any idea why lightroom is suddenly crashing windows?

artyeva

..at least i think that's what's happening...

i posted this in the ''windows'' forum as well so mods please do move if it's not ok to post here as well - i just thought as so many of us use lightroom here ye might have some ideas....

my laptop has vista running and while i'm not too fond of it i've never had a problem with adobe lightroom on this laptop. i haven't done anything weird lately to either lightroom or vista, but a few days ago when i openend up lightroom to do some stuff it just freezes... the top of the window says ''not responding'' and then a few seconds later the whole laptop freezes. the only way i can get out of it is to switch off and restart windows. i have stuff i need to do with lightroom quite urgently - does anyone have any idea why this is happening, or point me in some direction? have googled myself demented but can't find why it's doing this. and obviously [or maybe not that obviously] i'm a technophobe....

thanks in advance!!

oshead

It could be the catalog is corrupt. You could try and open up a new catalog using the ctrl + shift and mouse click the Lightroom icon. It gives you an option to choose a catalog or create a new one.

Edit: Though freezing the whole machine usually points to a hardware failure.

artyeva

*gulp*

hardware failure???:eek:

i had planned to move lightroom, the catalogue and all my photos onto the shiny new external hard drive i purchased a few weeks ago..

i'll try creating a new catalogue for now... see if that works....

Heebie

Did this problem start happening on a Tuesday/Wednesday/

If so.. it's possible that a Windows Update installed a buggy video driver, especially if you're talking about Windows XP or earlier.

Bad video drivers have been the most common thing to crash all of windows since it's beginnings... and Lightroom is something that would use a lot of different video drivers calls.

Are you starting to see problems with complex video games as well? (or maybe you're into Photography & not gaming?)

oshead

artyeva wrote: »

*gulp*

hardware failure???:eek:

Hardware failure could just as easily be a dodgy driver as Heebie pointed out. They would/could have a very similar effect.

artyeva

Heebie wrote: »

Did this problem start happening on a Tuesday/Wednesday/

If so.. it's possible that a Windows Update installed a buggy video driver, especially if you're talking about Windows XP or earlier.

Bad video drivers have been the most common thing to crash all of windows since it's beginnings... and Lightroom is something that would use a lot of different video drivers calls.

Are you starting to see problems with complex video games as well? (or maybe you're into Photography & not gaming?)

yeah - maybe tuesday i think... how did you know that???!!!:p

i have vista though - and while i know very very very little about it i know i have the updates to automatically install themselves or whatever it is they do.

as for gaming...er no...:p but i have been watching video that's on my hard drive with media player and that works fine.

these updates - can i just go into my updates history and if anything is there with the word video in it from the last few days - just unistall it or something?

Heebie

Tuesday is when Microsoft's updates are pushed down to people's computers automatically if auto-update is turned on. It's actually become fairly common for "new" problems on Windows computers to present themselves on Tuesdays.

artyeva wrote: »

yeah - maybe tuesday i think... how did you know that???!!!:p

i have vista though - and while i know very very very little about it i know i have the updates to automatically install themselves or whatever it is they do.

as for gaming...er no...:p but i have been watching video that's on my hard drive with media player and that works fine.

these updates - can i just go into my updates history and if anything is there with the word video in it from the last few days - just unistall it or something?

artyeva

Heebie wrote: »

Tuesday is when Microsoft's updates are pushed down to people's computers automatically if auto-update is turned on. It's actually become fairly common for "new" problems on Windows computers to present themselves on Tuesdays.

i created a system restore point and did a system restore but it's still happening... might give it a go again to an earlier point - although i tried to manually set a retore point of last monday the 17th and although it creates the point, i can't seem to find how to actually choose that point while doing the restore, if that makes any sense. i'm heading back to the folk's place in sligo for a few days and will have another whack at it when i'm there and have more time.

all i want is to edit my photos!!!!!

i hate vista :mad:

Heebie

Restore points have to be set before the chance is made. If it was a Microsoft update.. it should have automatically set a restore point when it did the update.

The only problem is, that restore points are generally only allowed to use a certain amount of hard-drive space, so creating more points later may cause an earlier one to get deleted.

I wish you luck!

artyeva wrote: »

i created a system restore point and did a system restore but it's still happening... might give it a go again to an earlier point - although i tried to manually set a retore point of last monday the 17th and although it creates the point, i can't seem to find how to actually choose that point while doing the restore, if that makes any sense. i'm heading back to the folk's place in sligo for a few days and will have another whack at it when i'm there and have more time.

all i want is to edit my photos!!!!!

i hate vista :mad:

artyeva

Heebie wrote: »

Restore points have to be set before the chance is made. If it was a Microsoft update.. it should have automatically set a restore point when it did the update.

i would have thought that, but i had the automatic option of 2 - one on the 22nd [when nothing seemed to have happened] or the 20th - when windows updated... i chose the 20th... but as i said i'll give it another go at trying to manually restore to the 17th...

Heebie wrote: »

I wish you luck!

mm.... when someone, who so obviously knows more about the subject in hand says that to me.... i get nervous.... veeeerrrrrrrry nervous... here goes......:eek::D

artyeva

ok - quick update -

- couldn't restore to 17th - have absolutely no idea why.
- suddenly had a thought - i was using version 2.6 so updated to 2.7 - this didn't work
- did a disc de-frag on my hard drive - this didn't work
- tried restoring to the 17th again - vista now knew that this is what i really really wanted to do so has in some way made it completely, utterly and in all other ways impossible... [i think vista may be a member of the dharma initiative]
- went to bed and dreamt of a laptop with the dharma initiative logo on it chasing me down a long corridoor
- this morning i opened up the folder on my hard drive and deleted the last batch of about 6 images that i had imported to lightroom
- opened up lightroom and IT FECKIN WORKS!!!!! :pac::pac::pac::pac::pac::pac:

i'm not going to do a chicken count yet as it may be a short lived reprieve but for now i'm laughin'

thanks oshead and heebie for your help on this - fingers crossed that whatever was wrong will now stay right

TinyExplosions

That pretty much sounds like it was a corrupted catalogue alright... I've had similar things happen to me (without the joyous ending of simply deleting files to get it working).

Best advice I'd give is to back up your catalogues fairly regularly (if you have space to do it each time you open Lightroom, even better), so that if it happens again, you lose minimal work and can get up and running quicker

artyeva

i have a clean new spanking not-even-out-of-the-box-yet external hard drive and i plan to move LR off the laptop altogether and onto that, and use a 2nd external HD to back up. i've found an online tutorial video thingy that explains it in baby steps so when i have the time i'll have a go. hopefully it will make things easier as at the moment i'm a complete disorganised mess as regards files. i have files and folders coming out me ying yang and i just need to streamline my archiving.*


*hopefully that's enough techie terms thrown in there to make it seem as if i actually have a clue of what i'm talking about