Lightroom Corrupt Catalog problems- Help!

Lightroom Corrupt Catalog problems reading/writing from disk when attempting to repair - Help! I have my LR box in hand and my product keys and license info but can't find the disk. I'm assuming this is the only way to repair. Suggestions, Comments are welcome and appreciated.
Thanks in advance!!!

Corrupt catalog will not be fixed by re-installing the Lightroom software (although if I were you, I'd still find that disk!)
If I were you, I would first check a recent backup of your catalog file, and see if that will open (double-click on it in your operating system). If that opens properly, I would just use that file.
If it doesn't open properly, then one trick that sometimes works is to open a blank catalog in Lightroom, then File->Import from Another Catalog and point to the catalog file.
And if that doesn't work, please write back with a lot more details, including operating system, version of Lightroom, and much more detail abou

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Lightroom 4 - Catalog problem?

I recently installed Lightroom 4.0 on my new Windows 7 Home Premiun SP1 (64 bit) computer and imported my Lightroom 3.6 catalog into a Lightroom 4 catalog.
I have two problems which may or may not be related.
First:
While working in the Library, adding key words, etc., Lightroom will suddenly report in the current photo "The file named "xxxx (either .mrw or .jpg)" is offline or missing". On viewing the folder listing in the left-hand pane, all of the folders display with a "?". They did not do so moments before.
Second:
My LR4 import path is C:\Users\Bain\Pictures\My LightRoom.
However, Lightroom is displaying the folders imported since the upgrade as if they are in the root of C:
When I view the folders in Windows Explorer they are displayed properly in the My Lightroom folder.
I'd apprecaite any suggestions or help in resolving these issues.
Bain

Thanks for your reply Brett
Let me clarify the issue of the Missing Folder.
1.       The Lightroom 4 folder listing is normal
2.       While working on a photo in a folder I receive the "The file named "xxxx (either .mrw or .jpg)" is offline or missing" message.
3.       All of the folders in the folder listing are displayed with the question mark “?”.
4.       This issue has occurred multiple times.
I worked in Lightroom until I was able to recreate the “offline or missing” message, and all the folders in My Lightroom displayed ‘?’
I followed your instructions, right-clicking on the folder the error occurred in, selecting Find Missing Folder and browsing the folder location, the folder view flickered, but all folders continued to display ‘?’.
While I was typing this, the folder listing in LR ‘refreshed’ and the folders no longer displayed ‘?’
As you can imagine this is extremely frustrating.
Bain

LR2 Experienced System Crash & Corrupted Catalog - Need Help!!!

We are using: Mac OS X Version 10.5.8
Background on Lightroom Use:
The size of the catalog in question is 296 MB.
Pictures on an 8GB smart card were being uploaded into lightroom and simultaneously moved into a folder on an external hard drive at the time of the crash. (During this download, the imac screen gave us a very scary...."Death Veil" that started at the top and slowly covered in a downward motion the entire screen, freezing up the computer completely.)
The error message said we needed to restart the computer using the restart option or shut the computer down using the on/off switch.
Since the computer was "frozen" we were unable to access the restart option so we hit the off switch, holding it down until the imac shut itself down.
After waiting for approximately a minute, we restarted the imac.
The imac started as it usually does, however, when we opened Lightroom2, the following message appeared:
After Selecting the "Repair Catalog" Option the following message appeared:
Other catalogs are operating properly in LIghtroom.
We have no available backup and are looking for someone who can assist with
perhaps fixing the corrupted catalog. (Literally, thousands of hours)
Mahalo Nui Lo

If you ever ran "Save" on a lot of images, you'll have all your edits and metadata for those images, and if you ran save recently on the whole catalog of images, you'll be pretty well off. In such a case, I'd start a brand new catalog, and Import in place all the images.
However, assuming the worst, that the above avenue won't yield much, one particular Adobe employee, Dan Tull, is a whiz at repairing catalogs, and you may get it done by sending the catalog to him. From a post long ago: Dan Tull can be contacted at dtull-at-adobe.com .. .. note that @ has been substitued with -at- in above email address .. I haven't seen Dan in this forum for a while, so it's not a for sure thing.
With best wishes,

Lightroom 4 catalog problem-can't find photos.

