Lightroom 5 unable to install on Catalina

[Digger Drew]

Hi! Adobe tech support suggested I post my problem here.  I have had Lightroom 5 installed on my Macbook Pro since 2015, version 5.0, multiple platform.  I purchased a new iMac Pro with macOS Catalina, version 10.15.2, and wanted to install my registered Lightroom 5 on the new machine. After explaining to the tech, he gave me a link to install Lightroom 5.7.1

Drew please go through the below link you will be able to download Lightroom 
http://trials.adobe.com/AdobeProducts/legacy/99CABBAC-C975-4A06-8D99-064C6871EE80/LTRM/5_7_1/osx10/L...
Please let me know once you are able to use it.

Gratefully, I installed it and when I tried to launch I got a configuration error:

Please uninstall and reinstall the product.
If this problem still occurs, please contact Adobe technical support for help, and mention the error code shown at the bottom of this screen.
Error: 16
http://www.adobe.com/support/

Help would be appreciated.  Thank you.

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[John T Smith]

Catalina is 64bit only, so if that program is not 100% 64bit it will not work

[JohanElzenga · Accepted solution]

The Adobe tech should have known better. While Lightroom 5 may run on MacOS Catalina if it is already installed when you upgrade the OS, you cannot install Lightroom 5 on a Mac running MacOS Catalina. The installer is 32bits and MacOS Catalina does not support 32 bits applications anymore.

[johnrellis]

To build on John's reply, LR 5 is mostly 64-bit, but the installer is 32-bit and won't run on 10.15 (Catalina).  You could try copying the entire /Applications/Adobe Lightroom folder (I forget its exact name in the face of Adobe marketing's constant churn) from your old computer to your new one. In general, copying the app folder often works for me (but not always). And it's very possible that features of LR 5 will stop working (e.g. video playback).

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[JohanElzenga]

That might work to get Lightroom running, but I would expect that you will run into problems nevertheless, because Lightroom would want to check your registration number (because this is a new machine) and that part is also 32 bits.

[Digger Drew]

Thank you for the insight.  I see what you are saying.  Since this is a brand new machine what would you recommend I do?  Is there any way to acquire a desktop version of Lightroom without a monthly subscription?

[JohanElzenga]

Like John said, you could try copying the Lightroom application to your new machine. I doubt it will work, but it can't hurt to try it. If it does not work then you are out of options. There is no other way to get a perpetual license version installed on Catalina.

[johnrellis]

You might as well try copying /Applications/Adobe Lightrom to your new machine to see if it works. 

Lightroom, both the Classic and cloud versions, is only available via a subscription, unfortunately.  

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[Akash Sharma]

Moving to Get-Started community.

[yannisr]

I have a certain suggestion for Digger Drew's problem.  I'm running LR5 without any issues on Mojave - My suggestion therefore is to downgrade from Catalina to Mojave and install and run LR5 without any issues at all.  You may even decide to stay with Mojave as it is a very good operating system (also keeping iTunes!) and upgrade to Catalina after you are no longer using LR5. 

Hope this helps. 

[therealmpj]

Hardware: June 2020 purchased, 2019 retina iMac which came with Catalina preinstalled.

Hi. I followed the link and got the Lightroom 5.7.1 dmg. Installed okay but then got Error: 16. However, I had archived my original Lightroom 5.7 dmg from December 2014. That installed and opened, despite lapsed certificate. All working fine, except of course the map module 😞

This five and a half year old Installer can't be 32bit. The software it installed is "Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.7 Build 991162."

Adobe say the software is up to date so I don't know what the .1 stands for in their DMG 5.7.1 Maybe the problem lies there. Hope this is of help.