Lightroom catalog issues? halp?!

[kels0119]

I am sorry if I posted this in the wrong place... maybe in post processing? My question or 'freak out' is that I was fixing to back up my current catalog in Lightroom 2.4 to an external Hard drive but dumb me had like a gazillion (yes, exaggerating a bit) apps open and mac locked up so I pretty much restarted the os. I am not sure what happened (I never was able to get the back up even started) but now when I open up LR it comes up with an error "An error occurred when attempting to change modules." and there's no photos showing, nothing, can't get anywhere....

I googled some things and tried all the suggestions I could find... i.e. deleting preview.plist, deleting a preference.plist, creating a test catalogue, upgrading and downgrading, spin around in a circle 3 times while whistling a song with crackers in your mouth, removing plug ins (mumbling all along), and then removing filters and other add-ons... after all that nothing!!

Do any of you have or know of a solution? I am on an Intel Mac running LR 2.6 (can downgrade if needed)... I guess I could revert to the old back up that I have but all the pictures that I have taken recently won't be there?

*sigh* should I just switch to Aperture?
Thanks in advanced

[Jim Poor]

Sounds like you may want to reinstall LR. Your photos will still be there, but you may have lost any LR edits you did on them.

Photos are not stored within LR itself, only previews, XML changes etc, so the originals should be in whatever folder you uploaded them to.

[kels0119]

Thanks Jim,
I have tried a reinstall twice plus an upgrade to a newer version to no success. I have an old backup from Jan and I can see all my original photos on my hard drvie thru finder, I was just hoping for a solution to not lose all the edits I made to them....
*argh*

[kels0119]

I guess I may have answered my own question in a way by just brining back my old catalog and re importing the photos from the hard drive but is there anyway I can get my edits back??

[jdepould]

Try an import from catalog on the newer .lrcat, and tell it to import dupes as digital copies. You'll have two of everything, sort of, but your edits will be there.

[CaptJP]

Hellllppp- I'm locked out of lightroom 3.3, I've reloaded it three times with no luck. A black banner pops up near the top of the screen the saids, (_MG_7338.JPG.lrcat). I've deleted that picture but still get the meassage and the lock out:confused.

[sk66]

Originally Posted by kels0119

I guess I may have answered my own question in a way by just brining back my old catalog and re importing the photos from the hard drive but is there anyway I can get my edits back??

Short answer, no. edits are lost.
I had a catalogue go corrupt and wound up doing the same thing....
Now, part of my process is going to be to "export" any images not "finished" in PS so that edits are "stored".
An option which might work is to either: a). convert files to DNG on import or b). turn on "automatically write changes into xmp"
Both of these options save the changes into the image file as opposed to a xmp sidecar file as defaulted by lightroom. Neither will save you entirely from a failure to exit cleanly.

[CaptJP]

Originally Posted by CaptJP

Hellllppp- I'm locked out of lightroom 3.3, I've reloaded it three times with no luck. A black banner pops up near the top of the screen the saids, (_MG_7338.JPG.lrcat). I've deleted that picture but still get the meassage and the lock out:confused.

I found the picture with the file name MG_7338.JPG_lrcat hidden in a old file and once I delete it my Lightroom was up and running.