Lightroom crashed and now I can't open the catalog - even after deleting the lock file.

Question

Lightrooms crashed, which is a common occurrance. But, this last time was different. After I restarted it my catalog was not linked and all my settings were gone. I tried opening the catalog through the file menu, but absolutely nothing happens. I tried going to the folder and clicking on it but this only opens lightroom with no catalog. After having scanned this forum I found that I need to delete the .lock file, but after doing that the same things happen. Any suggestions on how to open my catalog? Will reinstalling Lightroom help?

Answer 1

The problems mostly happen when I am using X-Y compare in Library mode. It shows black rectancles over the tops of the sections that contain the photos and these flash. They aren't always the same size, but are only on the top of the section - never big enough to completely cover the photos. Then I get anywhere from one to about four or five extra windows stacked on top of the Lightroom Icon at the bottom of my screen (I use Windows 8) opening and closing, though there isn't enough time for me to click on them and read them because my computer gets so slow that my mouse actin is delayed by a few seconds. And, to shut Lightroom down, I need to use Windows task manager because clicking on the little red box with the X in the upper right corner accomplishes nothing. I have a new Sony Vaio i5 chip and 8Gb RAM. This also hapened on my old computer, though not as often