Lightroom 4 catalog does not recognize photos when external hard drive switched to a different USB port. The photos are in My Photopraphs in an external hard drive. I recently had to switch ports and now the catalog can't find the photos.

The tutorial was updated a few weeks back, and since Lr5 uses different badges to denote missing files I created a new version. Your link goes to the new version but OP is using version 4.
Link to version for Lr2 thru 4 is at http://www.computer-darkroom.com/lr2_find_folder/find-folder-old.htm

Windows Vista 64 Lightroom v1 Catalog Problem

I have a new computer running Vista 64 and an older version of Lightroom. The software seemed to install ok, but after I copied over the catalog files to the new computer, the catalog appeared to be empty (I selected that file). The catalog is fine on the old computer but appears to be empty on the new computer. Is that a Vista issue? Do I need to upgrade to a new version of Lightroom? Thanks..

You need to be more specific about what isn't there when you say the catalog "appears to be empty". Lightroom works with Vist and 1.3 and 1.4.1 at least work with Vista 64 bit. You should update to 1.4.1 if you haven't done so already

Lightroom 3 Catalog files HELP!

After moving my catalog to an external drive, Lightroom continues to create a new folder (2012) on my computer to put my photos in. I want everything to go to the external drive and nothing to be saved on my computer.
I have assigned a path letter to my new location and then created a shortcut to my new catalog right onto my desktop. So I double click on the icon to open Lightroom 3.6. It works well with the photos there, but then whenever I import new photos from a memory stick, it creates that 2012 folder in My Pictures and starts saving the new ones there...creating is own new catalog.
How can I stop this from happening?
Thanks!!

You need to set the new location you want the files saved to on the right sde of the Import Window.

Lightroom 4 Corrupt Catalog... Please Help!!!

Hello,
I recently tried to open lightroom 4 and I got an error message that states "The Lightroom catalog "Lightroom 4 Catalog" is corrupt and cannot be used or backed up until it is repaired". When I click "Repair catalog" Lightroom is unable to. I have tried renaming the catalog as was suggested in a similar fourum topic, but this did not work either. PLEASE HELP. I regretably have not backed up my catalog in a long time and there is a mountain of work I will have to redo if I can't fix this. Any other suggestions would be much appreciated.
Aloha,
David

Hi guys,
Thanks for responding. So I tried creating a new catalog and then importing from the currupt one and it did not work. It says "lightroom cannot import this catalog because of an unknown error".
So this whole thing happened when my external drive, containing my lightroom catalog, accidentally came unplugged from my computer while I was working on photos. I have not been able to open the catalog since. Any other suggestions?
Thank you for your help!!

Lightroom 4 Catalog Corrupt

"Lightroom 4 catalog corrupt and cannot be used or backed up until it is repaired"
Repairing does not seem to help the problem, however I have backed up the catalog numerous times before this occurence.

The first thing I would do is try your most recent backup.
Make a copy of it in your operating system and perhaps rename it.
Then double click on it or choose File->Open Catalog from inside LR.
Set LR to backup on exit and perform optimization.
If everything works then proceed with this catalog for a while, maybe even a month. The concern is that the problem may exist in the backups. If all goes well go on from there. Otherwise repeat with the next oldest catalog.
There are also some folks who know how to repair the actual database inside the catalog but that is beyond my expertise.

Corrupt Catalog Files. Can anyone help please?

My computer shut down unexpectedly, and now Lightroom 5 is giving me and message stating Corrupt Catalog Files. When I try to repair as suggested it says it has encountered problems reading or writing from discs when attempting to repair. Can anyone help please?

How recent is your backup?

I try to drag a photo folder into lightroom 4 on my MAC, lightroom fails to open and a 'Corrupt Catalog Detected' screen pops up. Clicking on 'repair catalog' does not work either. Any suggestions?

