LightRoom - Super FRUSTRATION - Help!

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WhiteLight

Senior Member
LR has a feature called 'Import from another Catalog?
Has anyone tried it?

My pictures so far have been a mess, with very many catalogs, upgraded talons etc etc
so i decided to make one master catalog & import the others into this one

Only if it were as easy as it is supposed to be.
every single catalog i try to import, throws an error 'Lightroom could not import this catalog because of an unknown error'

So it's been impossible to import from the other catalogs.
and each time i need to attempt this, LR spends 10-15 mins 'preparing' the images for import.

a google search throes TONS of people having this issue, but no real solution.
i have 24GB of RAM & around 3 HDDs of 3TB each.
So neither the RAM or free space is an issue..

any help is greatly appreciated
 
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Lee532

Senior Member
In your lightroom folders do you have any ".lock" files? Lightroom crashed on me and would not open my catalogue after rebooting my PC, turned out I needed to delete this .lock file to get my catalogue to open.
 
nikonpup

nikonpup

Senior Member
have you asked the adobe community (photoshop/lightroom) about your problem? Have you updated all your catalogs? That is all i got. Watched kost's video and read the instructions all looks "simple" enough.
 
BackdoorArts

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
I used that function for the opposite reason - LR was slowing down because I had everything in the same catalog. So, I created a new, empty catalog and then imported from the main catalog the folders that I wanted (by year, as seems to be the recommendation). I had no problem with it.

Some stupid questions ...

1. Can you open the catalog you are looking to import in your current version of Lightroom? I'm thinking it's possible that other catalogs may have been created and last accessed in a different version (LR4?) and need to be upgraded to the current release.

2. Are the photos in those catalogs on the same machine or on external storage, and if the latter, is the external storage plugged in?

3. Have you tried unchecking "All Folders" in the selection pop-up and just selecting the individual catalog folders? What option have you selected under File Handling? I use "Add New Photos To Catalog Without Moving".

4. Are you starting with a new, empty Main Catalog, or did you choose a current catalog and are just adding to it? I would start with a new, empty catalog and go from there.


If none of this helps, contact Adobe. "Unknown Error" speaks to me of a corruption of some kind, either in your old catalogs, or more than likely in the one you're importing to.

Good luck - I hope you work it out.
 
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WhiteLight

Senior Member
nikonpup said:
have you asked the adobe community (photoshop/lightroom) about your problem? Have you updated all your catalogs? That is all i got. Watched kost's video and read the instructions all looks "simple" enough.
Click to expand...

There are loads of people who have asked the same question on the forums..
Some solutions have worked for a few.. But those are minor issues like missing photos or insufficient ram/hdd etc
:-(

BackdoorHippie said:
I used that function for the opposite reason - LR was slowing down because I had everything in the same catalog. So, I created a new, empty catalog and then imported from the main catalog the folders that I wanted (by year, as seems to be the recommendation). I had no problem with it.

Some stupid questions ...

1. Can you open the catalog you are looking to import in your current version of Lightroom? I'm thinking it's possible that other catalogs may have been created and last accessed in a different version (LR4?) and need to be upgraded to the current release.

2. Are the photos in those catalogs on the same machine or on external storage, and if the latter, is the external storage plugged in?

3. Have you tried unchecking "All Folders" in the selection pop-up and just selecting the individual catalog folders? What option have you selected under File Handling? I use "Add New Photos To Catalog Without Moving".

4. Are you starting with a new, empty Main Catalog, or did you choose a current catalog and are just adding to it? I would start with a new, empty catalog and go from there.


If none of this helps, contact Adobe. "Unknown Error" speaks to me of a corruption of some kind, either in your old catalogs, or more than likely in the one you're importing to.

Good luck - I hope you work it out.
Click to expand...

Hi Jake.. Appreciate your response...
1. Yes can open all the catalogs individually..
No errors or issues like Lee suggested either.

2. All in the same machine.. In the internal hdd of the imac

3. Yes.. Works for like 3/4ths of the folders..
The remaining folders don't get synced... Those are the folders which throw up the error if selected during import..I thought there maybe corrupt files or missing files and so viewed them individually.. They all appear to have no problem
And am using the Dame selection as you - add new photos to catalog without moving

4. Yes starting a brand new catalog to have all my pics from 2011 to 2013.


The real frustration is that LR takes like 15 mins to do the background processing before the import..
And once done, the error pops up before you can blink an eye..
And no suggestions or messages about what's wrong either
:)

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
 
BackdoorArts

BackdoorArts

Senior Member
I'm out of theories. Time for a chat with tech support - good luck!!

Worse comes to worse, you can embed the catalog information into the RAW files and then import them fresh into a new catalog from the photos. The embedded information should also import into the new catalog. It's going to be time consuming, but if you have some sort of corruption then this may be the only way to do it and save your edits. I'd try it on a small set of pics first, but only after I exhausted all other possibilities.
 
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