I purchased Lightroom 5 in December 2014. It was my understanding that I would get free upgrades when new versions come out. I attempted to download LR 6 and it said that the download was happening but there was no progress bar showing. I left the

Robert,

You can purchase Lightroom 6 as a part of the creative cloud photography package, part of creative cloud, as a stand alone product or as a product upgrade.

If you purchased lightroom 5 as a perpetual product rather than the creative cloud, you would need to purchase an upgrade to Lightroom 6. Udpates are free for stand alone versions, but upgrades need to be purchased.

If you need to purchase an upgrade to a perpetual license that you downloaded or purchased at a store, see this link: Products .  Scroll down to lightroom and click "buy". Click on the selectable text by " I want to: "and select "upgrade".

If you are trying to install Lightroom CC 2016 as a part of a creative cloud subscription, you should be able to download and install Lightroom CC 2015 from the Creative Cloud site. Since Lightroom CC is a new product, it will not show as an update in the Adobe Application Manager. Instead, press the  install button next to Lightroom in the Application manager. If you don't see "install" by Lightroom in the application manager, please first try signing out and back in: sign in and sign out of the Creative Cloud desktop app

If you still have issues, see option 2 in this link:
Lightroom doesn't launch or quits automatically after splash screen

Regards,

Pattie