Corrupted photo in Lightroom

[daniel_larouche]

Hi,

I've had this happen to me a few times in the past. I am using Lightroom CC and Photoshop CC 2017 on a iMac running OSX Sierra.

I edited a photo in Lightroom over the weekend, exported it and it worked fine, then yesterday I attempted to modify it again, went into the develop module, and as I got in, all of a sudden, my photo is corrupted, no sign of it, just a bunch of coloured lines on a white background. I tried opening the RAW file in Photoshop but it displayed it the same corrupted way.

Attempts to delete the photo from the catalog and importing again did not correct it. The photo is on an external drive, so I went in with my other mac (macbook) with photoshop CC 2017 and was able to open and edit the photo so I know that the source raw file is OK.

Would anyone know how I can tell Lr and Ps on the first Mac to forget everything they know about that photo and reload from the original RAW file?

Thanks in advance, 

[kglad]

[moved from Adobe Creative Cloud to Photoshop Lightroom]

[dj_paige]

The photo on your hard disk is corrupted. Or perhaps the memory in the computer is failing. Or perhaps the connection between external HD and computer is bad. Importing again will not fix this.

If it is your hard disk, the solution is to restore a backup copy of this photo.

The implication of having a couple of corrupted photos over time is that your hard disk is starting to fail (or perhaps there are a few bad sectors) and you need to run diagnostics on this hard disk, and replace it if necessary.

[daniel_larouche]

Not sure about this, my MacBook can edit the same file on the same hard drive, if it was corrupted, then the Macbook would have the same issue, no? Somehow there is corruption on a temp or cache file somewhere on the first computer...

[dj_paige]

Please read what I said again. There are several pieces of hardware that can cause this problem, only one of which was the hard disk.

[daniel_larouche]

Thanks, understood, but to me, now that I know that the file is OK on the drive, if it was computer memory then a reboot would have corrected the problem, or it would be more random, same with connection to the hard drive, however that corruption happened in the first place, I was hoping for a way to make that first computer forget about that file completely, then re-import it.

I tried deleting the .xmp file that Lightroom created, but that did not help. There must be something else.

[dj_paige]

A computer reboot would not have corrected defective RAM.

Deleting the file from Lightroom and re-importing the same file apparently does not fix the problem, indicating to me it still could be the hard disk (even though another computer seems to be able to read it fine).

[daniel_larouche]

Found a way around the problem...

I copied the file in another directory, renamed it then imported it in Lightroom on the computer that had the problem, it is fine now.

Thanks for the suggestions. At least, I can work with my original again, but my first edits are gone, which is a very minor issue.

[dj_paige]

Well this is a workaround, but you still have some piece of hardware causing the original problem. So this doesn't fix anything, it doesn't even identify the piece of hardware causing this problem.

[daniel_larouche]

Agreed,

It only happens about once every 3 or 4 months, so it will be difficult to pinpoint, my money is on the RAM, because it only happens on that computer and the original file seems fine. However I will check the disk, or try working on a different one for a while to see if that changes things.

[Geoff the kiwi]

Maybe the RAM in the computer that shows it up.....  try that. Lightroom stresses RAM when opening files...

[Randy Hufford]

I also found this program as a great tool for checking hard drives http://www.softraid.com/

They give you a 30 day free trial