Lightroom Catalog won't open

I was importing into LR3 for the first time and while I was filling out info (renaming files), my MAC started to pinwheel. Finally I was forced to "force quit". Now when I try to relaunch LR from my alias or the HD it gives me this message;
"LIghtroom cannot use the catalog because it is not writeable and cannot be opened".
What happened? What do I do?
Thanks :-(

First search for a file ending in .lock.  It should be next to your LR catalog.  When you find it, delete it.  Most likely all will be well again.  If not, come back and we can continue to help you.  The ".lock" file is created when your catalog is open to keep another user from using the catalog at the same time, which could corrupt it.  When LR closes normally the .lock file is automatically deleted.  If LR locks up or the computer crashes, the .lock file is often left behind and keeps LR from reopening that catalog.  Delete only the .lock file. 
John
John G. Blair Studio
Occidental, California

Similar Messages

  • 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.

  • Lightroom CS 5.5 Catalog Won't Open - So much work lost.

    My Most important Lightroom CS5.5 Catalog won't open. I have a Mac. 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. I don't know what to do.

    I am at work on Windows right now, not on my mac at home ... but you should have a whole bunch of backup catalogs in your Lightroom folder.  I can't give you the exact location, but they are there ... in fact, in your screen shot there is the backup folder right there.
    Start with the most recent backup and try to open, and go backward from there until you find one that opens up.
    (Assuming of course you backup your catalog. I have LR setup to ask me once a day).
    If you have time machine set up, go back and grab a recent catalog.

  • Lightroom 5 Catalog Won't Open - PLEASE HELP

    Hi,
    So, my most important lightrooom catalog won't open and I don't know what to do. Screenshot below. I guess it didn't shut down before I ejected my hard drive.

    Look in the backups folder, there should be several folders that are dated, look in the latest date and open that catalog, depending how much time was between the last back up and your last work, will determine how much work you lost.
    What I recommend (hind site here) is once you get your catalog open is save a catalog first in a location easy to get to, normally where your old corrupted catalog was. then select all images then save. (ctrl/cmd-s) This will write the metadata to your files on the drive or side car files(depending how you set it up and if they are raw or jpg. ) Then you will have this for a backup, as you will know that all edits you have done are in the metadata, therefore you can create a new catalog and import all files to get back to where you were.
    That said, use this method as a last case scenario, normally using a back up catalog would be good enough. However, if something happened to that main folder, like corrupted segments on the drive, you would have your images to fall back on, or at least those you can access.
    But if your backing up to an external drive, you should be alright anyway.
    I tend to go over board with backing up since I had a drive that crash a few years ago.

  • LR2 Catalog won't open

    I just installed LR2 on a PC running Vista (32-bit w/ SP1). Install went ok, and I was able to xfer my old catalog from LR1.41. The catalog opened and I could see my photos. Then Vista shutdown unexpectedly. (Probably something I was running in the BG -- I don't think it was a LR thing). Now, the new LR2 catalog that was created from my old catalog won't open. I get the following message:
    "Lightroom cannot use the catalog 'All Photos -- Save2' because it is not writable and cannot be opened"
    "This could be caused by incorrect permissions or because another Lightroom application is using the catalog. You may try to correct the problem or you may select a different catalog."
    I'm not sure what to do here. I looked at the proerties for the catalog file and it is not read only or hidden. Does anyone have any suggestions? Thanks
    Mike Whalen

    Yes, there is a .lock on the extension of the lrcat file. Since I am new to vista I don't know how to remove the lock.
    I can't seem to open the old catalog file either (with LR2) it is also seems to be locked. I'm not sure why they are locked or howe to remove it, but this seems to be my problem. Does anyone know how to remove a file lock in Vista?

  • Lightroom 5 catalog won't open

    I'm trying to open a lightroom catalog from my harddrive from my mac book pro.  Lightroom says it's open but it will not show up, when I right click on the application it says it is not responding.  When the harddrive is not pulled in lightroom will open.  What is wrong with this catalog that it will not respond and open?

    It is on an external drive?? Try copying it to the desktop and doulble clicking it to open.

  • Lightroom: LR4 won't open - Unexpected error opening catalog

    I cannot open LR4. I get an, "Unexpected error opening catalog. The catalog could not be opened due to an unexpected error." This occurred after a WIN7 update failed.  It restored the system to an earlier version.  In doing so, it also reverted LR4.2 to LR4.1.  I have seen other threads to open a different catalog and/or create a new.  The problem is that once I go to "Choose a different catalog", I get the Windows screen where I can select my backup.  I select the backup catalog and click "Open".  The window goes away, but the underlying LR "Select a Catalog" window still only shows 1 catalog to open.....my original catalog.  The backup doesn't show up in the list.  (The backup is not a network drive and it is not read-protected.)
    I then try the "Create a new catalog", get the Windows screen, enter a new name and click "Save".  The same thing happens.  The Windows screen goes away and the LR "Select a Catalog" window still shows the orignal catalog in the list.  Thus, I cannot create nor choose a different catalog.  Am I doing something incorrectly?
    Thanks.

    Try right-clicking on the LR icon and selecting "run as administrator". This fixed the problem for me. I think the problem recurs every time Windows gets and update. You can also set LR to always run with admin privaleges on the properties window.

  • My cataloge won't open, says it is corrupt and repair won't work and I can't access anything.

