Installed LR4 on a new Drive in old computer. Imported old cat, but no history, presets. sigh.

 

<p>Installed LR4 on a clean new HD / OS (Win7 Pro) computer, imported 90k + images from a 4 disk JBOD using a Library copied from the old C Drive, which was placed in My Pictures. <br />Now I have no history (DNG) or any User (develop or import) Presets, plus, my keywords are scrambled.</p>

<p > <br>

I copied the entire Library onto the new HD, pointed the import at the LR 4 Catalog-4 because it looked to be the most recent (there are others). <br />All images are there, with most recent adjustments showing, but no development history, and no User Presets in Develop or Import. Plus, I use David Reick's Controlled Vocabulary, and it's all scrambled up. <br /><br />I could start again from scratch, but can't find clear instructions on how to do so.</p>

<p > <br>

Any advice? I have the old C drive and can access it from a HD dock.</p>

<p > <br>

Tom Meyer</p>

 

<p>In LR, I have it set in preferences to store my presets with my catalog. When I imported onto a new computer, it was all there.<br>

I keep my keywords like gold and export the file on a regular basis and save it. Then later if you wish to import them with a fresh instal of LR or use them with a new catalog, it's easy. I also "write changes to xmp" as I work in LR. It's a bit slower supposedly but when I open Bridge, my files look the same with the same keywords. Hope that helps, Tom.</p>

<p>Presets can either be saved on the boot disk OR the catalogs folder. Check the preferences. I prefer to store presets with Catalog for just the reasons you discovered. They live on a single system and drive, moving the catalog thus doesn't move presets. <br>

DNG's should have all that info but it is always a good idea to force an update before doing any kind of this moving like this. You could select Save but I think the update DNG Preview and metadata command updates more items (DNG profiles for example). You should go back to the original catalog, select the DNG's and update, <strong>then</strong> move.<br>

The Export as Catalog is also an effective way to move all this data around from one place to another. You can even export just ONE image to a new catalog. That new catalog should retain all the user created data like keywords and such. Delete that one image, import all the rest, done. </p>

<p>So to effect this fix (thanks AR), I could create a new catalog using the original from the old drive, then delete the defective one?... t</p>

<blockquote>

<p>So to effect this fix (thanks AR), I could create a new catalog using the original from the old drive, then delete the defective one?</p>

</blockquote>

<p> <br>

Not sure what you mean by defective. But if you have the original catalog working all fine and good, you could try the Export as Catalog, have all options set to copy data (Negs etc), point that to a drive and copy. </p>

<p>Defective as in: No User Presets, no development History, and keyword weirdness. <br /><br />I'll have to go back to the original drive where all was good (just slow as molasses) and reconnect/construct it as a "new" catalog (this computer has no memory of that relationship between LR and the catalog on the original C drive, I'll have to re-initiate it as a "new" catalog, I suppose.. ?).</p>

<p>Sounds complicated. If you can revert out of this mess and get your old computer going with the catalog you have been using, then do so and go into preferences and do as Andrew and I suggest and save your presets and other user options <strong>with the </strong><strong>catalog</strong>. For safety, switch to "write changes to xmp" and then synchronize the folder and hopefully you'll see metadata updates. Let it work away, then when closing, "back up and optimize" the catalog and you should be gold. And while there, also export your keywords to the .txt file and save it somewhere for importing on your new system.</p>

<p>Possibly this Adobe blog posting by Julieanne Kost whill help you out:</p>

<p>Video Tutorial – How to Migrate Lightroom to a New Computer<br /><a href="http://blogs.adobe.com/jkost/2011/10/video-tutorial-how-to-migrate-lightroom-to-a-new-computer.html">http://blogs.adobe.com/jkost/2011/10/video-tutorial-how-to-migrate-lightroom-to-a-new-computer.html</a><br /><br /></p>

 

<p>There is no "old computer"... it's this one, but this one has a new C drive, and the old C drive is in an external dock.<br /><br />I already wrote changes to xmp, in all 90k+ files, and did "backup and optimize" which is why I'm surprised that the images no longer have that missing data. <br /><br />I think I'll need to recreate that catalog that's on the old C drive (which has bad sectors and is crazy slow to do anything) onto the new C drive somehow... and not how I did it before (by importing the 90k+ image files which are on the JBOD), but by somehow importing the entire *catalog*. But how do I get it (the catalog) in the right location on the new C drive?... is there a "move" command?</p>