I try to drag a photo folder into lightroom 4 on my MAC, lightroom fails to open and a 'Corrupt Catalog Detected' screen pops up. Clicking on 'repair catalog' does not work either. Any suggestions?

I'll have to get a better instructor on deleting the preferences since when I've doen it in the past nothing is there when I open LR the catalog is gone. I assumed that was what was supposed to happen so I start importing all over again. But that is a different issue...
The problem has been happening since at least the beta of 3 came out and I saw other posts back then saying they had similar issues but I assume it was a beta thing... But since the full version came out and through each incremental change I haven't seen an improvement. If anything it has gotten a little worse with time.
I have to try to be careful to not be in a hurry and start clicking around in the catalog as it seems fragile until it has cataloged all the photos in the library. When starting you will see the numbers populate the folders very slowly and I try not to click on a folder that hasn't had the number of photos pop up yet. Also draging the slider down to see more of the cataloge can have the same affect and crash the system.
I wish I had more to go on.. I believe it may be a resources issue but as I went from 3-4 Gig I thought it would get better. I don't have big programs running but did have outlook and word running in the background along with firefox and chrome.
And yes it only happens on this HP desktop (it's 2+ yrs old) and may be showing it's age a bit. My laptop which has less resources doesn't have the issue.. I have them sharing the catalog. (not at the same time) just when I'm working in other places in the house.
Jeff

I created a new Lightroom catalog for iPhone photos. After importing files from iPhoto photos are randomly popping up and deleting other photos! Is this a virus? A bug? A corrupt catalog? How do I fix it? I just installed 5.6 and that didn't resolve it.

I updated my computer software...I don't know what else to do and I can't find any information about this online.
Please help! Thanks.

Geoff for a few years I used iPhoto for my iPhone files.
Now that I am not using iPhoto any longer I attempted to move my old iPhoto phone files into my Lightroom iPhone catalog.
A couple possibilities are that:
1) There was a problem with the export/import from iPhoto to Lightroom. I've been reading up on how to do it correctly...
One article said to make a copy of the master catalog in iPhoto, export it and then import it into Lightroom. This is what I did.
I read another article that said exporting as Original from iPhoto and then importing into LR also worked so I did that with another iPhone catalog from my laptop.
2) Maybe it's a file name situation? Perhaps the phone rolled over and there are old and new files with the same names.
The strange thing about that is that older photos are popping up and replacing/deleting newer ones.
I would think the newer files would replace older ones if that was the case.
Any thoughts? Suggestions? Thanks.

Possibly Corrupt Catalog .Dat Files - A Serious Problem?

This question continues from http://forums.adobe.com/thread/804620?tstart=-1.
The three .dat files (backupCt.dat, collstatus.dat and tagstatus.dat) in one of our Adobe\Catalog Folders subfolders ("Paintings") may be corrupted. Whereas these files appear to be rewritten routinely, along with the thumb.5.cache file, each time Adobe Photoshop Elements is opened to one or another of our catalogs, the three files have not been rewritten for the Paintings catalog since 3/9/11, although that catalog has been opened almost every day. This situation came to my attention because the three files showed up in error messages in the Second Copy backup program I run every night, saying that the three files could not be copied because access is denied. In my previous post (referenced above), MichelBParis suggested that I could delete those files safely and that they would be rewritten when the catalog was next opened. However, I can't delete the files, rename them, or move them elsewhere because of the access denied status (I get an error message asking me to be sure that the disk is not full or write protected [which it is not] and that the files are not currently in use [which they are not, at least as far as I can tell -- Adobe Photoshop Elements has been closed when I have attempted all procedures, and I don't see any other applications or processes running, as per Task Manager, that I can immediately identify as belonging to Adobe). I have thought about restarting the computer in Safe Mode to see if I can delete the files then. However, I am a bit nervous about trying this, as the Paintings catalog in question is huge and of enormous importance to my wife -- I don't want to do something that might inadvertently make it impossible to access or use that catalog (as happened to us once before when we were using Adobe Photoshop Album Starter Edition 3.2, and the catalog became corrupted).
My questions:
(1) Does anyone know what these three .dat files actually do? I've not so far been able to find this information via Google.
(2) If these files remain in their present state (access denied and non-rewritten), do we run the risk of ending up with a serious problem down the road and loss of our ability to access the catalog (or some other loss of functionality)?
(3) Would it be safe for me in fact to delete these three files if I can find a way to do so (e.g., in Safe Mode)?
(4) If it would, indeed, be safe for me to delete the files, and if that would seem to be a next step to try, are there any suggestions for how I could go about doing so?
(5) Any other suggestions about how I can get the Paintings catalog back in proper shape?
Thanks for any help anyone can provide!

