# Lightroom Database-2.lrcat-journal



## Braders (Aug 14, 2008)

What is ....Lightroom Database-2.lrcat-journal? I know this seems an obvious question, but hey this is LR

I have not seen this before. It only appears next to lrcat.lock when i choose to do ANYTHING in LR, and goes away when i do nothing.


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## Mark Sirota (Aug 14, 2008)

I would guess it's a journal for the underlying SQLite database, but I don't know for sure.

Journals are logs of actions taken that can be replayed in case of a failure.


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## Denis Pagé (Aug 14, 2008)

These are very important files!
They do take care of modified data not yet hard written back in the database. Never remove them if they stay there after a crash. When SQLite _(Database engine behind Lightroom)_ open, the very first thing it does is to check for those files and if they do exist, it makes the necessary updates then go.


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## Braders (Aug 14, 2008)

If so important, why so visible all of a sudden. I never saw this b4.


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## Sean McCormack (Aug 14, 2008)

They've been there all along whenever Lightroom is opened and used. You just didn't see them.


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## beki (Sep 16, 2008)

*catolog corrupt, error message, no processed images!!!! Lock file! HELP ME PLEASE : (*

Please someone help me here, last night Lr crashed, today error on open, no images no nothing!!! a WHOLE day of processing that i was meant to be getting to printers TODAY. Can i do anything.. i have a lock file, but no idea what to do it, and maybe a journal file too.. 
IMAC, 2.16GHZ 2RM LR2 UPGRADE


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## Kiwigeoff (Sep 16, 2008)

beki said:


> Please someone help me here, last night Lr crashed, today error on open, no images no nothing!!! a WHOLE day of processing that i was meant to be getting to printers TODAY. Can i do anything.. i have a lock file, but no idea what to do it, and maybe a journal file too..
> IMAC, 2.16GHZ 2RM LR2 UPGRADE


Sounds like LR created a new catalog??
Look in open recent and see if you have others there.


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## someothername (Sep 17, 2008)

beki said:


> Please someone help me here, last night Lr crashed, today error on open, no images no nothing!!! a WHOLE day of processing that i was meant to be getting to printers TODAY. Can i do anything.. i have a lock file, but no idea what to do it, and maybe a journal file too..
> IMAC, 2.16GHZ 2RM LR2 UPGRADE



If you've been writing to the xmp files, no worries, just start a new catalog and import.  If you had that option turned off, then the adjustments, keywords and such are only in the catalog, 

However, you might be able to browse to the location where your catalog is.  Double clicking (windows) on the lrcat file will open lightroom using that catalog and sometimes just reprocessing the catalog will restore it.  It did for me once, anyway.


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## Victoria Bampton (Sep 17, 2008)

Beki, we'll carry on on the other thread.

Anyone else, if you find a lock file when LR is closed, move or rename it and you should be able to open the catalog again.  It just protects the database while it's open, but sometimes gets left behind if LR closes abnormally.


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