Error importing a catalog in LR3

A few reports are cropping up and being investigated.  Can you please confirm:

1.  Your operating system?

2.  Did you have any plug-ins installed in either version at any time?

3.  Are any of the photos duplicated in both catalogs, that you know of?

Thanks Gary.  That blows my custom metadata theory!!! 

Hopefully, the more information we gather, the quicker the engineers can figure out what's happening.  I think they're all tucked up in bed at the moment, very wisely!

LR/Mogrify 2

I don't use it, but I doubt Mogrify had any custom metadata... It's a sort of export plug-in or something.

Anything's possible - interesting to know we haven't ruled out the possibility, in that case.

I was also unable to import my catalog from beta into Version 3. Windows 7 operating system. I was able to export my individual folders as catalogs and them import those. It worked and having only 6 folders made it tolerable.

I've had the same problem.

My methodology was that I upgraded the Lightroom 2 catalogue, then tried to import the Lightroom 3 beta catalogue. Importing the catalogue, and importing an exported catalogue of all the Lightroom 3 beta pics both failed.

Duplicates definitely seem to be a factor, as it often failed during the 'searching for duplicates' phase. But when I did a smaller export of pictures not duplicated in the main catalogue, the import of that failed also. I was trying further variations but ran out of time and had to go to work.

I'm pretty sure the export will also fail if any of the pictures have moved and cannot be found.

Snow Leopard 10.6.3 (or whatever latest build is).

Running Lightroom 3 in 64-bit mode.

Zenfolio and Facebook export plugins both installed.

Hope we can sort this out, as at the moment it looks as though i'll have to go folder by folder through this process.

Sorry, I meant to say that  I did have a couple of successful imports when I exported small groups of photos from the lightroom beta catalogue (using Lightroom 3 final release), and imported them into the main catalogue. As I said I think duplicates and/or missing files may be a factor in the error.

same here, there is another thread on this

Same problems described above - not able to import the catalog created by LR3 beta 2 into final version of Lightroom 3. BUT - I could not believe my eyes when I a) opened the old LR3 beta 2 catalog (and LR relaunch), b) created a new subfolder (physical folder under Windows filesystem) and moved the photos into that subfolder using LR, c) activated the subfolder files, d) did an 'export as catalog' and e) tried to import that catalog. Against all odds THAT catalog imports fine... (I found this after several iterations -  I had originally a main folder 'YR2010'  with several subfolders. I was successful to do the 'export/import catalog trick' to these subfolders (but not the whole catalog). But could not migrate the files directly under YR2010-folder. Only moving files to a new subfolder did the trick).

In addition I found that if I tried to open catalog with the 'unknown error' problem using  'File/Open catalog', Lightroom would hang up and would not relaunch unless reboot of the system (in reboot Windows informs that 'SSMMgr.exe' is not responding. After forcing termination, 'Lightroom.exe is not responding', after forced termination Windows reboots).

I am using Windows XP, Photoshop CS5, Lightroom 2.7 (which migrated fine).

Regards, Esa-Matti

Same problem, can't import my beta 3 catalog. Any workarounds?

You can open a Beta 3 catalog, you can upgrade and open an LR 2 catalog, correct?  If so, can you import *into* your Beta 3 catalog?  What if you export your entire Beta 3 catalog with the final?  Can you import from/to that catalog?

Can't speak for everybody, but in my case: Yes, yes, not sure, no.

well... these workarounds may be nice  to get the result in the end but in my opinion this should not be necessery.

camerahans wrote:

 

well... these workarounds may be nice  to get the result in the end but in my opinion this should not be necessery.

Obviously, but if this is a bug we need to know how to replicate it reliably so we can tell Adobe so they can reproduce it in house and fix it.

I do understand that Lee Jay, but I expect from a final release something different than this. In a

beta ok, but ...

I confirm the bug on this system: Mac Pro OS X 10.6.3

1 - Lr3 (release) reads Lr3 beta catalog fine.

2 - Lr3 (release) converts Lr2.7 catalog fine.

but

3 - Lr3 fails at importing one catalog over the other (no matter which catalog is open. It fails right after checking for duplicates.

No plugins existed in the Lr2 catalog. No plugins in the Lr3 catalog except the built-in ones such as Flickr.

Same problem here. WinXP, some plug-ins (LR(Mogrify, Zenofolio, Smugmug), no known duplicates. Thanks in advance for help. Stepan

I am having the same problem: both the (upgraded) 2.0 catalog and the 3-beta catalog open fine, but neither can be imported into the other (tried it both ways). Same error message: "Lightroom could not import this catalog because of an unknown error." I also tried exporting either to a new catalog and then importing that (didn't work either way), as well as creating a new and blank catalog and then importing into that (the first import will work, the second will fail, regardless of the order).

Windows 7 64-bit, Mogrify-plugin, lots of duplicates (over a hundred, of which I want the more recent 3-beta version).