Most likely the files are not corrupt if your basis is that the backup program cannot open the files. However, I would be concerned about the security settings in the files if multiple users need to access the same catalog. This might be why you aren't seeing any changes to the time/date because one of the user doesn't have rights to modify the file.
Please tell me what OS you are running and what version of PsE?
For PsE 9 (and I think 8), you can modify the media-analysis options from the Organizer...
Menu 'Edit->Preferences->Media-Analysis'
Uncheck either checkbox as shown in the red circles
After hitting 'OK', exit the organzier and reboot.
See if you can access the .Dat files.
Instead of copying the catalog, I would just create a new empty catalog. This can be done as follows...
Menu 'File->Catalog...'
Make sure you note where the current catalog is located before you continue. The name of the current catalog is found in the box at the bottom of the dialog with [Current] added to the end of the name. Now...
Click on 'New...'
Enter the new catalog name.
Click on 'OK'
The organizer will use the new catalog. You will now see nothing is in the organzier.
See if you can access the .dat files. You may need to reboot.
You can select the previous catalog as follows...
Menu 'File->Catalog...'
Click on the previous catalog name
Click 'Open'
There is something not right with the security settings especially if you want multiple users to be able and access the catalog. As far as how things got messed up -- I have no idea. Some possible options are that one user has more rights than another user. The one with more rights created the files just fine but the other user has no way to read the files. Or someone was messing with the security settings.
Security settings in Windows can get very complex very fast. I hesitate attempting to walk through this can be done because there could be many factors which has caused this issue. You could have specific security settings on the files which override parent directory security settings. Or the parent directory security setting could simply be wrong.
You first need to determine if both users need write access to the catalog. If this is the case and they are not administrators, I would go ahead and set the security settings on the folder containing the catalog. You do need to be careful so you don't remove security settings such that you cannot even make changes to the security settings. Make sure you give full control to "This folder, subfolders, and files" in the Permission Entry dialog.
I would encourage you to look at the effective permissions on all files in the catalog after making any changes and before you start up PsE again. I have no idea what would happen if the security setting was wrong on a single file. This could cause a corrupted catalog depending on how PsE is written.

Lightroom catalog stops lightroom loading - new user help

Hi,
New user to lightroom 3 - created a few catalogs - closed the programme and now all i get is error messages and LR3 will not load. Tried repair - no difference. Tried uninstall and reinstall from cd 3.2 and same error message. Tried deleting all catelog folders and still no sucess - sigh.
Any help appreciated - erroe messages below:
Crashes with message - lightroom - opening catalog: PB285771.orf.lrcat and then the error message , sorry LR is expereincing probs and needs to close and provides the report function, which begins with:
AppName: lightroom.exe AppVer: 3.2.0.10 ModName: msvcr100.dll ModVer: 10.0.30319.1 Offset: 0008d635
If there was someway of forcing the app to load without trying to open the referenced catelopg above it might work, unless you experts know differently?? (hopefully)
Thank you in advance.
Alan

