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Michael J. Hoffman
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 19, 2023
Answered

Lightroom Classic won't open in W11

  • March 19, 2023
  • 6 replies
  • 3193 views

I've been running LR Classic 12.2.1 since it came out. Today I have a problem that is stumping me. Any ideas are welcome!

 

I was using LR Classic this morning, imported some photos, sis some edits. I closed LR to do some other tasks. When I tried to open it again, seemed like nothing was happening. Looking at task manager, I could see there was an Adobe Lightroom Classic app running in the background. No icon in the taskbar, no visible window, but the lock files were present in my catalog folder.

 

Tried killing it, restarting, always with the same results.

Tries deleting the lock files. No change.

Tried restrating my computer, and completely shutting down, same results.

Tried uninstalling and resinstalling from the Creative Cloud Desktop app.

Tried deleting preferences.

Tried rolling back to 12.1 with the Creative Cloud desktop app.

 

Still no joy, and still the same results. Ideas?

 

I'm running W11 Home, 22H2, OS Build 22621.1413

Intel 12th gen i7-12700KF @ 3.61 GHz

32Gb RAM

Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3070 8Gb VRAM

Nvidia Studio Driver v 528.49

 

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Michael J. Hoffman

Yes, I read about these types of things and often help, but haven't had something like this happen to myself. I'm reinstalling everything now after CC Cleaning. Will report back on any updates.

 


OK. Well, I've cleaned everything out and reinstalled, and it is working again and back up and running with my regular catalog of 130k images. Now comes the painful part of reinstalling all my third party software that hooks into the "open with" or "Edit with" functionality in Lightroom and filter functions in Photoshop.

 

Steps to fix (from the post by @AxelMatt that was also linked by @Ian Lyons )

 

 

 

6 replies

GoldingD
Legend
March 19, 2023
Participating Frequently
April 13, 2023

Once again Ligtroom will not open.It was fine yesterday and now the problem has reinvented itself. I wait in hope.  

Ian Lyons
Community Expert
Community Expert
April 13, 2023

You may be experiencing the issue described in below linked thread. You should follow the steps in the pinned reply just below the first post. Let us know if your issued is resolved or not.

 

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-lrc-12-2-1-fails-to-start-launch-or-is-extremely-slow-launching/idi-p/13673512

 

 

Participant
March 19, 2023

Same issue here, but on Windows 10. Tried every "solution" under the sun, with no success. What a PITA.. every other program works except for LrC, including its LR CC counterpart! Was just using it 24 hours ago. 

Participating Frequently
March 19, 2023

I do have exactly the same issues. It is only LR classic not working but any other Adobe App is running perfectly.

It happened just after updating.

Hence it seems this is sort of a problem with this update?

Ian Lyons
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 19, 2023
Michael J. Hoffman
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 19, 2023
quote

@Michael J. Hoffman

 

Is your issue the same or similar to this one https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/lightroom-classic-12-1-does-not-launch-on-windows-11-feeling-desperate/m-p/13660135

 

By @Ian Lyons

 

Almost identical. I've tried manually changing the prefs to disable GPU, and deleted the Camera Raw GPU prefs as well. I suppose there isn't much left to try except the CC Cleaner... real pain, as I'll have to reinstall all my plugins to all my apps. Grrrr.

 

Worst part is, LR was chugging away merrily this morning. Then it wasn't. Very bizarre.

Ian Lyons
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 19, 2023

We seem to get clusters of these weird app/catalog lockouts every now and again. On some occasions forcing LrC to open the 'Catalog Selection' window at launch (i.e. hold Option/Alt key down at launch) helps.

Michael J. Hoffman
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 19, 2023

For what it's worth, I also (unsuccessfully) tried this, which involves refreshing the VC++ redistributables:

Lightroom doesn't launch on Windows (adobe.com)

 

And this, which involves deleting the SLCache and SLStore folders, and signing out and back in to Creative Cloud:

Lightroom Classic Not opening : Lightroom (reddit.com)

Ian Lyons
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 19, 2023

The Adobe Help document describing the procedure for checking whether the SLCache, etc is the culprit can be found at https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/lightroom-not-launching-after-splash-screen.html

 

AxelMatt
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 19, 2023

The first thing that you should try is to switch off the GPU support from the Lightroom preferences and check if that helps to fix the issue.

Go to Lightroom > Preferences > Performance tab > Uncheck "Use Graphics Processor" > Restart Lightroom.

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/troubleshoot-gpu.html

If Lightroom doesn't start correctly the please see "Solution 2" in the document behind the link below.

Troubleshoot GPU issues | Lightroom Classic (adobe.com)

 

If this doesn't help try to start LR with a new catalog.

Press and hold the Alt key (Option key on a Mac), then launch Lightroom. Keep the Option key pressed until a dialog appears with the option to create a new catalog.

 

Another try is to create a new user account with Admin rights. Check LR with this account.

 

 

My System: Intel i7-8700K - 64GB RAM - NVidia Geforce RTX 3060 - Windows 11 Pro 25H2 -- LR-Classic 15 - Photoshop 27 - Nik Collection 8 - PureRAW 6 - Topaz Photo AI
Michael J. Hoffman
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 19, 2023

Yes, I did the Alt-Shift-Launch which is the same as deleting preferences. Tries it both ways.

 

I'll try the alternate user account and see if that gives me anything different.

 

Michael J. Hoffman
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 19, 2023

Here you can see that the process is running, although there are no visible wondows and no icon in the task bar. The process is quite active, as the memory usage continues to bounce up and down between about 3Gb and 6Gb over time.