Catalog upgrade required

[TBFMcKee]

I have been having a continuing problem with LR not responding after it imports files from an SD card. I have to close the program and then open it again when it will usually, but not always, run as usual. Today, though, LR will not open at all. Instead, a dialogue box opens that says that "We need to upgrade your LR catalog for use with LR Classic CC.  "  It then says it will create a new catalog file in the destination indicated below and the destination has LR catalog2-3 as part of the address. I am afraid that  allowing it to proceed could alter the tens of thousands of files I have entered since LR 2-3. I have checked Windows Explorer and the latest uploaded files are intact with their .xmp extensions. So at this point I am unable to use LR until I can be sure that I can click the UPGRADE box. I see that others are having the not responding problem - anyone experiencing this one as well. Not a satisfactory performance from a subscription service. If I had commercial photo session files to deal with at this time, I would be livid.

[JP Hess]

Unfortunately, this is a confirmed issue that Adobe is working to resolve. I'm wondering if, when you attempt to restart Lightroom, is trying to open an older catalog. Mine just goes to the previous folder. The solution, for right now until the issue is fixed, is to copy the images to a folder on your hard drive using your system browser (Finder or File Explorer) and then import them to Lightroom using the Add option. I have tried this and it seems to work. Not as convenient, I know. But it does work and Lightroom doesn't lockup or crash. If you can browse to the folder where your catalogs are located and identified the one with the most current date, double-click on it and see if it will just open.

[TBFMcKee]

Thanks, Jim Hess, I would like to try  your path for importing a few new files that I would like to deal with as a way around the LR not responding issue except that LR will not open until I can get past the "LR needs to upgrade your catalog" issue.

[dj_paige]

Upgrade doesn't change your existing catalog, it makes a copy and then upgrades the copy. Furthermore upgrading a catalog won't cause you to lose any of your work.

[TBFMcKee]

Thanks DJ--Paige, Your assurances are somewhat comforting , but without some insight into why LR suddenly finds the need to upgrade a catalog that it has been dealing with for several years without this upgrade, I am loathe to initiate a process over which I would have no control or ability to roll back. If LR can lock me out of access to the program itself because of this suddenly discovered upgrade issue, how can I be certain that It is filing these supposed upgrades in a way that they will be totally accessible?  The exact address that is given for the "upgrade destination" is C:\Users\Tom\Pictures\Lightroom\Lightroom Catalog-2-3.lrcat     . No such destination now exists so does it seem reasonable to you that LR would find it necessary to create such a destination in order to deal with files that it has been handling fine up until now? I really know next to nothing about this stuff and I am just trying to keep from getting myself into more trouble than I already have. My question is still, why deny access to LR at all in order to deal with something that it seems should be dealt with as routine maintenance? I wish I could master arcana like screenshots to give you more insight into what is going on, but I cannot deal with those yet.

[TBFMcKee]

DJ---Paige, Here is a an example of the kind of issue I fear to trigger by proceeding with the catalog upgrade dialogue box:

"I 've just upgraded from Lightroom 3 to Lightroom 6. When I try opening or importing from an existing catalog that was working fine in Lightroom 3, Lightroom says the catalog has to be upgraded. When I opt to upgrade the catalog, the dialogue gets stuck (for several hours) at "Catalog Upgrade in Progress--Preparing New Searchable Database". If I opt to import from a catalog, it hangs at the 60% mark. It seems likely to be the same error in both cases."

I don't know any details beyond this account, but users like myself that just expect a subscription app to work the way it has always worked and don't really have the specialized technical knowledge to delve into problems like this are sorely tested when Adobe creates such bugs and allows them to persist without corporate intervention.

[elie_dinur]

My question is still, why deny access to LR at all in order to deal with something that it seems should be dealt with as routine maintenance?....users like myself that just expect a subscription app to work the way it has always worked and don't really have the specialized technical knowledge to delve into problems like this are sorely tested when Adobe creates such bugs and allows them to persist without corporate intervention.

