Known Participant

P: Lightroom Desktop on macOS freezes & crashes at launch and export

Forum|Forum|13 days ago
February 4, 2026
4 replies
57 views

Hello Adobe team,

I’ve been suffering with frequent crashes of Lightroom (aka Lightroom CC, but NOT Lightroom Classic) since November.

I had a busy / active forum thread going but it has apparently been made unavailable ~8 days ago when you re-launched the Community site, which is very frustrating. This was the link to the thread - perhaps you can see it still?

Summary: I am using Lightroom 9.1 (aka Lightroom CC, *NOT* Lightroom Classic) on my MacBook Pro (M4 Max CPU, 48GB RAM, macOS Tahoe 26.2).

Sometime around November, the app began freezing with a pinwheel cursor while doing routine activities: editing a photo, exporting pics, or even just being left open but in the background. Attempting to quit Lightroom puts it into a pinwheel freeze 90% of the time.

I’ve submitted dozens of crash reports, hopefully you can see them (they’re linked to my Adobe account). I also have two fresh log outputs from today (a Console crash report and a Lightroom Diagnostic log) which I’m happy to share if requested.

I’ve had the same issues whether I run Lightroom as Apple Silicon-native or via Rosetta emulation. I’ve also done a complete uninstallation (including preferences and my full local library) and reinstalled multiple times, but the issues come back very quickly.

I’m utterly beyond frustrated at this point. I’ve been paying for my Adobe account and unable to use Lightroom for months, and going in circles with your chat support reps is making me lose my mind. If anyone else asks me if I’ve tried rebooting, I might throw my laptop out the nearest window.

Please, I’m begging you for help getting this resolved.

dj_paige

Legend

I don’t think Lightroom software is supported on Beta operating systems.

michaeln57162900

Participant

Thanks

Sameer K

Community Manager

Hey, @michaeln57162900. Welcome to the Lightroom Community. I’ll help you figure this out.

Has this started happening since a recent Lightroom release? Have you installed Lightroom from the Creative Cloud desktop app or via the Mac App Store? Was Lightroom working on this machine before you updated to macOS Tahoe 26.3 (beta)?

Try these steps to get Lightroom to launch:

Reset Lightroom by holding the OPT + SHIFT when you launch Lightroom and select 'Yes'.
Ensure Lightroom has the required permissions on macOS: https://adobe.ly/3DyUwsz
Go to the following location to launch Lightroom via the terminal.
In Finder > Application Folder > Open Lightroom Folder > Right-click on Lightroom .app > Show Package Contents > Contents > macOS > Lightroom—double-click to open.

Share the log of what you see in the terminal window when Lightroom Launches.

Let me know how it goes.

Thanks!
Sameer K

(Type '@' and type my name to mention me when you reply)

michaeln57162900

Participant

Many thanks Sameer K.

I’ve tried all the steps you suggested but still no joy.

The Lightroom App I am using is the Cloud based Lightroom. It all went wrong when I upgraded my MacOS to the latest Tahoe Beta 26.3.

I can get all my images on the Lightroom Mobile App on my iPad /iPhone but I need the Mac to process the images properly.

After I launch the LR app and no images load, when I go to close the app, the software hangs and doesn’t respond which leads me to think its something to do with the MacOS Beta??

Sameer K

Community Manager

Thanks for the update, @michaeln57162900. It helps.

Here, try these suggestions:

In MacOS Finder, choose Go > Go To Folder in the Finder window and type ~/pictures. Locate a bundle named Lightroom Library.lrlibrary.
Right-click or control-click this bundle and choose Show Package Contents. You'll find a folder inside it with a long cryptic string of numbers and letters (for example: d1a4f88d2b534c7d91022136fd182532). Open that folder.
In the folder, move out all the files named Managed Catalog.[anything] to the Mac's desktop.
Launch Lightroom.

Let me know how it goes. Thanks!

Sameer K

(Type '@' and type my name to mention me when you reply)

michaeln57162900

Participant

I’m running Tahoe 26.3 Beta

Sameer K

Community Manager

Hey, @Huxley5CC4. Thanks for creating this new thread. In one of my last responses on our previous thread, I shared that the team is actively monitoring this conversation.

We request that you share a Sample Process log from the Activity Monitor on macOS. It is recommended that you try creating the Sample Process closer to when Lightroom starts to freeze.

Follow the steps here, or as mentioned below: https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/how-to-get-a-process-sample-or-spindump.html

Open Activity Monitor
Launch Lightroom
Select Lightroom in Activity Monitor
Select “Sample Process”. In the Activity Monitor’s Menu bar, select View -> Sample Process
Save the file and send it to us here, or via direct message from my profile.

Additionally, do you notice an abnormal RAM usage spike? You can monitor that in the Activity Monitor as well.

Thanks!
Sameer K