# Preview Cache Error



## dopere (Jul 7, 2011)

Hi all. First time poster here. I have been having a frustrating problem with LR and did a google search which led me to this forum. Hopefully, you good people can help me out.

I have been getting the following message on a regular basis:

"Lightroom encountered an error when reading from its preview cache and needs to quit. Lightroom will attempt to fix this problem the next time it launches."

When this message pops up, the only way for me to continue working is to close out of LR and delete the preview cache folder. This only solves the problem temporarily though as the same error message pops up again usually within a few minutes working in LR. I have also tried deleting the preferences file but this has not solved the problem either. I have noticed the last few times that the preview cache error has occurred have been when I was using the crop tool, but this could just be a coincidence.

I am running LR 3.4.1 on a Dell XPS 17 laptop with an I7-2630QM 2.0GHz processor with Turbo Boost up to 2.9Ghz with 6GB RAM and a GeForce GT550M 1GB graphics card. My photos and catalog are stored on the internal drive.

Does anyone have any ideas on what the problem could be?

Thanks in advance for your help.


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## Brad Snyder (Jul 7, 2011)

Everything else working OK? Other programs, etc. no unexplained stalls, hesitancy, etc in Windows?
We don't frequently see this symptom reported. Similar sounding problems are usually cured immediately by rebuilding the preview cache, as you've done.

A good experiment would be to create a brand new test catalog and import some files and play, to see if the problem repeats.  If it were I, I would create a separate folder to hold the test raws, and just put some copies of working raw files in there. That way you can just delete them along with the test catalog when done experimenting, and not worry about cross contaminating your 'real' images.


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## dopere (Jul 7, 2011)

I am not having issues with any other programs.  Could the problem also be with the video driver or monitor profile?  I will try to play around with it more tonight to see if I can pinpoint the problem.


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## Brad Snyder (Jul 7, 2011)

We usually see grayed out previews, or color casts with the 2 problems you mention, as opposed to error messages. But ....


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## Hal P Anderson (Jul 8, 2011)

dopere, 

How much free space do you have on the drive that has your LR catalogue on it? Could it be that there isn't enough room to create the preview cache? The cache can be pretty big if you have a lot of images in your catalogue.

Can you disable turbo-boost and try running after deleting your <whatever>.lrdata folder? Overclocking can sometimes cause strange hardware problems, and Lightroom pushes your hardware pretty hard.

Hal


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## dopere (Jul 8, 2011)

Looks like the problem was the monitor profile.  I calibrated my monitor using Spyder3 Pro 2 months ago.  I went back to the uncalibrated profile tonight and LR worked fine.  I then recalibrated using Spyder3 Pro and LR is still running ok.  For whatever reason, the profile for the original calibration profile went bad.


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## Brad Snyder (Jul 8, 2011)

Glad you're fixed, we'll add that symptom to our list....


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## greggm (Jul 17, 2011)

Brad,

I am having the same issue with LR 3.41 running on a iMac OS 10.5.  I have relaunched LR a dozen times and can't get it past the screen "Lightroom encountered an error when reading from its preview cache and needs to quit.  Lightroom will attempt to fix this problem the next time it launches."  I am at a loss as to what to do.  I have read another Thread where it was suggested to delete the "Lightroom 3 Catalog Previews.lrdata" files - which I have done and still get the same message/screen.  

ANY Help you can give me will be greatly appreciated.


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## Brad Snyder (Jul 17, 2011)

Sorry, deleting the cache is the only thing I know to try. Perhaps defaulting the Lr preferences file, as well, would help. I'll leave it to our Mac gurus to explain that. Or a quick google should show you how.


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## Hal P Anderson (Jul 17, 2011)

greggm,

Welcome!

You say you deleted "Lightroom 3 Catalog Previews.lrdata". Is the name of your catalogue "Lightroom 3 Catalogue.lrcat"? Is that what shows in the General tab of the Catalog Settings dialogue box? I'm just wondering if you deleted the wrong preview cache somehow. Perhaps even the right folder name within the wrong parent folder. 

Hal


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## greggm (Jul 17, 2011)

Hal,

Thanks for welcome and for checking on me!  

I called someone I know who is photographer and they suggested I go to my last backup catalogue and double click it - which worked - it opened the program and all has been well since then!  

I hope this will also help anyone else who has this problem.


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## Mark Sirota (Jul 18, 2011)

greggm said:


> I called someone I know who is photographer and they suggested I go to my last backup catalogue and double click it - which worked - it opened the program and all has been well since then!



If that was the entirety of the advice, it was incomplete.

Are you still working with that backup catalog as your primary catalog?  This is likely to cause future confusion.  Most likely at some point in the future you'll go clean out that backups folder, and you'll accidentally delete your current working catalog.

You should copy that catalog to a proper location rather than continuing to work out of the backups folder.


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## boneywhitefoot (Jul 18, 2011)

I had a similar problem early this year LR would give me "Lightroom encountered an error when reading from its preview cache and needs to quit.I was quiet baffled ,it ended up being my sata controller was faulty,i connected my hdd to another controller and havnt been infuriated since. It must happen when LR tries to read the preview and the information half way through the the read gets cut off.


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## greggm (Jul 19, 2011)

Mark Sirota said:


> If that was the entirety of the advice, it was incomplete.
> 
> Are you still working with that backup catalog as your primary catalog?  This is likely to cause future confusion.  Most likely at some point in the future you'll go clean out that backups folder, and you'll accidentally delete your current working catalog.
> 
> You should copy that catalog to a proper location rather than continuing to work out of the backups folder.



Mark,

Thanks I took your advice!  

Gregg


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## erinbaby (Aug 23, 2011)

I am having a similar issue. Lightroom runs perfectly, will save the metadata out to xmp, but won't save the catalog when exiting without the "Lightroom encountered an error when reading from its preview cache and needs to quit." error. Simultaneously, Many (especially older) parent folders show zero images, while their subfolders still display the correct image count. I have trashed prefs, trashed the <whatever>.lrdata folder, and rebuilt 1 to 1 previews, all to no avail. Backup catalogs are displaying the same behavior. No other software issues on my 1 year-old MacPro running 10.68. Plenty of drive space, as well. Hmmmmm....


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## Victoria Bampton (Aug 23, 2011)

Hi Erinbaby, it's troubleshooting time!

First things first, let's figure out whether it's specific to that catalog or the computer.  Can you go to File menu > New Catalog and start a temporary catalog somewhere.  Can you import a few photos into it, and can you then exit without it crashing?

Second question, where's your normal catalog stored?


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