<p>I'll try to attach a screen shot of the entire Lightroom folder of the old C drive, that has been copied to the My Pictures of the new C drive. There are multiple Libraries there (of which three are legitimate and will be dealt with once I figure out why *this* one went bad), but I can't tell which they are and then there are these other items: <br /><br />Lightroom 4 Catalog-4.lrcat.lock and<br />Lightroom 4 Catalog-4.lrcat-journal... wtf? <br /><br />I am wacked out about this. I need to get back to work. I have new client images that need to be imported.</p><div></div>

<p>a more useful crop:</p><div></div>

<p>Tom, I'm slightly confused. Did you save the XMP, then re-import all the files into a new catalog?</p>

<p>There should be no need to do that. Just copy the old catalog to the new drive, and open it there. If it reports that files are missing, right-click on the top-level missing folder(s) and choose "Find Missing Folder..." from the context menu, navigate to the new location, and you're good to go.</p>

<p>If you still have the old catalog, you should still be able to do this.</p>

<p><strong>"But how do I get it (the catalog) in the right location on the new C drive?... is there a "move" command?"</strong><br>

<br>

I'd copy and paste it. But I think you might help yourself out by creating folders that are named with dates. I know it can drive you batty looking at new and old files all nested together. I'd look for the "Lightroom Settings" folder on your old C Drive as that contains most of your personal stuff</p>

<p>Somebody may correct me on this but if your C drive is showing "Lightroom 4 Catalog-4.lrcat.lock" and LR is not running you should delete the .lock file as this is locking the catalog and should only be a temporary file while the catalog is opened. Did the C drive shut down abruptly? This could cause the file to remain.<br>

<br>

Your screenshot does show LR running though so if the .lock file doesn't remain after LR is closed it's nothing to be concerned about, that's what should happen. Same thing applies to lrcat-journal as well, this a temporary file only open while LR is running. You don't need to copy these at all to a new drive.</p>

<p>Mac, that's all correct about the lock file, but not the journal file. If a journal file persists while Lightroom is not running DO NOT DELETE IT. It contains database transactions which may not have been committed to the database; the database may be corrupt without it. The way to address a journal file is to open the catalog and let Lightroom get everything cleaned up.</p>

<p>"Did you save the XMP, then re-import all the files into a new catalog?"... yes. And to quote Rick Perry, "oops". damn. <br /><br />I'm pretty sure the old catalog is not intact. The drive did not fail abruptly, but just became more and more reticent to work. It had slowed to a crawl while still functioning. It has bad sectors that apparently contained the LR data... it took days to retrieve the info, and it seems to be incomplete... I have been trying (again) to access my User Libraries on it, with no success. I do have Lightroom backups (5 made in September of this year). But that route seems perilous, as well, because those files may also be lacking in integrity.<br /><br />I did find a folder called Lightroom Settings, and it has some of my development and metadata presets. Could I copy them into the active catalog? (Called Lightroom 4 Catalog-4) If so, to where?<br /><br />Yes the Lock file is not there when LR is closed... I'll ignore.</p>

<p>It appears I'll have to live without development history.</p>

<p>@Mark<br>

Yes I should have been more clear there. I separated the comments into two paragraphs and only meant the "same thing applies" to refer to the "that's what should happen" bit. But it pays to be as explicit as possible when describing these things.<br>

@OP<br>

I'm not sure if you are still unsure which is your most recent or primary catalog. If you haven't been able to decide does just clicking on a catalog to open LR, and checking whether that particular catalog chosen matches your recall of what the last state of play was, work. Try each catalog till you find the one you want. In Library view you can see the catalog structure and should recognise the one you're after. You'll need to copy and paste all the old catalogs off the Norwegian Blue drive to the My Pictures folder on the new C drive and I'd then disconnect the old one in the external dock just to be sure it's not somehow interfering with paths to the desired catalogs.</p>

 

<p>Tom, if your old presets are intact, you can certainly copy them into the equivalent folders on the new drive. Once you restart Lightroom they should be available.</p>

<p>You'll lose more than just Develop history -- you'll also have lost collection membership, virtual copies, stacks, publish collections, and probably more things I'm not thinking of at the moment. You'll have to decide for yourself whether it's worth doing some heroics to try to recover and repair one of your old catalogs or backups to preserve those things.</p>

<p>Hopefully at the very least you'll have learned the importance of backups on another drive. Backing up the catalog to the same drive is what cost you here... And in order to make backups of presets, preferences, profiles, and the like easier in the future I can recommend the "LR Backup" plug-in from Matt Dawson: <a href="http://www.photographers-toolbox.com/products/mdawson/tpglrbackup/">http://www.photographers-toolbox.com/products/mdawson/tpglrbackup/</a></p>