I have been using Lightroom for ten years, since Version 2.0 in 2008. That means that I have seen five major version upgrades, from LR 2 to the present LR Classic 7, and each time there was a version upgrade it was necessary for LR to copy and convert the previous version's catalog file to one compatible with the new version. And each time, because I had read the release notes or other descriptive literature, I knew what to expect. I did so not because I am some sort of computer whiz (in fact, I belong to a generation that is generally considered "over the hill" both in regard to technology and to most other matters) but because I wanted to be able to distinguish between bugs and features.  I (and I think most users) would not want Adobe to do all the "routine maintenance" without an occasional notification and OK button.

You should at least understand that catalog upgrading is completely normal.

TBFMcKee  wrote

The exact address that is given for the "upgrade destination" is C:\Users\Tom\Pictures\Lightroom\Lightroom Catalog-2-3.lrcat     . No such destination now exists so does it seem reasonable to you that LR would find it necessary to create such a destination in order to deal with files that it has been handling fine up until now?

If, as you say, you have a subscription plan and you have had it for some time, you would have been notified back in Oct. '17 that LR was transitioning from LR 6/CC 2015 to LR Classic 7 and after OKing the installation, with your first use of Classic 7.0 you would have had to permit the catalog conversion - you couldn't have continued otherwise. The fact that you are now being asked to allow the conversion again suggests that you are trying to open not the current LR 7 catalog but rather the old incompatible LR 6 catalog. This is reinforced by the fact that you are being told that the new catalog file will be named Catalog-2-3 which indicates that a Catalog-2-2 already exists. I might even guess (without knowing your history) that you started with LR 5 and at that time your catalog file was simply Lightroom Catalog. When you progressed to LR 6 it became Lightroom Catalog-2 (which you tried to open yesterday) and the Catalog you should be using is Lightroom Catalog-2-2.

Hold down your Control key before and during the launching of LR and you get a list of the catalog files in your system. Select Catalog-2-2.

[JP Hess]

It seems that we have all read war stories about catalog upgrades failing. I started with Lightroom 2, and have followed every upgrade through Lightroom Classic CC. Maybe I have been lucky or something, but I have never had a catalog upgrade fail. Every time there has been a Lightroom upgrade, the catalog has upgraded without fault. I know that isn't going to be reassuring to you when you're sitting on the other side of the upgrade. However, the upgrade process creates a "new" catalog, leaving the previous version intact and completely usable by the previous version of Lightroom. Consequently, IF the catalog upgrade should fail for some reason you will still be able to continue using your previous version of Lightroom while you resolve the problems with the new version. Installing the new version does not overwrite the old one, does not replace it, is a complete and separate installation. So you can continue using the previous version until you are satisfied that the new upgraded version is satisfactorily installed and functioning as it should.

[TBFMcKee]

Thanks for trying to help me through this. I have been using LR since LR3, without any catalog difficulties and converted to CC as soon as it was offered. This morning I decided to trust that the dialogue box was recommending the correct course of action and clicked on the upgrade permission. When LR then opened it did so without my 2018 files. I then attempted to direct LR to open a different catalog in the nebulous hope that I would discover them there. No luck.  Of course, the files themselves reside in my Pictures folder in their unaltered state and I could import them into any one of the new catalogs that LR has created when I checked the box that demanded that I needed to upgrade my catalog before I could open LR. A screen shot of my Windows Explorer screen might make this clear to the several people who are trying to render assistance, and the fact that I cannot manage that bit of elementary protocol may give you some insight into why I am floundering when LightRoom throws me a sharp breaking curve ball. My perspective is that I did absolutely nothing out of my normal routine (I have 26K files in LR which I very much enjoy viewing using LR's wonderful cataloguing functions) before I was presented with this dialogue box requiring that I let LR update my catalog to a new address before I could open LR. I hesitated, asked some questions and then went ahead and checked the box to OK LR to perform whatever it needed to do. When It finished its "update" and allowed me to launch LR again, a quick scan showed question marks on my 2015 and 2016 folders and no 2018 folder which has about 3K files. They exist on my hard drive, I know that, but when I look at them I don't see that they include the .xmp sidecar files and I hesitate to import them and lose all the develop edits that I have added. So I am still asking for advice from the several forum mentors who have responded as to how to proceed from here.  I know I am not providing you with full information for your advice, but I appreciate whatever help you can provide.     Tom Forker

