# Corrupt Catalog -- help!



## jaimehough (Nov 23, 2019)

I was working in my lightroom catalog, closed out of it last night ... all seemed well, but when I went to open it tonight ... it was corrupt and wouldn't repair. I'm outdated ... running mac os 10.9.5 and LR CC version Lightroom version: CC 2015.7 [ 1090788 ] ... I thought I had updated a couple years ago, but apparently not! Eek! Any suggestions/is it possible to repair?  

I have created a new catalog and tried importing from the corrupt one without luck.

My last backup was 1 month ago ... not sure how I overlooked this, and not super helpful at all with what I need to be working on presently. It's fall ... busiest time of year and worst timing ever for this to happen. I've never had this happen before where it won't repair either ... ugh. Anyway, if anyone knows any ways of saving corrupt catalogs, I am all ears! thank you!

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## Johan Elzenga (Nov 23, 2019)

As you use MacOS, don’t you use Time Machine to backup your computer? If you do, there should be a more recent backup of your catalog in Time Machine.


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## clee01l (Nov 23, 2019)

While Johan's advice it on target, it does not address your immediate issue,   It is quite possible that nothing will.  I would not get your hopes up that your catalog is repairable.  There are some that Victoria has contact with that may be able to recover your catalog data.  Zip up the catalog file (only the file with the .lrcat extension) and use  www.wetransfer.com to send it to [email protected].  

If you have mission critical work that can afford no down time you need to keep your Operating System up to date (MacOS is on version 10,15). And your Software (Lightroom Classic is version 9.x)   You need at least macOS v10.13 or later to run the current version of Lightroom Classic.  If your hardware is not capable of running the latest OS or Lightroom, then you should not be trying to do mission critical work on ancient out of date equipment.


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## jaimehough (Nov 24, 2019)

Johan Elzenga said:


> As you use MacOS, don’t you use Time Machine to backup your computer? If you do, there should be a more recent backup of your catalog in Time Machine.


Sadly, somehow my Timemachine was turned off around the same time as my last backup ... wishful thinking! Not sure how that happened either!


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## jaimehough (Nov 24, 2019)

clee01l said:


> While Johan's advice it on target, it does not address your immediate issue,   It is quite possible that nothing will.  I would not get your hopes up that your catalog is repairable.  There are some that Victoria has contact with that may be able to recover your catalog data.  Zip up the catalog file (only the file with the .lrcat extension) and use  www.wetransfer.com to send it to [email protected].
> 
> If you have mission critical work that can afford no down time you need to keep your Operating System up to date (MacOS is on version 10,15). And your Software (Lightroom Classic is version 9.x)   You need at least macOS v10.13 or later to run the current version of Lightroom Classic.  If your hardware is not capable of running the latest OS or Lightroom, then you should not be trying to do mission critical work on ancient out of date equipment.


Thank you. This I know, and lesson learned ... I'll send it over and see what happens. In the meantime, I've started from scratch -- even my backups seem to be lagging.


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