Troubleshoot PDR

Applies to: Photo Date Rescue for Windows, version 3.0.4. Last verified: 30 July 2026. Every statement on this page was checked against the shipping 3.0.4 build. If you are on an older or newer version, the behavior may differ — check What’s new for changes.

This page is the reference we cite from our comparison table. Each capability below has its own permanent link, so a claim about PDR can always be traced to the paragraph that supports it. Where the answer is “no” or “only partly”, this page says so in the same words the comparison uses.

This page covers what to do when PDR misbehaves, and what happens when you tell us about it. The short version: PDR never reports a problem on its own. There is no crash reporter, nothing is collected in the background, and nothing reaches us unless you write a message and press send in your own mail app.

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At a glance

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Things worth trying before you report

Two of them fix most of what people write to us about. Neither risks your work.

If PDR feels slow, busy or stuck

Heavy jobs — analysis, face recognition, a large import — run in the background and can make the app feel occupied for a while before it catches up. If it stays stuck, close PDR and open it again. Your work is safe: PDR takes a snapshot of the library database at every launch, so reopening the app is also what creates the next safety copy. That copy is of the state you are starting from, not the state you were in when it stuck — see whether the copy is always a complete, openable library.

If photos are missing, or a Fix will not start

Check whether your Library Drive is connected. When it is not, PDR says so in a banner rather than failing silently: you can still browse, search, tag faces and edit dates, but running a Fix and opening full-size photos both need the drive. Reconnect it and the banner clears. If the drive comes back on a different letter, PDR repairs the stored locations by itself — see coming back on a different drive letter.

Limitations

• There is no repair tool and no self-check. PDR has no “verify my library” command, no consistency scan you can run on demand and no automatic repair beyond the drive-letter fix described above.
• Reopening the app is the recovery step, and it is a blunt one. There is no crash-recovery prompt offering to restore an interrupted session, and no record of what was in progress when things went wrong.
• The launch snapshot protects the library, not your photos. It holds dates, people, albums and history. It does not hold the images. See backing up the library database and your projects.

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Reporting a problem from inside PDR

PDR writes the email, you send it. Open Help & Support and choose Report a problem. Describe what went wrong in a sentence or two, add a return address if you would like a reply, and press Send. PDR then does three things at once: it builds a diagnostic file, it opens your normal mail app with a message already written and addressed to us, and it opens the folder containing that file so you can drag it into the email.

Nothing has left your machine at that point. The message is sitting in your mail app. Read it, edit it if you want to, attach the diagnostic, and send it — or close the window, and nothing is sent at all.

To do it

1. Open Help & Support and choose Report a problem.
2. Say what happened. Specifics help far more than a general description — what you were doing, what you expected, and where it stopped.
3. Add your email address if you want a reply. It is optional.
4. Press Send. Your mail app opens with the message ready, and a folder window opens showing the diagnostic file.
5. Drag the diagnostic file into the email, then send it.

Limitations

• PDR cannot attach the file for you. A mail link cannot carry an attachment, which is why the folder opens instead. It is also the reason nothing can be sent without you seeing it first.
• If no mail app opens, the report is not lost. The window tells you the address to write to and where the diagnostic file is, so you can send it from webmail or another machine.
• Delivery is your mail service’s business. Once you press send, the message travels under your mail provider’s terms, not PDR’s.
• There is no ticket and no status to follow. A report is an email. It does not appear anywhere in the app afterwards, there is no reference number, and PDR keeps no list of the reports you have sent.
• Nothing is sent automatically, ever. If PDR crashes outright and you never open this window, we do not hear about it.

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What the diagnostic contains

A ZIP file in your Documents folder, named with the date and time it was made. It holds three things:

• The current activity log — what PDR did, in order, with the errors it hit.
• The previous log, if one exists. Logs roll over as they grow, and the problem you are reporting may be in the older half.
• A system-information note holding your PDR version, your Windows version and processor architecture, your total and free memory, your processor model, the location of the log file, your license state — including the email address your license was sold to — and the description you typed.