[JP Hess]

If you have question marks on two years of images, and are missing your 2018 folders, I wonder if you chose to upgrade the wrong catalog. I don't know, it's just a thought. If you haven't done any work in this newly upgraded catalog you should delete it and then start the upgrade process all over again. Locate the most recent catalog that you used with the previous version of Lightroom and choose to upgrade that catalog and see if that makes any difference. Again, the upgrade process isn't going to change the existing catalog. It will create a new one that will only be usable with the new version of Lightroom. Something to think about, anyway.

[dj_paige]

TBFMcKee  wrote

Thanks DJ--Paige, Your assurances are somewhat comforting , but without some insight into why LR suddenly finds the need to upgrade a catalog that it has been dealing with for several years without this upgrade, I am loathe to initiate a process over which I would have no control or ability to roll back.

When you switch to a newer major version of LR, catalog upgrades are required, that's why. And you can roll it back, your earlier catalog is not changed or moved, as I said.

If LR can lock me out of access to the program itself because of this suddenly discovered upgrade issue, how can I be certain that It is filing these supposed upgrades in a way that they will be totally accessible?

Can't lock you out of the earlier version of LR, which as you said was working for years.

Here is a an example of the kind of issue I fear to trigger by proceeding with the catalog upgrade dialogue box:

"I 've just upgraded from Lightroom 3 to Lightroom 6. When I try opening or importing from an existing catalog that was working fine in Lightroom 3, Lightroom says the catalog has to be upgraded. When I opt to upgrade the catalog, the dialogue gets stuck (for several hours) at "Catalog Upgrade in Progress--Preparing New Searchable Database". If I opt to import from a catalog, it hangs at the 60% mark. It seems likely to be the same error in both cases."

What utter nonsense. Even in the worst case where the above description happens, your earlier version of LR still works on your catalog from the earlier version of Lightroom. Usually, these bugs that involve upgrading catalogs are taken care of by Adobe; even if this particular bug has not been fixed you are not dead in the water, as I explained.

[TBFMcKee]

Well it certainly changed my catalog. It lost ( I know the files still exist in my Pictures folder in Windows) all the folders in 2018 and lost track of ( 2015 and 2016 followed by ?) Does that qualify as a change? Don't ask me how this came about. How did the dialogue box requiring a catalog update before launching LR this time , though I had done nothing at my end to change the protocol. Did it have something to do with the LR not responding upon importing files? I don't know, but it was certainly subsequent to dozens of such not responding "crashes" followed by relaunch. Your replies -  and I do appreciate that you take the time to reply at all - it is a generous gesture - but your replies convey the assurance that LR is in no way responsible for any errors that have occurred. I would beg to differ. I am without a fully functioning application and am spending hours trying to get back to the state that existed before LR released a buggy update to their app.

[dj_paige]

LR Classic CC has opened the wrong catalog file. Your LR 3 catalog is still on your computer's hard disk where it always has been. You need to search for the LR 3 catalog file using your computer's search feature ... it's name ends with .LRCAT.

When you find it, you can open it (and upgrade it) in LR Classic CC by first opening LR Classic CC and then selecting FIle->Open Catalog.

[elie_dinur]

A screen shot of my Windows Explorer screen might make this clear to the several people who are trying to render assistance, and the fact that I cannot manage that bit of elementary protocol may give you some insight into why I am floundering when LightRoom throws me a sharp breaking curve ball.