As bugs go, this is a bit poor for the final release. Rather takes the joy out of the big day - hope we get a fix sooner rather than later.

I had the same problem from beta to final.  It brought in most of the catalog, but not all.

I went to Open Catalog and re-opened the Catalog I wanted (even though it defaulted to the LR 3 catalog) , and this time it brought in all the photos.

Hope this works for y'all.

My update of a 2.6 catalog failed at the end, and LR3 crashed (Win 7) but when I reopened LR3 and repeated the catalog was updated successfully.

The problem solved here (in Prague). I've updated all plug-ins - it doesn't work. I've export beta catalogue to another new catalogue - it doesn't work. And finaly I've found two duplicate folders, removed duplicates from LR3 beta Catalogue - and it works! I don't know if it helps, but perhaps it could ... at least for somebody...

Stepan

Stepan identified the problem that's causing this. Catalog import is failing if you are importing a folder that already exists in your main catalog. His suggested workaround is spot on, to identify & remove the duplicate folder(s), then re-try importing the catalog.

Apologies that we didn't catch this before the train left the station. It will be fixed in a dot release.

Duplicate folders is the problem. It works removing them manually.

Thanks Julie (and Stepan), but this workaround relies on the idea that duplicates are something exceptional — but that's not true for me and, I suspect, many others. With two exceptions ALL my folders and the vast majority of images in my beta catalog are duplicated in the larger version 2 catalog, but in those same folders only varying numbers of pictures have 3-beta versions: it's very intertwined. Short of spending hours on a manual folder-by-folder, image-by-image comparison, I really need to merge these automatically, telling it to replace v2 duplicates with their 3-beta version. Is that dot-release coming soon?

removing folders by hand is not a very client friendly solution. Quite a lot of folders are indeed duplicated in those catalogues here. The 3b2 folders containing some reworked files not in the 2.x version. BUt they are in that directory.. A new dot release tomorrow?

camerahans wrote:

 

I do understand that Lee Jay, but I expect from a final release something different than this. In a

beta ok, but ...

I agree camerahans. Begging the question "what's to be gained by be-moaning it?". I'm not saying there is nothing to be gained, I just find it an interesting question...

My Opinion:

- Beating up on Adobe for something they're probably already beating themselves up about, is counter-productive.

Rob

I just want to confrim that I have the same problem

I have two catalogs:

1. Lightroom 2 Catalog (15000+ photos)

2. Lightroom 3 Beta Catalog (1000 photos and videos)

I opened number 1 (it did the upgrade successfully) and tried to import number 2 (by clicking on File > Import from Catalog) and I got the error that you all have here. I tried it vice versa and the same problem.

EntezaR17017 wrote:

 

I just want to confrim that I have the same problem

I have two catalogs:

1. Lightroom 2 Catalog (15000+ photos)

2. Lightroom 3 Beta Catalog (1000 photos and videos)

 

I opened number 1 (it did the upgrade successfully) and tried to import number 2 (by clicking on File > Import from Catalog) and I got the error that you all have here. I tried it vice versa and the same problem.

See Julie's post above:

http://forums.adobe.com/message/2877882#2877882

Removing duplicate folders solved the problem for me, too.

For those who have folders internixed between LR2 & LR3 Beta 2 catalogs, a possible workaround might be to load the L3b2 catalog, select all the photos in a folder, do a Save Metadata to File, then load the updated LR2 catalog and do a Synchronize Folder... on the same folder. Someone who knows more about metadata than I do might be able to comment on the pros and cons of this procedure.

Exactly my problem

Upgrade LR2 and LR3beta worked just fine; giving me two catalogues.

But neither can be imported into the other!

I've tried even exporting one photo as catalog from one of the catalogues, and tried to import that: no luck, Lightroom cannot import due to an unknown error..

dbm705 wrote:

 

Exactly my problem

 

Upgrade LR2 and LR3beta worked just fine; giving me two catalogues.

But neither can be imported into the other!

 

I've tried even exporting one photo as catalog from one of the catalogues, and tried to import that: no luck, Lightroom cannot import due to an unknown error..

It's not unknown anymore.  Read the thread.

Thanks; my bad for posting without reading the whole thread.

BUT I'm finding the same problem when I export as catalogue a subset where there is no overlap of folders, and then try to import!

dbm705, did you try importing both the Lr2 catalog into the Lr3 one, and vice versa?

nt

Message was removed by: dbm705 since essentially the same as next post

Yes tried in both directions

But I have a workaround (i think someone else mentioned it)

That's to export as catalogue with negatives to somewhere outside the usual folder hierarchy form the LR3beta cat.

Then I can import from cagtalogue from the LR2; the downside is that the locations of the folders are all new.

Then it's a question of manually moving out the folders that I've exported in my OS, and then using lightroom move the exported folders back into the correct place in the hierarchy.

A bit of effort, but that's the price for day 1 adoption I guess; especially since importing, not being supported by the beta, wasn't as beta tested!

cheers

d