Lightroom problem

[AndrewKulin]

Last night, when I was shutting down the computer (Win 7/64 Pro) at the very end of the shutdown process I received a BSOD.  All software, incl. LR had been shut down prior to initiating the PC shutdown.

This morning in attempting to open Lightroom 5.3 I had a problem.  I received a splash screen (not shown) that asked be to enter my location (Canada) then the serial numbers (all pre-filled with green check marks when I got to the next screen).  Software seemed to think this was new install or upgrade ...  Once getting out of these splash screens, when Lightroom finished loading up I got initial help/primer screens that you see when you first load the software and it asked me if I wanted to import catalog which I did not do since I thought.I already had one.  LR finished loading with no catalog and I noticed it appeared to be set up in default mode (i.e., showed standard Adobe LR title at upper left, though I had a customized version before.  So I imported my catalog (which had been backed up yesterday afternoon hours before shutting down the PC) and it showed up with no previews.  However my customized "logo" was not there, and I checked Print templates and while some older templates were available, I had in the past month created a number of newer templates that did not show up.  Checking preferences, again all default settings.

So I shut it down and tried opening up my most recent catalog (not backup) and get the following error (see attached) and as a result it cannot load.

So I know I can open up yesterday afternoon's backup (sans previews which is an inconvenience) but it seems I have lost a lot of my customized settings and templates.  I would hope these are recoverable, just looking for information on what I need to do.

Thanks, so kindly,

[john beardsworth]

One thing that has happened is that your preference file seems to have gone. That's why you see those "primer screens" and had to select the region, and why the identity plate is gone.

On Windows this is usually stored in the Preferences folder in C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom. If you've a backup of the preferences folder, you could simply restore it.

Have you logged onto Windows with the same user account?

Did you have Edit > Preferences > Store presets with this catalog checked at some time? I would only recommend enabling it if your catalogue lives on an external drive that is attached to other computers, but only in those circumstances. Having it enabled could explain the missing templates - they will be in folders next to the catalogue (a structure similar to the one mentioned above).

These are the places you need to look,

John

[AndrewKulin]

Thanks John.  I have found what I was looking for though I still had to open up my last back-up catalog, and now preferences show my main catalog is in Backups\2014-02-15.  To get this back into the main Lightroom directory can I just safely copy the lrcat and previews from the back-up folder over top of those found in the main LR folder?  (copy and move up one level in the directory structure)

[john beardsworth]

Sorry, I am not sure I understand your question but you can copy/move the lrcat and previews. Then double click the lrcat to restart LR (forcing LR to open that catalogue).

Also, next time LR prompts you for a backup, it may be better to send the files to another drive.

John