Lightroom 4 Backup?

[wayne2193]

When I run backup in Lightroom 4 it goes about half way and then locks up. I am backing up to a Lightroom 4 Backup folder on my internal hard drive. I have go to task manager (windows 7) to close Lightroom. I am then unable to open the program unless I reboot my computer.
Anyone have any thoughts? This is very frustrating.

Thanks
Wayne

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

How long are you waiting for the backup to complete?
On my system (Win 7 64, with 12GB ram) the progress bar on the backup moves quickly until it gets a little past the half-way point, and then it pauses. The pause is usually just a few seconds before it continues and finishes. So one possibility is that you are simply not waiting long enough.

[wayne2193]

I have waited as long as an hour with no luck.

[Rhossydd]

Not seeing that problem here.

Is this a new problem, has it just stopped working or just since upgrading ?
Have you checked if you can simply copy a file to the back up location selected ? (ie do you have the right permissions to write to the location?)
Is there enough free space for the back up ?

[wayne2193]

I found an answer on the Adobe Lightroom Forums regarding Lightroom Backup freezing and locking the computer which I was experiencing. The solution for now is to uncheck the optimize catalog checkbox when running backing up the catalog. It has worked for me. Adobe is aware of the bug and is working on a solution.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

I'm glad you found a work-around. It's scary not being able to backup.

[wayne2193]

I am still having problems backing up my catalog. I uncheck Optimize catalog and Lightroom just hangs up about 1/2 way through the backup. I let it run all night with no success. I have windows 7 with 15 gig of ram and 350 gig of space open on my iterebyte hard drive. I am unable to shut down my computer and have to power it off and then back on to get it running again. Release candidate 2 did not fix this problem.

[Malco]

I've only had this happen to me once. Thanks for highlighting the fact that Adobe are aware of the problem.

[digitaldog]

Glad you found a fix. That said, the back up is IMHO kind of a waste. It only backs up the catalog. What about your images, presets? A better approach is to dedicate a drive to all these important files (first set preferences to Store Presets with catalog), then clone that to another drive. Back up the whole shooting match. Plus you can take that drive onto any machine that has a copy of LR, Mac or Windows, double click on your catalog and you’ve got everything you need to keep working. Clone back to the older drive, it backs up only the new data and you’re done.

Maybe someday, LR will have a full and useful backup strategy. Ain’t there today.

[wolfnowl]

Agreed.  My strategy is to have my images, catalogues, presets, everything in one parent folder.  Backing up that folder/subfolders to another drive backs up everything except the LR program itself.

Mike.

[Hans Kruse]

Glad you found a fix. That said, the back up is IMHO kind of a waste. It only backs up the catalog. What about your images, presets? A better approach is to dedicate a drive to all these important files (first set preferences to Store Presets with catalog), then clone that to another drive. Back up the whole shooting match. Plus you can take that drive onto any machine that has a copy of LR, Mac or Windows, double click on your catalog and you’ve got everything you need to keep working. Clone back to the older drive, it backs up only the new data and you’re done.

Maybe someday, LR will have a full and useful backup strategy. Ain’t there today.

Maybe the title is misleading, but the Lightroom backup feature always to me said clearly that it is a catalog backup into a chosen folder.

My backup strategy is to use Time Machine on my MacBook Pro (my one and only machine) on two external drives. One drive is a portable 2.5" drive that I always have with me on travels and the other is a 3.5" drive sitting on my desk. Most pictures reside on a 2TB external drive which is on my desk and this is backed up by ChronoSync to 3 other 2TB drives regularly and one of the drives always is in another physical location. I synchronize the Lightroom backups also onto these drives. I use read verify on the ChronoSynch setups.