Hi Alan,
I think you are mislead by the semantic of "catalog". Read "database" instead - Adobe marketing may have just voted for a non-tekkie name.... source of a lot of issues...
Large catalogs=databases create problems on old hardware of low specs. If you have a fairly contemporary hardware set-up with 2 GB of RAM I would definitely try with 1 catalog-database only, until you might really run into problems.
It is easy to split catalogs should the need arise, which I second Pete Marshall to doubt.
Whenever you want to see two images together, to compare them, to assign the same keyword to find them together again etc. they need to be in the same database.
Only if you should have worlds totally split apart you could consider multiple catalogs.
There are ways to get pieces across from one to the other(s), but that requires conscious acts best carefully planned.
Your initial post does not strike me as if that should suit your personality?
In order to gain quick and good understanding of the basic principles I'd suggest you invest 15 British Pounds in Victoria Bampton's "The missing FAQs" online http://www.lightroomqueen.com/lrqebook3.php
or read at least http://www.lightroomqueen.com/blog/2009/03/24/lightroom-top-10-gotchas/.
I have no relationship to that lady other than her book was my primary source of my current LR knowledge and I enjoyed it very much.

Peculiar Problem: Corrupt Catalog?

1. The Basic Problem: In Lightroom 3.2 and now 3.3, when new images are downloaded, the folders appear in the list of folders (in the left-hand panel) and the same folders appear in the Lightroom_Library folder on my N drive. However, when Lightroom is closed and reopened, these folders no longer appear in the list of folders in the left-hand panel of Lightroom. The folders and their images are still on the N drive and can be accessed with Photoshop.
2. The two sets of imported images that have been a problem were shot in late October and late November. I had not taken any photos prior to that since August. I made three backups of my catalog in August long before I began to have the current problem.
3. I have synchronized my 2010 folder (which contains the problematic folders) in the list of folders in the left-hand panel. This action replaced the two missing folders shot in October and November in the list of folders; however, they both disappeared again when Lightroom was shut down and reopened.
4. I noticed that when I import test images and the folder name appears correctly in the list of folders in the left-hand panel and then turn Lightroom off and then on again, even though the folder disappears from the list of folders, the images themselves still appear on the screen, which means, does it not, that the images are in the catalog even though they are not showing in the folders list.
Following up on this, I imported some test images and gave them a unique keyword. I then shut Lightroom down and reopened it and that folder was missing from the list of folders in the left-hand column, but I was able to bring the images up by searching for the photos using the unique keyword that I had given them, which is, I think, more evidence that the images are in the catalog.
5. I spoke with an Adobe customer support representative, and as a last resort, he created a test catalog into which he imported new images. The images appeared in the list of folders. Lightroom was then shut down and reopened, and the folder was still in the list of folders in the left-hand panel. Based on this experiment, the Adobe representative concluded that my catalog was corrupt, and that I would need to import my current catalog into a new catalog to solve this problem.
6. Except for this one problem, the catalog seems to function normally, and I have checked the integrity of the catalog and this has turned up no problems. I have not received any warnings from Lightroom 3 to indicate that the catalog is corrupted.
6. Since I thought I was dealing with a corrupt catalog, I substituted one of my backups from August, which was made at a time when I was having no problems with the catalog; however, I am having the same problem with this backup catalog. Does this suggest that the problem may not be that the catalog which first showed the problem is corrupt?
7. The support representatives that I spoke with gave me somewhat different recommendations for transferring this catalog to a new catalog. One suggested that I create a new empty catalog and then combine the corrupt catalog with the new one. In this case wouldn’t the new catalog be corrupted too?
If I have to accept that the problematic catalog is corrupt, how exactly do I transfer the contents of the corrupt catalog to a new catalog without losing anything?
Thanks.
Roger

Create a brand-new test catalog and try importing the two folders into it. If they still disappear it is something to do with those folders or their contents. If they seem ok, then it could be something wrong with your catalog. When importing make sure you've done right-click Include Parent Folder enough times to make it the same relative depth of folders as your regular catalog.
I assume you've done an optimize catalog with test-integrity enabled.
I have seen problems in the past with folders that had some weird character or were longer than the rest so see if that is the case for these two. When the folders do happen to be visible, you might try renaming them (within LR) to something much shorter and see if they work, then.
Before messing around too much, I'd write XMP files (select all / Metadata / Write Metadata for Files) for all the photos in these two folders, so at some point if things go completely haywire, you can at least reimport the photos with their current set of adjustments applied although linkages to them in collections and keywords and such may not be as lucky.
You can also use File / Import from Catalog... and File / Export to Catalog... to create working copies of just those two folders in another catalog but if the catalog, itself, is corrupted, that may only propagate the corruption.

