Lightroom 3 forgets catalog location

Lightroom 3 on Snow Leopard forgets where my catalog is every time I restart my computer.  LR remembers just fine if I shut LR down and re-open it, but once I re-boot the computer I receive an error message saying it can't find the default catalog and asks me if I want to choose a catalog.  My regular catalog is then in the list of choices and opens up just fine. this is relatively new behaviour, in the last couple of months.  I have gone into preferences and selected my default catalog and selected the choice to always start with this catalog. 
Thoughts?

Further information.  In fact, not only can it not find the default catalog but the preference for what the default catalog is is reset to a temporary catalog I was using this summer.  I have since merged that catalog with my main catalog but frequently on reopening Lightroom it goes back trying to find the temporary catalog rather than my main catalog despite my repeated setting the main catalog as the default.

Similar Messages

  • Lightroom cannot open catalog becouse another application already has it open.

    I aget a message that another application has the catolog open but I ahve no idea what has it open. Any idaes on how to figure out what program has it open?

    This message is probably due to the fact that the so-called "lock-file" has not been deleted when you last exited Lr.
    In your OS (Mac Finder / Win Explorer) open the folder that contains the Lr catalog. If you don't know where it is, see here for your OS: http://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb/preference-file-locations-lightroom-4.html
    The Lr catalog is the file ending with <   .lrcat>. Don't touch that one. But see if there is just besides it another file with the ending <lrcat.lock>. This is the so-called lock-file that prevents that Lr can be opened in more than one instances. It should be present when Lr is open but should not be there when Lr is closed.
    If you see this lock-file while Lr is closed, send it to the Trash-Bin / Recycle  Bin, i.e. delete it. You should then be able to open Lr.

  • Can't open Lightroom 2.6 catalog in Lightroom 3

    Lightroom 3 gives the following message when I try to open my Lightroom 2.6 catalog.
    'Lightroom has encountered problems when trying to update the format of the catalog file and cannot use this catalog in this version of Lightroom'
    The integrity of my 2.6 catalog checks out fine in Lightroom 2.6
    Any suggestions?

    If i export the whole catalog, around 30,000 images, but do not check the export negative files and include available previews boxes does it export all the develop information and virtual copies etc?
    So it will re read the raw files in thier exeisting locations and just rebuild previews as i need them?

  • Lightroom 5 is tied to my photos in a folder on my computer, if I move that folder to a hard drive, how to I connect Lightroom to the new location on the hard drive vs my computer?

    Lightroom 5 is tied to my photos in a folder on my computer, if I move that folder to a hard drive, how to I connect Lightroom to the new location on the hard drive vs my computer?

    How to recreate iTunes Library
    No content shows up in iTunes after updating

  • Why is Lightroom 6/CC catalog not registered under classes?

    The LR6 catalog file, .lrcat, no longer shows Lightroom's icon, does not appear under HK_CLASSES_ROOT in the registry, nor on the Windows file association list. Having said that, LR6/CC loads the catalog normally and can be started by double-clicking the .lrcat file. So, the question is probably purely academic as functionality does not seem to be impaired.
    (In my case, LR CC has been installed on two machines, replacing LR5.7: desktop running Win7 and laptop running Win8.1. LR6's (upgraded) .lrcat does not show as the default LR file on either machine. Lightroom 5's catalog did.)
    Mark

    So I spent all evening experimenting with different things in Lightroom to try and improve performance and found 1 solution that worked.  Although I'm not sure why.
    I understand that a design decision was made to render thumbs on the fly.  Fine.  But what I couldn't understand was why it took so incredibly long.  I mean the process was literally locking up my entire machine every time I touched the scroll bar.
    The ONLY thing I could get to clear up the problem was to select the top level folder in my catalog, and export the entire catalog as a new catalog.  For export I did NOT choose to export the image files or the previews since I only wanted to keep my database (image adjustments, keywords, etc).
    Upon opening this newly created catalog, of course everything was slow because there are no previews for anything.  Fine.  So I chose to render standard sized previews for a couple of the folders in the catalog (about 150 photos each).  And then lightroom became extremely fast for browsing and scrolling through thumbnails on those particular folders.
    What I can't undertand is why rendering standard sized previews on my old catalog (same photos, same folder) does not improve performance, yet doing it for the new catalog which should be an exact copy DOES improve performance.
    The only thing I can think of is that my original catalog must have either been corrupt or there may be some upper limit on how many previews Lightroom can handle gracefully?  Since I had standard previews for my entire catalog before.
    I'm going to try and render standard sized previews on my entire new catalog tonight and see if the performance remains snappy.  But something is definitely not right here.

  • I have been interested in how lightroom uses the catalog so was poking around a backup of the catalog. I found it rather concerning that although the database (catalog) is pretty well designed, there is no referential integrity defined or enforced.

    I have been interested in how lightroom uses the catalog so was poking around a backup of the catalog.  I am a database administrator and I found it rather concerning that although the database (catalog) is pretty well designed, there is no referential integrity defined or enforced. This is non-standard practice and could well be the source of corrupt catalogs I have seen many people complain about. I would strongly recommend the developers modify the catalog and adopt best practices if they want to improve the stability of Lightroom and the catalog.

