Cannot JPEG export from Lightroom Classic in a MacBook Pro M3 Max Chip with 48GB Memory, 1 TB SSD

Report · Oct 06, 2025

I didn't have the JPEG problem in the past. Everything was working just fine.

But tonight, I suddenly cannot do a simple task of exporting from Sony RAW files to JPEG.

I have exported thousand of JPEG files from the latest (updated) Lightroom Classic with my MacBook Pro M3 Max Chip with 48GB Memory and 1TB SSD. There are plenty of hard-drive storage in my SSD MacBook Pro and my SSD external Hard-Drive.

I don't know what happen, but now suddenly cannot do any JPEG Export at all. I resstarted my MacBook Pro and restarted my Lightroom Classic, but it's still not working. Please see the error file below (attachment). I also had the latest MacBook iOS updates and Lightroom Classic latest updates.

The JPEG Export was working just fine this morning and it was also working just fine for the last few years.
I don't know why suddenly the JPEG Export stopt working. Please help.

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Where to (which folder) do you want to export? Maybe Lightroom Classic does not have permissions to write to that folder.

-- Johan W. Elzenga

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I also had the latest MacBook iOS updates and Lightroom Classic latest updates.

It would really help if you gave us the NUMBER of your OS and the NUMBER of LrC, instead of words like "latest". Right now LrC is not officially certified for OS 26 (Tahoe), and perhaps this is why the behavior has changed. Or it may be something simple like permissions as said above.

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The unhelpful error message "There was an unknown error" can occur when there's some problem with LR using the GPU for export.

1. Please do the LR menu command Help > System Info and copy/paste the entire contents here so we can see exactly which versions of hardware and software LR thinks you're running and important LR options that are set.

2. Try setting Preferences > Performance > Use Graphics Processor to Off. Do errors on export occur?

3. If the exports complete without error, try setting Preferences > Performance > Use Graphics Processor to Custom and unchecking Use GPU For Export.

Don't be tempted to skip immediately to step 3. LR's GPU preference settings are just hints that LR doesn't always obey.

Other reports of that error message:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/arw-export-issue-on-mac-m3-pro-resolved...

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/lightroom-classic-export-error/m-p/1531...

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/unknown-error-exporting-photos/m-p/1530...

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-export-fails-with-error-dialog-when-lens-blu...

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/exporting-photo-s/m-p/14199166

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Your error message only shows one ARW file. Do others work or do all exports fail?