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Author Topic: Help! LR all of a sudden has lost images  (Read 1747 times)

David Eckels

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Help! LR all of a sudden has lost images
« on: August 24, 2014, 01:43:38 pm »

LR 5.6 on a Win8.1-64 system, suddenly started showing the attached error. It is taking forever to load and has gone through this shutdown/repair cycle 4 times to no avail. I will try to figure it out, but was curious if anyone else has experienced this. First time I have had issues although I have been having trouble (no success) uploading to Behance from within LR.

bns

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Re: Help! LR all of a sudden has lost images
« Reply #1 on: August 24, 2014, 02:04:19 pm »

I did not encounter this problem yet (little time on a W8.1 system). But I think the recommended fix is to simply delete the preview folder. LR will then build one from scratch.

Cheers,
Boudewijn Swanenburg

Simon J.A. Simpson

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Re: Help! LR all of a sudden has lost images
« Reply #2 on: August 24, 2014, 02:05:08 pm »

Can you get Lightroom sufficiently functional to optimise the catalogue ?  And then rebuild the cache (Preferences > File Handling > Purge Cache) ?
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David Eckels

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Re: Help! LR all of a sudden has lost images
« Reply #3 on: August 24, 2014, 02:59:55 pm »

I will try both of these and report.
Update: When I go into my Lightroom folder I get a header "Lightroom not responding" and cannot delete the preview folder even. Basically it freezes. If I go into LR and quickly select "optimize catalog" it starts out fine, but then the same error reappears. When I try to delete I get this other window that pops up and just "spins" without apparent end. I have tried rebooting twice. I suppose I could uninstall and reinstall, but then I would lose any virtual copies I presume. BTW, the metadata appears intact.
« Last Edit: August 24, 2014, 03:24:46 pm by David Eckels »
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David Eckels

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Re: Help! LR all of a sudden has lost images
« Reply #4 on: August 24, 2014, 04:23:59 pm »

Wow. I don't know what went wrong, but after trying to delete the previews file, I did a check disk on the drive where the catalog files reside. Errors found and then repaired them, rebooted and voila! Every back as it was.

Simon J.A. Simpson

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Re: Help! LR all of a sudden has lost images
« Reply #5 on: August 25, 2014, 05:54:54 am »

Brilliant !  Pleased you solved it.
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Steve House

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Re: Help! LR all of a sudden has lost images
« Reply #6 on: August 25, 2014, 07:17:06 am »

Wow. I don't know what went wrong, but after trying to delete the previews file, I did a check disk on the drive where the catalog files reside. Errors found and then repaired them, rebooted and voila! Every back as it was.
Not a good sign - such anomalies are often a precursor of disk failure.  Consider replacing the drive while your data is intact.
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luxborealis

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Re: Help! LR all of a sudden has lost images
« Reply #7 on: August 25, 2014, 08:05:57 am »

Not a good sign - such anomalies are often a precursor of disk failure.  Consider replacing the drive while your data is intact.

+1 - David, if haven't done so already, drop everything and back up your disk.
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David Eckels

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Re: Help! LR all of a sudden has lost images
« Reply #8 on: August 25, 2014, 11:32:18 am »

In the process of backing everything up now. Replacing a 4TB Seagate USB3 drive AND the 1TB internal HD, which is the one with the chkdsk errors. BTW, did you know that 3TB of data takes about 2 days to write from USB3 drive to another USB3 drive? Maybe it is time to go to cloud back up.

jferrari

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Re: Help! LR all of a sudden has lost images
« Reply #9 on: August 25, 2014, 02:35:02 pm »

Maybe it is time to go to cloud back up.

What would make you think that the "cloud" would be faster?
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David Eckels

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Re: Help! LR all of a sudden has lost images
« Reply #10 on: August 25, 2014, 02:49:38 pm »

What would make you think that the "cloud" would be faster?
Good point; I've been researching. It'll take weeks!

Misirlou

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Re: Help! LR all of a sudden has lost images
« Reply #11 on: August 26, 2014, 06:17:24 pm »

I run an automated backup of the drive where I keep my LR catalog. I'm doing that through an old HP home server, but something else would work too. Then about every other month, I copy the backup, and put that drive in a safety deposit box. So if the worst possible thing happened, like my house burned down, the most I'd ever lose is whatever shooting and processing I've done since the last safety deposit box run.

And to cover that possibility, I could just make a copy of all shots taken since that last run and carry that with me when I leave the house. But I'm not quite that anal, yet.
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PhotoEcosse

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Re: Help! LR all of a sudden has lost images
« Reply #12 on: August 27, 2014, 05:04:32 am »

Another tip.

Make a copy of the previews file and rename it as copy. If you hit the same problem again, you just have to delete the corrupted previews file, rename the copy as the normal file and Lightroom will use it. It will have to create new previews for images added subsequent to the copy but that will be much quicker than re-dreating the entire previews file from scratch.
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