A Peculiar Problem: Corrupt catalog?

1. The basic problem: In Lightroom 3.2 and now 3.3, when new images are downloaded, the folders appear in the list of folders (in the left-hand panel) and the same folders appear in the Lightroom_Library folder on my N drive. However, when Lightroom is closed and reopened, these folders no longer appear in the list of folders in the left-hand panel of Lightroom. The folders and their images are still on the N drive and can be accessed with Photoshop.
2. The two sets of imported images that have been a problem were shot in late October and late November. I had not taken any photos prior to that since August. I made three backups of my catalog in August long before I began to have the current problem.
3. I have synchronized my 2010 folder (which contains the two problematic folders) in the list of folders in the left-hand panel. This action replaced the two missing folders shot in October and November in the list of folders; however, they both disappeared again when Lightroom was shut down and reopened.
4. I noticed that when I import test images and the folder name appears correctly in the list of folders in the left-hand panel and then turn Lightroom off and then on again, even though the folder disappears from the list of folders, the images themselves still appear on the screen, which means, does it not, that the images are in the catalog even though they are not showing in the folders list.
Following up on this, I imported some test images and gave them a unique keyword. I then shut Lightroom down and reopened it and that folder was missing from the list of folders in the left-hand column, but I was able to bring the images up by searching for the photos using the unique keyword that I had given them, which, I think, is more evidence that the images are in the catalog.
5. I spoke with an Adobe customer support representative, and as a last resort, he created a test catalog into which he imported new images. The images appeared in the list of folders. Lightroom was then shut down and reopened, and the folder was still in the list of folders in the left-hand panel. Based on this experiment, the Adobe representative concluded that my catalog was corrupt, and that I would need to import my current catalog into a new catalog to solve this problem.
6. Except for this one problem, the catalog seems to function normally, and I have checked the integrity of the catalog and this has turned up no problems. I have not received any warnings from Lightroom 3 to indicate that the catalog is corrupted.
6. Since I thought I was dealing with a corrupt catalog, I substituted one of my backups from August, which was made at a time when I was having no problems with the catalog; however, I am having the same problem with this backup catalog. Does this suggest that the problem may not be that the catalog which first showed the problem is corrupt?
7. The support representatives that I spoke with gave me somewhat different recommendations for transferring this catalog to a new catalog. One suggested that I create a new empty catalog and then combine the corrupt catalog with the new one. In this case wouldn’t the new catalog be corrupted too?
If I have to accept that the problematic catalog is corrupt, how exactly do I transfer the contents of the corrupt catalog to a new catalog?
Thanks.
Roger

Create a brand-new test catalog and try importing the two folders into it. If they still disappear it is something to do with those folders or their contents. If they seem ok, then it could be something wrong with your catalog. When importing make sure you've done right-click Include Parent Folder enough times to make it the same relative depth of folders as your regular catalog.
I assume you've done an optimize catalog with test-integrity enabled.
I have seen problems in the past with folders that had some weird character or were longer than the rest so see if that is the case for these two. When the folders do happen to be visible, you might try renaming them (within LR) to something much shorter and see if they work, then.
Before messing around too much, I'd write XMP files (select all / Metadata / Write Metadata for Files) for all the photos in these two folders, so at some point if things go completely haywire, you can at least reimport the photos with their current set of adjustments applied although linkages to them in collections and keywords and such may not be as lucky.
You can also use File / Import from Catalog... and File / Export to Catalog... to create working copies of just those two folders in another catalog but if the catalog, itself, is corrupted, that may only propagate the corruption.

Lightroom Corrupt Catalog problems- Help!

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