<p>I just found the right catalog, and then rediscovered the Presets via Andrew's suggestion to recheck "store presets with catalog" (yeah!). I have Presets in place, Metadata and Develop. All Collections are there as well... some old ones have all the members, but some newer ones do not...? Their participation/completeness is apparently not related to chronology. And the Smart Collections are there with complete membership. But no development history.</p>

<p>I'll be using that plug in, Mark, and thanks.<br /><br /><br /></p>

<p>Tom - glad to read you're almost back!</p>

<p>Mark - I just took a peek at Matt Dawson's LR program and it seems it does not support backing up the catalog with the presets (when that choice is made in LR's preferences). Is that your experience?</p>

<p>"almost back"... right. sigh. There are still tons of issues with this major change I just made. <br /><br />I'm upgrading the JBOD to an eSATA from USB2, and that's much easier to say than do (the card I have is not port multiplier, so only one drive shows up), and an external I use as a redundant backup is misbehaving, so that's going out on an RMA, as soon as I pick up a couple of 2TB WD Blacks to replace it and refresh the backup. Then I have to wipe that delinquent drive before I send it back.<br /><br /> I've spent the last three or four days reinstalling, upgrading, investigating and linking. Tomorrow (after a job) it's Mirror Folder to tie it all back together. Then revisiting the DAM protocols when the the replacement gets here and the 2TB drives will go into the JBOD. Thinking about another 4Disk array as JBOD to back up this one, then I might sleep better, when the old box of disks is providing off site back up. <br /><br />Tonight I'll be installing more software (including, but not limited to Reick's CVKC, LaCie Blueye Pro, Drop Box, Evernote and NTI Echo) and reading more of Peter K's backup suggestions so when I come home tomorrow night I'll reconfigure Mirror Folder with the new 2Tb drives (in the 4 disk box) and the correct eSATA controller card to speed it up.<br /><br />Can't wait to try out CS6, which I just installed last night. Thanks to everyone who helped here, and do let me know if anyone can imagine where my develop history and Collection memberships might be hiding. Reconstructing those collections will take a while. At least I have the list of names, to point the way.<br /><br /></p>

<p>Tom, glad you're nearly up and running. As I said earlier, develop history and collection memberships are stored only in the catalog. If you cannot recover any of your old catalogs from the failed drive, then I'm sorry to say you're SOL on those.</p>

<p>Dan, you're right, Matt's LR Backup plug-in does not back up the catalog. You could, however, configure each to back up to the same place for convenience.</p>

<p>Conceding that LR is a powerful program that can produce good results, it is nonetheless a sad commentary how far removed from "photography" or "art" or "creativity" we have been taken by Lightroom (and some of the other enormously complex Adobe products). It would be fascinating to see a comparison the of hours spent trying to figure out obscure Lightroom issues and problems versus the time actually spent taking pictures. I am amazed by the disdain Adobe shows for its customers and how user unfriendly their programs can be. Perhaps that's why Deke McClelland's excellent book on CS5 begins with the concession that the program is seemingly "designed to frighten and intimidate," and is "vast and complicated, with redundant options, misleading commands, and downright ritualistically obscure functions." He concludes that "there may be occasional times when you'll wonder if Photoshop is Adobe's idea of the Nine Circles of Hell." Anyway, I digress. Just letting you know that I feel your pain (on the hopeful theory that misery loves company). Good luck...</p>

<p>Yeah, I get that, and my ratio in this regard, ain't great, these days. But these days are not exemplary. I appreciate your company (your theory is a good one :^). <br />But honestly, I am also relieved by advice in this thread from Rodney, Mark and others.<br /><br />I used to work in a commercial photo lab. Back then, photographers complained about multiple trips to the lab, and the limitations of light-based image manipulations, customer service inadequacies and technician skill level, not to mention turn around times (promised vs actual). I have resisted the contemporary options for farming out such processes for a couple of obvious reasons. <br /><br />I also remember what it was like to process a thousand images, one by one, in Photoshop before batch processing (can you guess how old I am?). <br /><br />Despite the complex and Herculean efforts associated with producing the (now) most commonly expected results ("Can you get these on the web for me, by tomorrow?"), I can't imagine professional photography without these complex and functionally self-obfuscating tools.<br /><br />There are programs that perform only the basic corrections and special effects, via menus that are only one level deep. Check your cell phone/tablet of choice and find bliss with Instagram. <br /><br />Meanwhile, I'll learn to live without process history (which didn't exist a few years ago), and reform my collections, and spend some time with the gracious and lucid Lightroom Queen later this evening. <br />But my client will be happy to know that I'll have the 758 raw images I made on Friday edited down to about 200 web sized jpgs, ready for delivery on CD, about a hour from now, via Adobe's masochistic machinations.<br /><br />(we need a "like" button on Photo.net)</p>