    I would imagine that data integrity is not enforced for performance reasons. In a closed environment like LR where the application has complete control over the data, enforcing data integrity may not be worth the performance hit. Often what is done in an environment like this is to have data integrity on in test environments which would expose data integrity bugs but where the impact of performance is low. In "production" it is then turned off to get as much performance as possible. I would say there are many more complaints about performance than corrupt catalogs. And corrupt catalogs are more likely due to interruptions in writing to the catalog (like crashes, backups or dropbox activity while LR is running, etc). Data integrity would not help in these cases as they are outside the databases control.

  • My Most important Lightroom CS5.5 Catalog won't open

    My Most important Lightroom CS5.5 Catalog won't open. I guess it didn't shut down properly. I called support and was not allowed to speak with technical support. I have hundreds of hours of work which are lost if I cannot open it. The error says: "Unexpected error opening catalog. The catalog could not be opened due to an unexpected error." Please help. Please.

    Hal
    I am getting the same error.
    I am new to LightRoom but already have some "important" photos edited and catalog in LR.  I do not have a catalog with a .lock extension but rather an "unexpected error" as above.  I tried your suggestion but was unable to open any of the three backup catalog files I have.  (I did rename the existing .lrcat before I copied a new lrcat file to the default directory. 
    I would appreciate any other suggestions you might have.  I can not even open LR with this error.  How do I create a new catalog?  The button "Create a New Catalog" take me to a folder but does not seem to create necessary file.

  • Master Catalog Location

    Requesting master catalog location be selectable at install.  I try to keep all data off of system drives.  (Expect I an not the first to request this.)

    tnemgif had this to say:
    You recommend that I just let the install catalog 'lay fallow' and
    populate others in locations of my choice.
    Exactly.
    Perhaps not so eloquent but certainly a workable solution. In fact, I have just renamed the install
    catalogs and LR3 took no notice.
    Correct. LR pretty much only knows about the catalog that's currently
    open. If you go and delete another catalog that you are not currently
    working on, LR won't mind, as it knows nothing about other catalogs. You
    might mind, if it turns out you need it later.
    Thank you.
    No problem.

  • Can't locate catalog location on disk - PSE8

    I am in the process of upgrading to PSE9 from PSE8.  The catalog conversion failed.  I wanted to make a copy of my catalog - then clean it up before converting again.  I cannot find the catalog location.  Is there any way in the registry or otherwise to locate my catalog?  Windows 7.  I have checked the information on this FAQ here - http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/515/cpsid_51536.html#main_location and it doesn't help me find the catalog.  Thanks.

    What happens if you go to Help>System Info in the Organizer? Isn't it listed there?

  • Lightroom cannot open catalog because it cannot save to this location

    I recently had the logic board replaced by apple yesterday.
    I assume LR thinks this is a new computer.
    Light room backups are located at such and such location and I know exactly where they are...(there is a whole string of  backups but I had an issue deleteing those from another post....so not to go there right now)
    SO....here are the 2 screen shots and my choices to avoid complete disaster:
    Any ideas on this friday?

    Try a Google search. Shouldn't be too difficult to find. Okay, here you go. But Google really can be your friend.
    https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome-psyapi2&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS512US512&ion=1&espv= 2&ie=UTF-8&q=change%20permissi…

  • Lightroom 1.3 catalog shows Photoshop application folders (OS X Leopard)

    Hi,
    I have been using Lighroom without problems for a long time but now I got this weird problem with Lightroom (I am using OS X Leopard & Lightroom 1.3)
    Few days ago just in the middle of using lightroom tens of new folders appeared to the catalog. Those folders were not image folders, they are subfolders of "applications/Adobe Photoshop CS3" folder and Lightroom shows randomly some of the images from my "real" folders under those new folders (no on my disk but in lightroom catalog)
    I renamed the catalog file and took older backup version to use and after opening Lightroom everything was fine until some new folders appeared again (again folders that are located under Photoshop application folder on my HD)
    Next I deleted my catalog and previews files and let Lightroom to create new ones. I imported one folder of images from my USB drive and it worked fine for about minute and again some Photoshop folders appeared to the catalog..
    I even reinstalled Lightroom but still this problem exists..
    Here is an screenshot of what I mean (only the "sekakaiset" folder is a imported image folder, other folders appeared on their own, and they do no contain images but Lightroom shows some of the images from my "sekalaiset" folder under those Photoshop folders)
    http://hotimg12.fotki.com/a/88_114/80_127/weird.jpg
    Has anyone experienced this same problem? What should I do to fix this?
    Thanks, -Jarmo

    Thanks guys for the advices!
    I checked my smart folders, and found an image that was saved within my old Bilder folder and navigate to it, then moving all the files I had there to my Documents folder, so they're back and safe now (well, safeER).
    The "problem" with the pictures folder being in English still remains though. I've tried all of the things that Andreas said, but none of them worked. Using TinkerTool to show invisible files had no result either, the old folder were completely gone.
    I even tried uninstalling Lightroom completely (through AppZapper), changing the language to English, rebooting, repairing the privileges, changing the language back to Swedish, then rebooting again. It's still named "Pictures". I have never renamed any of the folders created by the system, so that's probably not the issue.
    Any other ideas? Having the Pictures-folder in English sure doesn't kill me, but being a person who likes everything perfect, it sure annoys me! Plus that I wont feel safe moving images back into that folder for a while now.