So maybe we can start by explaining how to do a screen shot and post it here.

First, see if you can find a key on your keyboard marked PrtSc or PrtScn (Print Screen). It is probably in the top-right area of the keyboard; mine is next to the F12 key. Then open Explorer to the relevant folder (Pictures/Lightroom), if necessary expand the window to fill your monitor screen and then press PrtSc. Next, open a new reply in this thread, right-click in the message space and choose "Paste". That's it - the PrtSc key caused an image of the active window to be placed on your Clipboard and then you pasted it from the Clipboard to here.

This will allow us to verify what I am guessing happened; that your original LR 3 catalog was named Lightroom Catalog.lrcat. Then, when you first acquired your CC subscription, your app was upgraded to LR CC 2015 and your catalog was upgraded to Lightroom Catalog-2.lrcat. Last October, together with all the other subscription holders, your app upgraded to LR Classic CC 7 and your catalog was upgraded to Lightroom Catalog-2-2.lrcat. That, I believe, is the catalog you have been using since October until a few days ago when you inadvertently opened the Catalog-2 file and were required to upgrade it again.

[TBFMcKee]

Thanks again to the three mentors who have continued to provide input. I am understanding more about the development of the problem though there are dates mentioned in these replies that do not seem to verify with dates of creation and modification in the Windows display of catalogs. I will get back to this after work today and try the screenshot process to provide a more clear view of what has evolved. I hope that a worst case scenario is that I will have to import the 2018 files from my hard drive or external hard drive and perhaps lose the edits. The time lost and frustration I will just have to swallow as the cost of trying to manage a system that is just a bit beyond my level of technical expertise.

Tom Forker

[TBFMcKee]

When I posted screen shots in a reply, I got a red tag saying that I did not have permission to post on this forum when I hit the ADD REPLY  box. Because of the screen shots?  Could I take a photo of the screen and attach that ?  They did not seem large enough to be legible in any case. I am going to paste in here the comment that accompanied the screen shot since I think it still conveys the essence of what was shown.

Thanks to elie_di for the instructions on PrtScn. I hope that it can be seen at a legible size. What is happening to create the multiplicity of catalogs,  is that every time I try to open LR I am confronted with a dialogue box requiring me to choose a catalog to upgrade. Several times I have chosen the one subsequent to LR 5 since properties show that to be the largest at 645MB making me presume that it must be the one that contains the 2018 folder. That has not yet been the case. Is it certain that I can delete folders - older and apparent duplicates created by the current problem - without causing more problems? I don't see that I can view what the catalog folders contain without opening them in LR and thus creating a new, updated catalog 2-3, 2-4 and so forth up to the current 2-8. I am afraid I am just digging myself in deeper and deeper here with these catalog upgrades. I think that the very first time  5/27) I agreed to let LR upgrade the catalog , the 2018 folder and its 64 GB, 4K files in 88 folders was lost to LR's cataloguing oversight. How that would be, I have no idea, but I am 99% certain that none of the folders in the screenshot above contain the 2018 files.

I see that in my hard drive PICTURES  folders for 2018 do contain the .xmp sidecar files. Does this mean that I can simply import  the 2018 folder into LR again?  Would edits that occurred from 1/1/2018 be compatible with the current iteration of LR ? Which of the multiple newly created catalogs should I choose and is it likely that when I attempt that import, LR is going to want to update again?  I may not be stating this very coherently, but I am just voicing my fears about continuing to dig the hole deeper.  Thanks to anyone patient enough to go through this with me. Tom Forker

[ssprengel]

There is a maximum limit to the screenshot size, and the screenshot takes some time to load so you have to wait before adding the reply, but I'd expect the error message would refer to those situations, specifically, so maybe your authentication  cookie just expired, and reloading the page and re-signing-in might be necessary.  I'd just try attaching the screenshot to a new reply.