Lightroom 4 corrupting RAW files / 'Unexpected end-of-file' error'

Uwe1 said:

I would therefore take a more pragmatic, "common sense" approach: since I have yet to see a software that is bug free, and since none of my images had been corrupted after I ditched LR, I simply assume that the latter was the culprit. In the end it really doesn't matter whether I'm right or wrong with my assumption, because that approach has worked for me for almost half a year now.

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A perfectly logical approach to take if you don't need Lightroom.

However, Lightroom is pretty important to me (my work is not usually for professional purposes, so I hesitate to say I "need" Lightroom, or anything else to do with photography). Given the large number of people that don't experience the problem, my risk analysis suggests that in the few cases where file corruption has been reported, the causes are likely to be:

• a software bug that manifests itself only on very unusual hardware or software configurations
• a hardware problem
• user error

I also backup raw files (so I have two copies on different drives) before deleting them from memory cards.

But as I say: I don't criticise your approach.
--
Simon

The original poster has not commented for over 9 hours. Looking at his last post he appears to have solved his problem.
--
Denis de Gannes

But why should a RAM defect corrupt RAW files when those RAW files would only be accessed 'read only' as Lightroom only should do???

eT

Denis de Gannes said:

I would suggest that you have your ram checked. I experienced this a couple of years ago and eventually had to change the ram as one of the modules was bad.
--
Denis de Gannes

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Nope: the original poster spend a wonderful day out on Cocoa Beach, then Astronaut Hall of Fame and later had to leave immediately for a birthday party! ;-)

eT

Denis de Gannes said:

The original poster has not commented for over 9 hours. Looking at his last post he appears to have solved his problem.
--
Denis de Gannes

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but in the context of this:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1006&message=41749797

???

eT

suddie1215 said:

Do you have another card reader you can try? How about connecting the camera directly to the Mac and transferring that way. All the signs point to a hardware problem and you need to systematically go through your workflow to pinpoint the possible cause. I suspect either a bad card reader or USB cable.

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I am not able to answer your specific question, I just related my experience with a similar issue. Having my ram checked revealed that that i had a defective module.
--
Denis de Gannes

To the OP (not sure you have given us this info):

• How many RAW files have you seen corrupted in this way?

• What is the status of the setting of your EXIF "Write date or time changes into proprietary raw files" in LR's Catalog Settings Metadata configuration?

• When you say "worked on pictures in LR", what kind of things were you doing in the Develop Module to the image which first appeared OK, and then after was corrupted? Are you sure you are fully generating and manipulating a 1:1 preview of this exact corrupted image? (I am trying to determine the possibility that your RAW file(s) are actually corrupt in the RAW data part of the file either already on the card or in the card=> HDD transfer process).

• You say the corrupted image file date/time had not changed on your disk, and is the same as the date/time on the image on the card - yes? How about the file-size? If all are the same, that's very key information to assist in the debugging of your problem.

• What app are you using to copy the images from the card (reader) to your HDD? How are you doing that copy?

I guess other pieces of key info - these are .NEF from a D800 which maybe is in 36MP mode, so:

• how big are these D800 .NEF files you are importing to LR typically? How many MByte?

• how long does LR4.1 take to load a good image (render to 1:1 sharpness in the Develop Module)?

It may be corrupted while being copied, as copying involves ram buffers.

--
Marcin_3M

I don't think he has to know all those details, if LR corrupts his images, which is obvious also from other posters who had the same experience, it's not here the right place to highlight why LR does that. He should complain with adobe and eventually get a refund.

suddie1215 said:

It is impossible for Lightroom to corrupt your files.

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do you work for adobe or how do you know that?

google "raw files corrupted in Lightroom"

Uwe1 said:

Simon Garrett said:

I'm not doubting what you say, but I regard it as "unconfirmed" until it can be repeated on another machine and can be shown not to be hardware-related.

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There can be countless reasons why a corruption of images happens - a buggy software, malfunctioning hardware components, the person that sits in front of the screen, ... you name it. I would therefore take a more pragmatic, "common sense" approach: since I have yet to see a software that is bug free, and since none of my images had been corrupted after I ditched LR, I simply assume that the latter was the culprit. In the end it really doesn't matter whether I'm right or wrong with my assumption, because that approach has worked for me for almost half a year now.

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LR opens raw files as read (not read/write). It only writes to them if you change the capture date.

I've imported over 200,000 images to all versions of LR without a single corruption issue.
--
Lee Jay
(see profile for equipment)

Focus Photoeditor User said:

google "raw files corrupted in Lightroom"

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And after that google "raw files corrupted in photoshop"
And then "raw files corrupted in Bibble"
And "raw files corrupted in NX2"

There are many reports in each of these categories. Do you believe they all share sources and have the same bug? It is much more credible to assume that the problem is in hardware or OS/drivers...

Alex

Or maybe they all corrupt raw files, because they try to put their fingers in it too hastily (this is typical of software that wants to touch proprietary formats)

alexsid said:

Focus Photoeditor User said:

google "raw files corrupted in Lightroom"

Click to expand...

