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Why can't Lightroom 4 catalogues be on network volumes?

Guest
Dec 19, 2012 Dec 19, 2012

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I've just installed a trial version of Lightroom 4.3 on my iMac running OS X 10.8.2. When I first start the application it says it wants to create a new catalog, and I accepted the default location, /home/rich/Pictures/Lightroom. Almost immediately, an error dialog box is displayed, containing the following message: "Lightroom cannot create a catalog named 'Lightroom 4 Catalog" on network volume '/home/rich/Pictures/Lightroom'." Underneath that, in smaller text, is the message, "Lightroom Catalogs can not be opened on network volumes, removable storage, or read only volumes.".

I'm a techie (I'm actually a UNIX programmer), so I understand what the message is saying. What I don't understand is WHY it doesn't work. Yes, my home directory is stored on a server, and no, it isn't exported read-only. As a programmer, I don't understand why Lightroom has such a ridiculous restriction: the program should neither know nor care what file system I'm using, or where (in a network sense) it resides. Provided it can access the location in the file system it wants to, it shouldn't care where the bits ultimately end up.

As far as I'm concerned this is a bug, and it needs fixing, pronto!

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People's Champ ,
Dec 19, 2012 Dec 19, 2012

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This is an as-designed limitation and not a bug by definition:

Further reading for you: http://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/multi_user_multi_computer

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Guest
Dec 20, 2012 Dec 20, 2012

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Hi Rikk,

Many thanks for the pointer! After following it (and some of the links in the discussions it points to), I was finally able to work around this design flaw.

For the benefit of others who read this, the answer is to create a volume file using Disk Utility, and store that file on your networked drive. When Lightroom starts up you tell it to create its catalogue on the mounted volume. It works like a charm and performance doesn't seem to be hindered much (if any)--but I should add that I have gigabit Ethernet at home and well-specified machines.

In short: problem solved (not exactly how I'd like it, but good enough)!

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Mentor ,
Dec 20, 2012 Dec 20, 2012

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RichTeer wrote:

Hi Rikk,

Many thanks for the pointer! After following it (and some of the links in the discussions it points to), I was finally able to work around this design flaw.

For the benefit of others who read this, the answer is to create a volume file using Disk Utility, and store that file on your networked drive. When Lightroom starts up you tell it to create its catalogue on the mounted volume. It works like a charm and performance doesn't seem to be hindered much (if any)--but I should add that I have gigabit Ethernet at home and well-specified machines.

In short: problem solved (not exactly how I'd like it, but good enough)!

Back up your catalog a lot, and keep a lot of the old ones.  What you're doing greatly increases the likelihood of catalog database corruption.

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Guest
Dec 20, 2012 Dec 20, 2012

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I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, but can you please explain why what I'm doing "greatly increases the likely hood of catalog database corruption"? I'm the only user accessing this data, and I'm only accessing it from one workstation. I've not had any problems here that can be attributed to corruption over the network (although I have been bitten by iffy SIMMs in the past).

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Mentor ,
Dec 20, 2012 Dec 20, 2012

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Because SQLite - the database on which LR is based - requires firmer file locking that is capable over the network.  While the last test was some time ago, the LR engineer for this removed the block on network catalogs and managed to corrupt the catalog beyond his own ability to repair it simply by placing the catalog under heavy stress.

It might work fine.  And it might not.  Since you're computer savy, use caution and make backups if you value the data in the catalog.

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Guest
Dec 20, 2012 Dec 20, 2012

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Understood. I wonder if that is a problem in Windows environments? I'm using NFS (which is very much file-locking aware!), which was designed with these sorts of applications in mind. It would be nice if SQLite could be dropped in favour of Postgres (for various reasons, I've never been a fan of MySQL), but I imagine that might cause a lot of code re-writes behind the scenes! 🙂

Your point about backups is well-received, and I share your encouragement about their use!

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New Here ,
Aug 11, 2013 Aug 11, 2013

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H'mm, you mean that Adobe uses Software which is in the public domain.  I actually met the sql lite people and their test programs guarentee that every if statement is tested.

It is rock solid software that is used everwhere.

chip

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New Here ,
Aug 08, 2013 Aug 08, 2013

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And how does storing it on a local drive make it safe? This is a major flaw that Adobe needs to address. I have network storage that is all RAID. My hard drives are just that single hard drives. How can any serious photographer use Lightroom? I would never trust my images to be stored on a non-RAID system.

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Guest
Aug 08, 2013 Aug 08, 2013

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If it's that important to you, you should consider Capture One Pro. It allows the catalog to be shared/accessed over a network.

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New Here ,
Apr 02, 2013 Apr 02, 2013

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Hello, Rich Teer

Could you please teach me how to create the volume file using Disk Utility ?

  I have no idea how to do that.

Thanks ,

André

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Community Beginner ,
Dec 06, 2014 Dec 06, 2014

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Thanks for bringing this up. I wanted to be able to log into same catalogue without editing from my mac-pro and desktop and called Adobe helpdesk. They suggested I use CC cloud for storing the catalogue and also the images as  workaround. So it seems LR will allow catalogue to be stored on cloud, but only if its CC cloud.

I like your idea about creating a volume using disk utility - will that work both on Mac and Windows?

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Community Expert ,
Dec 06, 2014 Dec 06, 2014

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Having the catalog on an external drive works just as well. Cloud storage of any type needs to be very carefully monitored.

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New Here ,
Jun 18, 2015 Jun 18, 2015

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"

Geoff the kiwi wrote:

Having the catalog on an external drive works just as well. Cloud storage of any type needs to be very carefully monitored.

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New Here ,
Dec 07, 2016 Dec 07, 2016

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Hi there

A solution is to create the catalog on your desktop.

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Community Expert ,
Dec 10, 2016 Dec 10, 2016

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LATEST

simunh82246385 wrote:

Hi there

A solution is to create the catalog on your desktop.

How is that a solution???

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