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Louis35424723tiy7
Participant
May 10, 2025
Answered

Lightroom Classic only launching as background process

  • May 10, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 211 views

I can't open Lightroom Classic on my laptop, and I haven't been able to for weeks now, despite resetting my computer, doing a full CC clean of my laptop and doing a clean re-install of Creative cloud, I've tried setting it to high priority, launching as administrator, doing the weird Catalogue thing where you delete the LRCAT file and let it reinitialise it. Nothing has worked, and nothing listed in the old threads regarding this issue has worked either. Getting desperate as I really need Classic to work for my projects, and really quite fed up with Adobe at this point. The app launches and is visible in task manager, but never actually opens on screen. It does use up RAM and seem to really be running, but it's always just a background process and nothing ever shows up on my screen. Any tips?

System specs:
Processor 13th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-13700H 2.40 GHz
Installed RAM 16.0 GB (15.7 GB usable) running at 4800 MTS
System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
GPU RTX 4050M

 

[Moved from ‘Bugs’ to ‘Discussions’ by moderator, according to forum rules.]

    Correct answer Louis35424723tiy7

    I have fixed this myself in the end. As it turns out it was a catalogue issue, that could (I believe) only be fixed by first pinning lightroom to the start bar, and then right-clicking it to select a different catalogue to boot from. Once you've done this, you're already in and can create/choose a different cataloque to boot from than the (apparently) corrupt one.

    2 replies

    O
    OursoulsDad17491423
    Known Participant
    March 13, 2026

    I have tried this but it keeps trying to download the catalogue - which is already on my PC - and times out.  Like you, not meaningful support from Adobe and I would have thought a fresh instal of Classic would generate a fresh catalogue that we would then need to deselect.  really don’t understand this.

    L
    Louis35424723tiy7AuthorCorrect answer
    Participant
    May 11, 2025

    I have fixed this myself in the end. As it turns out it was a catalogue issue, that could (I believe) only be fixed by first pinning lightroom to the start bar, and then right-clicking it to select a different catalogue to boot from. Once you've done this, you're already in and can create/choose a different cataloque to boot from than the (apparently) corrupt one.

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