  • Catalog Location - Laptop or External Drive

    I recently purchased Lightroom and have a MacBook Pro with 2 External 500 GB drives. My question is whether or not I should locate the catalog (database) on the laptop or the External drive. Can I have it on the laptop and then sych to the external drive for when I am on a shoot? If I do that and the images are initially on the Laptop how do I relocated them to the external drive and have the catalog be up to date? Or should I have the catalog only on the laptop with images actually stored on the external drives?
    I guess I would like to know what strategies you are employing?
    Thanks in advance.
    David

    I would say USB2 is the problem. If you had a decent interface (Firewire or eSATA) performance would be reasonable. But USB 2.0 absolutely sucks for data transfer. They say 480 Mb/sec but that's a bald-faced lie. If you can sustain 20 MB/sec off a USB 2.0 drive you're doing well, where Firewire 400 (rated at 400 Mb/sec) very typically sustains more than 35 MB/sec and Firewire 800 can go as fast as the drive can -- typical external 3.5" drives do about 45 MB/sec.
    Problem is, in their penny pinching ways, PC vendors refuse to spend the extra $1 and thus won't put on a Firewire port. Same rationale that gets you VGA out (thereby crippling your ability to use an external monitor and have sharp text) instead of including a DVI connector.

  • Lightroom 5.6 Catalog

    I keep all my photos, except those I am currently working, on a network drive - Buffalo\share\pictures. Somehow in my Catalog I have ended up with 2 entries for the Buffalo\share.  One has only 1 folder - 'Family' - and the other has all my other photos including the most recent ones in 'Family'.  I cannot drag the Family folder as the message is that 'the photographs already exist in that location'.  Which, of course, they do. Can anyone advise how I can combine these so that all Buffalo pics are in one section.  See attached screenshot.  Thank you.

    Hello,
    may be this one may help:
    Mein Lightroom Tag: Einen Katalog reparieren, welchen Lightroom nicht mehr öffnen kann!

  • Lightroom 5.6 catalog back up doesn't complete on Mac

    I am running Lightroom 5.6 and Mac OS X 10.9.4. I have the Lightroom catalog on my internal drive (279 GB available), and I'm backing up the catalog to an external drive (1.51 TB available.). My image files are on both my internal drive and second external drive. Two days ago, I quit Lightroom and hit the "Back up" button. The "Back Up Catalog" dialog box disappeared, and  Lightroom proceeded to check the catalog. I came back the next morning (about 7 hours later), and the "Back Up Catalog" dialog box was on the screen - the same one that I used the night before to initiate the back up. I moved the "Back Up Catalog" dialog box on the screen, and the "Backing Up Catalog" progress bar was revealed; it was behind the "Back Up Catalog" dialog box. The progress bar was animated, so it seemed to be backing up. (My catalog file is about 12.63 GB; my previews file is 3.72 GB; my Smart previews file is 76.7 MB, and there is a file whose extension is "lock" in the same folder as my catalog. The progress bar was about 75% complete. The quit command was greyed out the Lightroom menu, so I brought up "Force Quit Applications" dialog box on my Mac. Although I waited for several minutes, Lightroom was never reported as being "unresponsive". I checked my backup folder on the external drive, and there was a folder named with the date (2014-10-11 1855) and inside of it was lrcat journal file; it was 9 KB. I went ahead and forced Lightroom to quit. When I started it up again, an information box came up that said that because Lightroom quit unexpectedly, it had to examine the catalog. I left for several hours, and when I returned, the information box was gone, and Lightroom appeared to be running fine. When I finished editing a few images, I quit and hit the "Back up" button. The same scenario greeted me this morning. What's happening?

    Hello,
    may be this one may help:
    Mein Lightroom Tag: Einen Katalog reparieren, welchen Lightroom nicht mehr öffnen kann!

  • Lightroom 4.2 catalog and importing problems

    I have imported photos into the catalog but when I go to import new photos from the same folder it does not recognize the already imported photos and lists them as new photos still.  Also, it won't import any video files of any extension even though all are listed on the Lightroom website as valid and usable extensions.  On top of that dynamiclinkmediaserver.exe32 is constantly running, even after Lightroom is shut down.  Any ideas?

    Akrider,
    Could you please post a screenshot of the import window you use while importing the files.
    My guess is that there are some wrong settings which you have selected while importing the files in Lightroom.
    Please follow the link below which has step by step instructions to import the files in LR and can tell where the settings might have gone bad.
    http://tv.adobe.com/watch/getting-started-with-adobe-photoshop-lightroom-4/lightroom-4-imp orting-and-organizing-your-images/
    Mandhir

Maybe you are looking for