And after that google "raw files corrupted in photoshop"
And then "raw files corrupted in Bibble"
And "raw files corrupted in NX2"

There are many reports in each of these categories. Do you believe they all share sources and have the same bug? It is much more credible to assume that the problem is in hardware or OS/drivers...

Alex

Click to expand...

This shows there's definetely a problem of old date:
I thought about copying and pasting from adobe forums:

6. EnriCanon,
Nov 10, 2009 4:02 PM in reply to RenéG
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I've have the same problem but in my case I'm sure the original raw (canon 40d) files are not corrupted. It were imported on LT 1 32 bits without problem and the corruption ocurred after upgraded to Lightroom 2.5 64 bits.

In fact, the files are seen in lightroom 2.5 with those weird colored rectangles but using another viewer is completely correct.
I think something is broken on Lightroom 2.5.

11. ihuntwithacanon,
Nov 12, 2009 9:37 AM in reply to RenéG
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I have had this problem in the past... My files would import to lightroom and everything would look good, but the next time i opened lightroom some .raw files would be corrupt just as you've posted. This would even happen to older photos taken years earlier. Just random corruption. Turned out to be my hard drive was going out. I had noticed some noise (thrashing) coming from it. I would suggest running a diagnostic on your hard drive, you may have to replace it as I did. Not a single lost file since new drive. 2 years now............I'm glad I had my .raw files backed up to external drive also.

12. russa1728,
Nov 17, 2009 11:48 AM in reply to RenéG
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I have had the same problem after upgrading to 2.4 and also 2.5. Using 40D, different brands of memory cards talked to Adobe at length and still no idea. The files continue to degrade while using Lightroom. I can throw out all of the bad images and then other images will do the same thing. It all seems to be random. I can have what appears to be all good images and try to export them for the web and the final result is that there is one or two that are bad and I have to redo the project. Sometimes I will have good thumbnails but when it opens the image will be bad or I can zoom in on an image and it will go bad. I'm also gatting more corrupted catalogs which has been getting worse. I have formatted my hard drive put a clean instal of Windows XP installed Lightroom 1.0 installed 2.0 and downloaded 2.5 reimported my images and they appeared to be good. Started grabing random images and corrupted files started showing up again. I not sure about Photoshop files if they have ever been corrupted in Lightroom I may have had one go bad but not 100% sure. I have also had images that the thumbnail was bad but the image would be ok after it loaded. I had images that were good this morning that are bad now, also I was exporting some bad images as email and they exported ok. When I talked to Adobe last summer they were wondering ifit had somthing to do with sidecar files, once it gets corrupted in Lightroom the file is done and you have to download a new copy of that image and start over If you have a corrupted file in Lightroom it will show up corrupted in Photoshop CS3.

alexsid said:

This is usually called a "workaround"

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Also known as the "Ostrich Method"...

-Uwe

alexsid said:

Now if the user having the problem had several hundred other applications of similar design, I would be very much surprised indeed if it was only LR4 that corrupted his files.

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I tried almost all comparable products (like ACDSee, DxO Optics Pro and Digicam) on my system, and only LR corrupted images. It's hard not to come to the conclusion that it's a bug in the Adobe software. IMHO, of course.

-Uwe

Uwe1 said:

alexsid said:

Now if the user having the problem had several hundred other applications of similar design, I would be very much surprised indeed if it was only LR4 that corrupted his files.

Click to expand...

I tried almost all comparable products (like ACDSee, DxO Optics Pro and Digicam) on my system, and only LR corrupted images. It's hard not to come to the conclusion that it's a bug in the Adobe software. IMHO, of course.

-Uwe

Click to expand...

If we start reasoning based on statistical data, the odds are not in your favor:

• you tried 4-10 different similar programs and one of them creates problems
• I think that from several million users of LR4 users there are just several thousand seeing files corruption (maybe even less)

So it is 1:10 vs 1:1000.

But this is not the main reason I disagree with you. Assuming that LR opens raw files R/O (I don't have access to LR sources but this is a very reasonable assumption), I cannot suggest a mechanism for a user-space application running without administrative privileges to corrupt R/O files.

So it is reasonable to conclude that the problem is elsewhere. There are several hundred system calls and applications are using them differently - even those with similar functionality.

Alex

It really is much more likely to be a hardware issue, with corruption taking place upon moving the files, especially if external drives are in the loop.

The only way to solve the problem will be for each affected user to remove all other variables from the equation.

I'm not doubting that the issue exists, but to blame it on Lightroom is to ignore the likelihood of it being any one of the other weak points in the chain.

Ram - poor quality - broken - badly seated.
USB leads and ports.
Cheap / broken card reader.
Cheap corrupt CF/SD cards
Incorrect drive removal.
Sata/ide leads and connections.
Other running software.
Magnetic or radio interference.
Voltage spikes / cheap PSU
Overheating CPU
Dust / Static / shorting out
Bios