LR3 Catalog Update, how long?

How long should it take to do a catalog update in LR3 ? I have a little over 18,000 images in the catalog. Thanks

Just do it and tell us how long.

So far FOURTEEN hours! Can this be right? is it stuck in some strange loop? New to LR.....

Mine takes about a minute, maybe a minute and a half, 16,000 images

What exactly do you mean by "catalog update?" Are you importing these images and rendering 1:1 previews?

Yes, what is a "catalog update"? The catalog is constantly being updated with info about the image(s) you are working on or the organizational tools you are using. So it is always up to date. If you mean backing it up - copying it to another drive - that takes a minute or two, depending mostly on CPU speed and the rotational speed of the receiving drive. So what did you do?

Only been using it about a month, first timeI have had all (most) of my images in one catalog. Went to shut down last night and it said I was overdue for a catalog update? So I said why not and hit the mouse button and went to bed.

Are you sure it wasn't a message to optimize the catalog?

Right. The correct term is backup, not update. What destination did you set for the backup?

tzalman wrote in post #12897242
Right. The correct term is backup, not update. What destination did you set for the backup?

This is what I was thinking. The only time the catalog should "update" is when transitioning from Lightroom 2 to 3. Otherwise it's either a backup or an optimization (or an update of the program in general).

Yeah, if this popped up when you closed LR it would be for a backup, not an update in LR3 (LR1 prompts and does this when you open it).

And no, 14 hours for 18000 images is not normal, not even close. You will probably need to shut down the process if it's still going. You should check your backup catalogs and make sure the more recent one is healthy (where the backups are depends on where the program is directed to put them, which you see in the dialog box). If you don't know where that is, youll need to shut the process down then reopen LR. In the Edit/Catalog Settings dialog, in the General tab, set the Backup option toward the bottom to backup either theevery time LR exits or the next time LR exits (this will be temporary -- just change it when you are ready to go back to normal).

Then you close LR and when the Backup dialog opens note the location of the catalog.

You will want to do this because your frozen process, whatever it is, could corrupt your current catalog so you will want the backup to fall back to. Just so you know, the backup operation won't affect your actual images, just the Catalog info with any current edits and whatnot. A backup will contain edits and such done up to that backup (with image previews).