Organizer/file saving problem

[ginnyhta]

Hi,

Recently I began having a problem when editing a raw file and attempting to save it either as a tiff file or a jpeg. The message I get is: "There was a problem accessing the Organizer catalog. It may be in use by another process or a disk error has occurred." This doesn't necessarily mean the file isn't saved (though sometimes it isn't), but that it's not accessible from the Organizer. After many attempts to get support, and taking several suggestions, I (1) uninstalled my Windows XP service pack 2, reinstalled it, uninstalled Elements 5.0, reinstalled it, and the problem persists. Has anybody encountered this, and if so, how did you fix it?

Thanks very much for any advice,
Ginny

[NickLewis]

Hi Ginny,

Yes, I've had that happen.

I think it was fixed by running a catalog recover, but I can't really remember. I definitely didn't do anything major, like reinstallations.

What suggestions have you tried?

Nick

[deedeeO]

Ginny,
It happens to me all the time....mainly when I am in editor saving my edited images...it will occur for about 20-25 edits and then go away, only to come back later on. I have not done anything about it because it is saving the images to my folder on my harddrive...so after I'm done editing, I just go to the Organizer and retrieve the edited photos through File/Get Photos/...from files and folders... This error started occuring once I obtained over 15,000 images in my catalog...don't know if it is related to a time out error due to no. of images. But my edited images are not lost...so I've just been dealing with it, doing my work around.

[ginnyhta]

Thanks to both of you. Nick, I've tried what I mentioned in my last post, plus a catalog recover as suggested by the tech support. Denise, mine have also been saved to the hard drive, so I'm not too worried, but because I'm just returning from a trip with about 800 new images, it's just a little easier to keep track of edited ones via the organizer. I'll try the file-get photo option and see what happens. Guess it's just a bug of some sort.

Thanks again,
Ginny

[deedeeO]

Ginny,
because of this "bug", I've been creating folders so that I can easily keep track of what photos have been edited/completed, etc. I usually upload 500+ at atime because of sports photography....lots to deal with...

So I have my Original photos located within my main/title folder, ex: Weir High Football 2007...the a series of subfolders:
Completed...These are the original images that I just edited
Final Proofs....my edited pictures
SmugMug Loaded....my pictures that have been uploaded to my website

To view these folders and to move my photos manually, I view my Organizer using "Folder Location"...this preference is located on the lower left part of the Organizer....Using this preference, you are able to view your image folders in Explorer mode, and your images will be organized according to your folder location. Using this method has made my life easier when dealing with the bug.

I've just purchased v6 and have plans on installing it late November after my last client shoot for the year. So hopefully I'll never see it again.....

[NickLewis]

Hi Ginny,

This going to annoy me now! If I wake up at three in the morning thinking about Organiser catalogues, it'll be your fault. :mad:;)

It's also been discussed on here before. I'll see if can find a relevant thread.

Nick
P.S. I only had about 8,000 images max when it happened to me, by the way.

[deedeeO]

Hi Ginny,

This going to annoy me now! If I wake up at three in the morning thinking about Organiser catalogues, it'll be your fault. :mad:;)

It's also been discussed on here before. I'll see if can find a relevant thread.

Nick
P.S. I only had about 8,000 images max when it happened to me, by the way.


Nick, it annoys me too!!! It really slows down my editing time....

[ginnyhta]

Oh, dear, Nick. I don't want to be responsible for a sleepless night! It would be great if you can find a link to previous discussions, but I haven't lost anything, and deedeeO has given me a good suggestion for ignoring the organizer. By the way, I have far fewer images than "only" 8,000 on this computer. I'd be surprised if I have 2,000. From what everyone is saying, it sounds like a bug that's unfixable. It just annoys me that the Adobe help desk doesn't just say "it's a bug, find a work-around." If they had, I wouldn't have gone through all that uninstalling and reinstalling of XP and Elements, which have now introduced other problems in my 5-year-old desktop (which is about to be replaced!).

Thanks again for your help, and if you find the link, let me know (but please don't waste any time).

Ginny

[ginnyhta]

Hi Denise,

Thanks for your great suggestions. I already save my images in folders - locations or events or people, but I hadn't thought to use subfolders to organize according to status of edit. I'm going to set that up now. Or at least I will when the computer gets fixed tomorrow! All this messing around with Windows has created some big problems for me. Lucky me to have a son-in-law in the business! At least I have my laptop in the meantime.

Thanks again,

Ginny

[NickLewis]

Ginny & Deedeeo,

If you put "problem accessing the Organizer catalog" into the forum search engine, you'll find a sheaf of threads about this. Including one where I made the "three in the morning" comment before! I must be getting old and repetitive......

Anyway, what they all have in common is that File>Catalog>Recover seems to fix it. Presumably something is causing catalog corruption, and that fixes it till the next time.

It might not solve your problem long term, but try it next time you have the problem. It may limit the issue to a file or two.

Nick