Lightroom hangs on launch and seems to be producing unusable backups

Forum|Forum|2 days ago
July 29, 2026
11 replies
87 views

Windows 11, latest Nvidia studio driver, latest Lightroom Classic version. AMD 5800X, Nvidia 4070TI.

The program has started to hang on launch. It launches as a background app in Windows task manager, and next to whatever Catalog I have asked it to open it will create the usual companion files:

CatalogName.lrcat-shm
CatalogName.lrcat-wal
CatalogName.lrcat-lock

Nothing happens no matter how long I leave it. I have to kill the task, and those 3 files remain. Even though I have Lightroom set to prompt me to select a catalog every time it starts up, no matter what I try it keeps trying to open the catalog it failed to open every time it starts, even if I start it by clicking and entirely different .lrcat file.

The *only* way to get the program to launch at all - even after rebooting Windows - is to remove/rename the .lrcat file it is looking for, and then it will start as normal, get to the splash screen, and create a new empty catalog with CatalogName.lrcat. From there, I can get the program to open another catalog - though some catalogs work and some do not.

For the ones that do not work, I have tried creating new catalogs and importing the photos from the old catalogs - this leads to a bizarre scenario in which all the photos supposedly come in, the correct numbers appear in the browser on the left side, but no matter what folder I select the grid/loupe permanently show “loading...”, and the bottom toolbar insists I have “1 selected” photo, though the filmstrip is empty.

I have a lot of photos in my main catalog - like 90,000 or so. To see if it had something to do with catalog size, I exported a year of photos (maybe 20,000) to a new catalog. That catalog, Catalog2023.lrcat, opened fine the first time. I checked everything, and made a backup when it exited (of course I had test integrity checked). Next time I tried to load Catalog2023.lrcat, it fails. I try to load from the backup I *just made* - it fails too. The program is allegedly testing catalog integrity, but producing catalogs that do not open. And I truly have no clue if it’s the program itself or something within the catalogs, considering some catalogs still open fine.

I have tried clearing preferences, fully reinstalling LRC, both to no avail. This has me feeling utterly insane, any suggestions as to where to tinker would be great.

S

shayb68441784

Inspiring

You are not alone, there’s another thread about this. https://community.adobe.com/questions-675/lightroom-classic-current-version-wont-open-launch-on-windows-11-1628324?tid=1628324&postid=7719122#post7719122

dj_paige

Legend

There are a lot of people reporting that catalogs will not open. Many of these same people report that if you just let the opening process go for hours and hours (one person required 12 hours), then the catalog does open, everything works fine, and that same catalog opens properly after that. I am not aware of an explanation for this.

KR Seals

Community Expert

How long did you let it run?

I had that issue a while back after I built a new computer. One of my ram modules was defective and corrupted the catalog. I’m not saying you have defective ram, but the symptoms are like mine with a corrupt catalog .LrC did that exact same thing because the catalog was corrupt.

Do you have a recent backup you can try?

Ken Seals - Nikon Z 9, Z 8, 14mm-800mm. Computer Win 11 Pro, I7-14700K, 64GB, RTX3070TI. Travel machine: 2021 MacBook Pro M1 MAX 64GB. All Adobe apps.

C

CollinH92Author

Participating Frequently

I let it run for 20 minutes to nothing. On some of the other catalogs it would give me the little toast in the top-middle of the screen that says “Opening CatalogName.lrcat” (it appears in a semi-transparent rounded rectangle). But none of those ever worked.

I was able to avoid data loss by loading a backup of my master catalog I made a few days ago, and thankfully I was able to import the photos I’d worked on in those few days from the catalog that wouldn’t otherwise launch. The import was still able to grab the data, and thus far the combined catalog (based on the backup from a few days ago) is working.

I also just ran a memtest - not a long one - but no errors across 2 passes of the battery of 13 tests they give you.

The problem is that the full master catalog of 90k+ photos takes FOREVER to backup, discouraging me from doing it daily or at least every other working day as I would like to.

What disturbs me is that the smaller catalogs I exported - one for 2023, one for 2024, did not function. They each opened one time, showed a grey blank grid, then the grid got stuck on “Loading...” and insisted I have “1 selected” photo in the filmstrip. Attempting to backup/exit normally would result in a freeze (the backup dialog would have a green zone of a fixed size looping within the progress bar, rather than filling from 0-100% as normal), and attempting to open *any* catalog after that would just see Lightroom trying to open the apparently-damaged catalog in the background until I killed the task and moved the catalog as described above.

KR Seals

Community Expert

I’m happy to hear you got it running. I asked about the time to load, because some users have found that after the catalog upgrade for LrC V15.4.1, the initial catalog load takes hours.

On a machine like yours, the catalog should not take “forever” to backup.

My LrC catalog references 189K photos. I back up every time LrC exits and have the optimize and check integrity boxes checked. The .lrcat file is 3GB and the backup process takes 2:30 minutes. My catalog is on a dedicated high end SSD and backs up to another fast SSD. Do you happen to have your catalog on a hard drive?

Ken Seals - Nikon Z 9, Z 8, 14mm-800mm. Computer Win 11 Pro, I7-14700K, 64GB, RTX3070TI. Travel machine: 2021 MacBook Pro M1 MAX 64GB. All Adobe apps.

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