The email body carries the same system information and license state, plus the last two hundred lines of the log, shortened to fit. So even an email sent without the attachment tells us something useful.

Limitations

• The log names your files and folders in full. That is what makes it useful for diagnosis and it is also a disclosure. Anything you were working on when the problem happened is likely to be named in it, with its full path.
• Your license email is in there. It is included so support can match the report to a purchase without asking you for it, but it means the file is not anonymous.
• No photo is ever included. The diagnostic contains text files only. No image, no video, no thumbnail and no part of your library database goes into it.
• Old diagnostics are left in Documents. Each report writes a new file and PDR never removes them. Delete them yourself once support has what it needs.
• If the file cannot be built, PDR falls back to the raw log. The folder that opens will show the log file itself instead, which you can attach in the same way.

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Finding and reading the log yourself

You are not required to take our word for what is in it. The log is a plain text file on your own disk, and PDR will tell you where it is and open the folder for you. It records what the app did as it did it: which sources were added, which files were processed, which failed and why, license and update activity, and the timing of the longer jobs.

To do it

1. Open Help & Support. The problem-reporting window shows the log file’s location and can open the folder containing it.
2. Open the file in any text editor. It is readable without special tools.
3. The newest entries are at the end.

Limitations

• The log is not a history of your library. It is a record of what the app did, and it rolls over as it grows, so older activity is eventually discarded. It is not a record of every change ever made to your photos — see a record of what was changed, and when.
• It is written for us, not for you. It is not translated, not summarized, and not always self-explanatory.
• It is not encrypted or hidden. Anyone with access to this PC can read it, and it contains the paths of your files. See what PDR writes to your own disk.
• There is no in-app log viewer. PDR opens the folder; reading the file is a job for a text editor.

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What we can see, and what we cannot

Only what you choose to send us. PDR has no background reporting of any kind — no analytics, no telemetry, no crash reporter, no usage tracking. We cannot look at your library, we cannot see what you have fixed, and we have no way to reach your machine. Every piece of information support ever holds about a problem arrived in an email you wrote and sent.

When you do send one, this is what we receive:

• Your description, and your return address if you gave one.
• Your PDR version, your Windows version, your processor and your memory.
• Your license state and the email address your license was sold to.
• Log lines, which include the paths and names of files and folders you were working with.

And this is what we do not:

• Any photo or video, in any form, including thumbnails.
• Your library database, your people and face data, your albums, collages or trees.
• Your license key. The report carries your license status, not the key itself.

Limitations

• “Nothing is sent” stops being true the moment you press send. The report is genuinely voluntary, but once it is on its way it contains the file paths listed above.
• Editing the message is the way to hold something back. It is a normal email before it is sent. Deleting the log section still leaves us your description and your system details, which is often enough.
• The other things PDR does over the network are separate from this. License checks, the free-trial counter and update checks happen whether or not you ever report a problem, and they are listed in full on privacy and network activity.

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Known gaps in 3.0.4

Collected in one place, because they are what a reader in trouble most needs to know, and because the same ones appear against PDR on our comparison page:

1. Nothing is reported automatically. A crash we are never told about is a crash we never see. The trade for that is that nothing is collected behind your back. See what we can see.
2. The diagnostic has to be attached by hand. PDR builds it and opens the folder, but it cannot put it in the email. See what the diagnostic contains.
3. A report leaves no trace in the app. No ticket, no reference, no history of what you sent. See reporting a problem.
4. There is no repair or verification tool. Closing and reopening PDR is the whole of the built-in recovery. See things worth trying before you report.
5. Diagnostics accumulate in your Documents folder and are never cleaned up. See what the diagnostic contains.

When any of these changes, this page and the comparison table change together, and the “last verified” date at the top of this page moves with them.

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How to check this page is still true

Every claim here describes behavior you can observe in the shipping build. If something on this page does not match what PDR does on your machine, that is a defect in one of the two, and we want to know: contact support. Tell us the anchor — for example /help/troubleshooting#summary — and we will either correct the software or correct the page.