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Kelsey5FA4
Participating Frequently
October 16, 2026
Question

FETCHING INITIAL PREVIEWS IS NOT WORKING

When I open any new catalog for the first time, I can’t see any of the previews. Once I close Lightroom and re-open it, I can see everything.
 

I’m running Tahoe on a 2021 iMac. I believe it’s possible that the timing of this bug coincided with my update to Tahoe a few months ago, but I can’t remember for sure.

More details:
-My previews files are not corrupted.
-Deleting and rebuilding previews does not work.
-Clearing the preview cache does not work. I
-I’m not running any virus software.

If you haven’t received many reports about this bug yet, it’s because closing and re-opening Lightroom does solve the problem. The majority of photographers only work with one catalog for many months at a time, so restarting Lightroom would have resolved the issue in their eyes. But for those of us who are dealing with 15+ new catalogs every week (which, granted, is the minority of users), this bug is showing up very often.
 

My best guess is that it’s related to the way that Lightroom is interacting with a native display profile. At one point, I switched profiles, and the issue resolved. However, the issue has returned. Switching profiles is not working anymore.

    3 replies

    davidmaizil
    Participating Frequently
    October 16, 2026

    In the older thread you mentioned it only happens when the new catalog is on your Samsung T7, and catalogs opened from the desktop or Dropbox load fine. That points at the drive rather than the display profile.

    T7s come formatted as exFAT (select the drive in Finder, File > Get Info, and look at Format). There's an open bug report about Classic on Tahoe failing to write the previews file to exFAT SSDs, and John Ellis found "attempt to write a readonly database" errors on the Previews.lrdata file there:

    https://community.adobe.com/bug-reports-674/p-export-as-catalog-fails-to-external-exfat-ssds-on-macos-tahoe-26-5-2-works-to-internal-apfs-ssd-1633779

    That's Export as Catalog, but my guess is your first open hits the same write problem.

    Three things to try, quickest first:

    1. System Settings > Privacy & Security > Files & Folders > Adobe Lightroom Classic: make sure Removable Volumes is on. Giving Lightroom access to the drive fixed blank previews on a T7 in another thread here.
    2. If only Macs use the T7, reformat it as APFS in Disk Utility. Erase wipes the drive, so copy everything off first.
    3. If it has to stay exFAT (for a Windows machine, say), create and open the new catalogs on the internal drive and move the folder to the T7 when the job is done.
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    Kelsey5FA4Author
    Participating Frequently
    October 16, 2026

    Thank you for the reply. I checked my system settings as suggested (#1), and Lightroom Classic already had Full Disk Access, so that wasn’t the issue. I also am unable to create catalogs on an internal drive first, so #3 was not an option for me.

    It looks like #2 (reformatting from ExFAT to APFS) is a viable workaround. I reformatted my T7 to APFS and can now see previews on initial open.

    Kind of a frustrating workaround, though. It took a few hours to transfer all of my data from my T7 to another drive before reformatting. Can this be reported as a separate bug? 

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    davidmaizil
    Participating Frequently
    October 22, 2026

    Glad APFS got you there, even if the copying cost you an afternoon.

    Yes, it deserves its own report: the existing one only covers Export as Catalog, and yours is opening a new catalog. Post it on the Lightroom Classic Bug Reports board with your Classic and macOS versions, the T7 as exFAT, and the before/after: previews blank on first open until a relaunch, fine once the drive was APFS. Then vote on the exFAT report I linked, which Adobe has marked Investigating, and mention yours there so they can connect the two.

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