LR classic upgrade arrrrgh! Win 7 Professional, upgraded to LR classic, keeps saying "Lightroom catalog used by another program" error, not loading, worked fine before upgrade, went...

Metpin777 Loc: Fort Wayne, IN

Win 7 Professional, upgraded to LR classic, keeps saying "Lightroom catalog used by another program" error, not loading, worked fine before upgrade, went back to original version and downloaded again, same error, no programs running, PS and Br upgrade went fine, any ideas please?

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

Just create a new catalog.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

Adobe has a very good user to user forum here: https://forums.adobe.com/community/lightroom/lightroom-classic-cc

I will probably be something simple.

Good luck!

brucewells Loc: Central Kentucky

Metpin777 wrote:

Win 7 Professional, upgraded to LR classic, keeps saying "Lightroom catalog used by another program" error, not loading, worked fine before upgrade, went back to original version and downloaded again, same error, no programs running, PS and Br upgrade went fine, any ideas please?

Go to the folder where your catalog file lives and see if there is a ‘lock’ file there. If so, delete it.

Metpin777 Loc: Fort Wayne, IN

brucewells wrote:

Go to the folder where your catalog file lives and see if there is a ‘lock’ file there. If so, delete it.

Yes that was it, thank you so much!!!

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

brucewells wrote:

Go to the folder where your catalog file lives and see if there is a ‘lock’ file there. If so, delete it.

Bruce,

That is the "tip" I was trying to remember and failed!

brucewells Loc: Central Kentucky

Metpin777 wrote:

Yes that was it, thank you so much!!!

You’re most welcome.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

brucewells wrote:

Go to the folder where your catalog file lives and see if there is a ‘lock’ file there. If so, delete it.

Must be a Windows thing. I've never seen a lock file on the Mac.

brucewells Loc: Central Kentucky

burkphoto wrote:

Must be a Windows thing. I've never seen a lock file on the Mac.

It’s mostly a database thing. There just needs to be some notification to the database engine that a particular file (the catalog file) has already been opened in a non-sharing mode. I know on Windows, they write out this small ‘lock’ file, as a notification that’s evaluated when LR is started, and gets deleted when the LR app is shut down properly. It may be done differently in iOS.

brucewells Loc: Central Kentucky

burkphoto wrote:

Must be a Windows thing. I've never seen a lock file on the Mac.

My curiosity was piqued, so I did a search this morning. It appears the same process, of creating a lock file, is employed on Windows and Apple machines.

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb/lightroom-error-catalog-cannot-be-opened-lrcat-lock.html

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

brucewells wrote:

My curiosity was piqued, so I did a search this morning. It appears the same process, of creating a lock file, is employed on Windows and Apple machines.

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb/lightroom-error-catalog-cannot-be-opened-lrcat-lock.html

Hmm. Good to know! I'm used to lock files as a common feature of Windows databases, but have never seen them used on a Mac before (they would probably be stuffed inside a package file wrapper that users seldom need to open).

brucewells Loc: Central Kentucky

burkphoto wrote:

Hmm. Good to know! I'm used to lock files as a common feature of Windows databases, but have never seen them used on a Mac before (they would probably be stuffed inside a package file wrapper that users seldom need to open).

Adobe uses the SQLite database for LR. I've used it, as well, in my application development efforts in the past. It's a true SQL database, but not as 'enterprise' as Oracle or Microsoft SQL. It works really well, employing standard SQL statements.

Windows users would never see the lock file, either, as a normal course of operation. Only when the power drops away before the app gets the chance to close the opened file and delete the lock.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

brucewells wrote:

Adobe uses the SQLite database for LR. I've used it, as well, in my application development efforts in the past. It's a true SQL database, but not as 'enterprise' as Oracle or Microsoft SQL. It works really well, employing standard SQL statements.

Windows users would never see the lock file, either, as a normal course of operation. Only when the power drops away before the app gets the chance to close the opened file and delete the lock.

Yeah, now you're jogging my memory. That's the only time I saw it... My developers had to help users delete lock files after power failures. That was back in the days when we ran Superbase 1.3 on Win 3.1! Talk about an obscure piece of crap... Arthur Andersen Systems Consultants swore by it. It was garbage.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

I wrote an billing app in DBase IV that ran on computer with a "huge" 5 megabyte HDD!