    Don't know what happened. Closed Lightroom after working on photos and now it won't open again. I get a pop up saying the cataloge is corrupt and when I try to repair, it won't work. The AdobeTech note comes up as an error page. I desperately need to open it as all of my recent vacation photos are on it and only half finished. Supposed to be showing them at a party this weekend.
    Please can anyone help?

    pefreakingout wrote:
    Got backup to open
    Good to hear!
    pefreakingout wrote:
    Still have to redo a lot of work.
    If you save (xmp) metadata as you go, then you never have to redo editing work when falling to backup catalog (just sayin'..).
    PS - all develop settings and almost all metadata will be in xmp if saved, but not everything from catalog is contained in xmp (and not everything in Lightroom is contained in your catalog!).
    Cheers,
    Rob

  • My Adobe Lightroom 3 won't open.

    I installed Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 on my computer last year. It downloaded without any problem. Only used it a couple of times. Later on when I went to use it is would not open. I decided to uninstall it and reinstall it last week. Had to do it at least 5 times. At first it wouldn't intall. It finally did, but it still won't open. I'm getting the message "Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 64 bit has stopped working. A problem casued the program to stop working correctly " Can someone tell me why this might be happening? Any solutions to fix the problem would be very welcome. Thank you very much.

    Hello,I once tried a trial version of Lightroom and decided to buy lightroom 3.I've search on forums and even chat with Adobe with no answer to my problem.I download the program and it's working fine on my boyfriend's side.(We are two adminstraters on my computer)When I clic to open lightroom a window appears "Lightroom-ouverture de cataloque:DSC_0738.NEF.lrcat" and I have another window at the same time from microsoft ..error...The letters and numbers I have are..
    10.0.40219.325
    appVer:3.6.0.10
    offset:0008d6fd
    ModName:msvcr100.dll
    Then the program closed...I found the .lrcat file,double clic and LR still doesn't open.I saw on a french forum that I have to rename the cataloq but I still don't know how to do that.I started using a computer only five years ago and I'm not very good but I love photography and I'm sure lightroom would be fun for me.
    I spend hours trying to figure it out and I don't know what to do ...I saw an answer on the forum of Adobe saying to click on the control button and open the program at the same time ...didn't work....
    Is it possible that when I had the trial version I've created a catalog and this catalog(that no longer exists)gets in the new program so I can't open it anymore....I don't know what to do anymore...please can someone help me...thank you           Gisele

  • Lightroom 2 won't open

    My Lightroom 2 has been working like a champ and suddenly won't open. Sez to contact the manufacturer. Tried looking up how to uninstall and Adobe has nothing. Found on a website to just trash the application. Did that. Closed all apps. Restarted the computer. Ran MacKeeper. Restarted again. Tried reinstalling from disk but it sez "An error has occured. Contact the manufacturer." WTF? Any suggestions? Thanks in advance!

    In the directory where the catalog upon which you are currently opening, is a file with the catalog name and a .LOCK extension. This file is preventing LR from opening with the desired catalog.  It was likely left behind after an abnormal shutdown of Lightroom.
    Locate this file and delete it.
    Lightroom should open the catalog normally afterwards.

  • Trial of Lightroom 4 won't open... help!

    I just downloaded the trial of lightroom 4. It fully downloaded & didn't say anything about errors but now it won't open... need help!

    Moving this discussion to the Photoshop Lightroom forum.  You may also want to reference Error "Unable to start correctly - 0Xc00007b" - http://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb/error-unable-start-correctly-0xc00007b.html.

  • Lightroom CC won't open after install

    I have a CC subscription, and I have just installed the new update for Lightroom CC.  It shows that it is installed, and "up to date" in the CC window, but it won't open.  Do I need to uninstall Lightroom 5 first?

    This works:
    Start LR5 and sign out for sync with LR mobile (iPad en iPhone signout automatic)
    Start Photoshop CC and sign out by " help"
    Now go to Creative Cloud app and click on LR CC 2015. See what happens: it is working. Good luck everybody.

  • Lightroom CC won't open after installation

    CC update installed new version of Lightroom today, but it won't open.  Not even by trying to run the lightroom.exe file directly.  Bridge and PS work properly.
    Windows 8.1, i7 processor, 16gb ram, 250gb ssd drive.
    Anyone else having this problem?  I don't want to try it on my laptop until I get this issue taken care of.
    Thanks,
    Gary E

    I am still having the same problem. Log-ou/log-in doesn't solve it. I have to uninstall and re-install Lightroom CC to be able to start Lightroom CC. That's ridiculous. Can't reach Support since they are only open in office hours and in the odd situation I can call, I end up in an endless queue. No e-mail contact address?

  • Lightroom CC won't open

    Just downloaded Lightroom CC on my Mac but it won't open??

    Sign out of Creative Cloud and sign back in. It will work!
    Thanks
    Gary

  • Error. Lightroom catalog can't open

    Hello I keep getting the error: 'The Lightroom catalog named Lightroom 5 catalog cannot be opened because another application already has it opened' when opening Lightroom. There is no other application using it. there is only one file available, no back up as I have been uploading a 5.3TB catalogue over the past 4 days and didn't shut down. the RAW files sit on a separate hard drive to the laptop where the Lightroom catalogue is. I cannot now access that catalogue. I had a crash prior to this happening ... can anyone help out there?

    I just wonder whether it was GB not TB!!!!
    JimHess wrote:
    Good grief! That flew right by me. That is one huge catalog. I wonder if there is a "practical" limit to catalog size.Or I wonder if this is terminology confusion. Catalog size vs. library size.

Maybe you are looking for