

Please send the catalog to your contact at Adobe to see if it's possible to recover it, as you mention. I can wait until September 3rd. Until then, I will engage Adobe support.

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Will do. It's almost always due to a hardware issue. Is the catalog on an internal or external drive?

 

[hbwilliams22]

It is on an internal HD, 2016 MacBook Pro. I have it backed up on Dropbox and again on an external HD.

 

[Victoria Bampton]

I have it backed up on Dropbox

Ooooh, have a look on Dropbox website and see if there are previous versions of that file then. You might find there's a copy that's recent and not corrupted.

 

[hbwilliams22]

I am just now realizing something. When I look at my HD in the folder where my catalog lives, the same folder appears to be empty on Dropbox. Do the below pictures convey this?

 

[hbwilliams22]

Ooooh, have a look on Dropbox website and see if there are previous versions of that file then. You might find there's a copy that's recent and not corrupted.

OMG this worked. I restored the most recent version from Dropbox and it's back up.

OK, now that I downloaded and opened the most recent version from Dropbox and opened it, what do I do with this catalog? Where do I store it? What can I do with the old corrupted one? Once I downloaded the catalog from Dropbox and opened it, it looks like these files also went to my downloads tab as well. Do I need to do anything with them?

 

[Rob_Cullen]

OMG this worked. I restored the most recent version from Dropbox and it's back up.

OK, now that I downloaded and opened the most recent version from Dropbox and opened it, what do I do with this catalog? Where do I store it? What can I do with the old corrupted one? Once I downloaded the catalog from Dropbox and opened it, it looks like these files also went to my downloads tab as well. Do I need to do anything with them?

Victoria has an appropriate answer here-
https://www.lightroomqueen.com/disaster-strikes-corrupted-catalog/#restore

 

[hbwilliams22]

Thanks @I-See-Light. I read the post. Do I need to store all of the files in the above image or only the .lrcat?

 

[clee01l]

Thanks @I-See-Light. I read the post. Do I need to store all of the files in the above image or only the .lrcat?

The ".lrcat" file is the catalog database. It is essential. The ".lrcat-wal" is the Write Ahead Log" and could contain database entries not yet in the ".lrcat" It would be OK to include that.
The Folders named "...Previews.lrdata" and "...Helper.lrdata" are not essential as LR will recreate these as needed.
The "locate.lock" is a sentinel file that lets LR know that this instance is open by LR and won't let you open the same ".lrcat" until this is closed. This file is only seen while LR is running. It should be deleted automatically when LR is not running and gets left behind when the system crashed or (I think in your case) Dropbox makes a cloud copy. You can ignore this.

The Lightroom Settings Folder is a place where Presets can be stored locally instead of globally. It look like at some time you ticked the bike in Preferences and perhaps later unticked it. The folder gets created empty. If you want to store presets locally, you should copy the sub folders from the global location to this folder. While ticked the new presets will be stored in this Settings folder.