# "Lightroom was unable to back up the catalog named “Lightroom 4 Catalog”.



## TGM123 (Nov 5, 2012)

Hi,

My last two catalog back-up attempts I have been getting the "Lightroom was unable to back up the catalog named “Lightroom 4 Catalog”." error (see attached screenshot as well) when I do my weekly back-up.

Any ideas?

Tom


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## clee01l (Nov 5, 2012)

So, what did you find when you checked your folder permissions and the available space on the destination HD?  Is your Destination HD connected and available? 

Did you install an OSX update recently?  Have you tried "Repair Disk Permissions" on the destination HD?


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## TGM123 (Nov 5, 2012)

Thanks, to answer your questions:

So, what did you find when you checked your folder permissions and the  available space on the destination HD?  The destination HD is on a NAS device and permissions are unchanged and plenty of space remains.

Is your Destination HD connected  and available? Yes.

Did you install an OSX update recently?  Yes, went to 10.8.2

Have you tried "Repair Disk Permissions" on the destination HD? I did this on the iMac HD with no effect. Do I need to do this on the NAS HD? If so, any idea how to do this with the Disk Utility, I can't figure that out?

I also created an entirely new backup destination folder as well to see if that work and got the same error.

Thanks,

Tom


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## clee01l (Nov 5, 2012)

Well, a NAS will certainly cause different questions than those posed for a EHD. 

Please do the following:

Verify the path designated in LR for the backup location
Use Finder to navigate to that location and manually creat a new folder there to determine if the remote connection permissions are in tact and that you can both read and write to the destination set up in LR.
If the above do not uncover a problem, change the backup location (temporarily) to a local path and re attempt your LR backup.
Can you now isolate the parts of the LR backup that work from those that don't?


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## TGM123 (Nov 6, 2012)

Cletus,

Thanks for the suggestions. 




*Verify the path designated in LR for the backup location* - Done. I also created anew folder and it did not allow the backup either. I am able to successfully save other files to the the NAS (including the same folder) without issue.
*Use  Finder to navigate to that location and manually create a new folder  there to determine if the remote connection permissions are in tact and  that you can both read and write to the destination set up in LR.* Done, no issues.
*If the above do not uncover a problem, change the backup location (temporarily) to a local path and re attempt your LR backup.* I created a folder on my desktop and was able to backup successfully to that folder.
*
Can you now isolate the parts of the LR backup that work from those that don't?* If so it is not clear what those parts are. 

Thoughts?


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## clee01l (Nov 6, 2012)

TGM123 said:


> *
> Can you now isolate the parts of the LR backup that work from those that don't?* If so it is not clear what those parts are.
> 
> Thoughts?


The folder on your NAS is not accessible by LR. I suspect this is a permissions problem but without visually inspecting the connection, I can not verify exactly what that might be.  I would suggest a very close look at the backup path shown in LR. It is quite possible that something is amiss and you may be too close to the problem to see the mistake in the path clearly.


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## Sponch (Nov 13, 2012)

Same problem here. Any solution so far?


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## clee01l (Nov 13, 2012)

Sponch said:


> Same problem here. Any solution so far?


Sponch, Welcome to our forum.  Did you carefully check the items that I mentioned in reply #4? What were your results when you examined each of my three items on your computer? 
Are you backing up the catalog to a NAS, EHD or the drive volume designated "MacintoshHD"?


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## TGM123 (Nov 14, 2012)

Sponch,

No solution so far. I followed all of Cletus steps above (thanks). 

I also contacted the maker of my NAS to ensure it was not anything on their side. The suggested that I try manually creating a folder and copying it to the NAS to make sure it was not a permission issue on the NAS. I am able to do this without issue so their conclusion is that I should contact Adobe support:

"If you are able to manually transfer and create files on the unit, then  there is no logical reason why you would not be able to do so through  Lightroom 4. Perhaps Adobe support might be able to shed some light on  this?"

Thanks,

Tom


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## Sponch (Nov 14, 2012)

Hi,

I'm exactly in TGMs situation. I want to backup on my NAS - btw - it's QNAP and yours? I can manually add folders, copy big files and so on.... LR starts backup and stops after 230MB... got 1 TB free space on my NAS. I'm connected via AFP  but the same behaviour occurs when connecting via SMB.


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## clee01l (Nov 14, 2012)

Can each of you provide a screen shot of your "Back UP Catalog" dialog like this one below?
And Can you go to the LR Folder panel and do the following:


Click on the (+) located on the right side of the Folder panel header
Choose {Add Folder...} from the drop down menu
Navigate to the NAS and select a folder that you want to (temporarily) copy a LR managed image.
Select it and press the {Choose} button.  The folder on the NAS will now show in your folder panel.
Next select an image from a grid view of your LR images.
Drag this image to the Folder panel and drop it on the folder located on the NAS

If you can succeed in Adding a NAS folder to your folder panel and moving an existing LR image to the NAS folder, then you do not have a LR permissions issue. 

One other question:  How much free space remains on the hard drive that hosts your working storage and your Swapfile? 

FWIW, I changed my backup destination to my NAS and had no difficulty making a back up catalog in a back up folder.


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## clee01l (Nov 14, 2012)

Sponch said:


> Hi,
> 
> I'm exactly in TGMs situation. I want to backup on my NAS - btw - it's QNAP and yours? I can manually add folders, copy big files and so on.... LR starts backup and stops after 230MB... got 1 TB free space on my NAS. I'm connected via AFP  but the same behaviour occurs when connecting via SMB.


And specifically, did you *change the backup location (temporarily) to a local path and re attempt your LR backup *successfully?  

When you say "stops after 230MB", do you get an error message or does it just appear to quit?  Do you have both Integrity test and optimize catalog checked?


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## Sponch (Nov 14, 2012)

Yes I have checked both options. 
Changing backup dir to a local destination works fine. 
Backup from a windows machine to Nas also works wo any problems.

I'll perform the other tests when the kids are (finally) sleeping.....


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