Crippled Lightroom on MacBook Pro

[Paul Karns]

Dear Adobe... Why the hell did you cripple older Macs (2+ years old) with the latest "improvements" of Lightroom Classic? Seriously. The new AI features were great while they worked, but I'd trade them in a heartbeat for an upgrade that actually served the needs of all users from those with baseline specs to the most expensive models.

Given that I can't upgrade the VRAM without upgrading my computer (not an option when I'm trying to budget for new lenses), does anyone have workarounds to deal with the crash-happy LR12's VRAM issues?

[TheDigitalDog]

If you wish to roll back to an older version, use the Creative Cloud application, click on the three dots (...) and select “Other Versions”.

[Paul Karns]

Cool idea, except that the upgrade also upgraded the catalog... and I've done a lot of work since that time. This means I either lose a ton of photos or try to rebuild it. What's your advice then?

[Jao vdL]

Apparently downgrading to 12.0 instead of 12.0.1 might solve the issue for now so worth a try. That should be able to read your current catalog

[TheDigitalDog]

My advice is go to the backup catalog or move forward. 

[Paul Karns]

Conveniently, the partial step back works... but I see that you're about as useful here as you were on the share button threads.

[Jao vdL]

My main Mac Book Pro machine is 5 years old and all the AI features work just fine. What is happening to yours? It should work on a 2 year old machine - whichever one it is - just fine. Can you put the results of Help->System info?

[Paul Karns]

Interesting. Here's the system info. If I've read the bug reports correctly, there is no solution other than buying a new machine or installing the last version. 

[Jao vdL]

What will it not do and what are the bug reports you are talking about? This machine should work just fine but perhaps not have GPU support for using the GPU for export. Perhaps not super crazy fast but should work. Perhaps I am not aware of an issue.

[Paul Karns]

The issue comes up with the latest upgrade (12.0.1) and masking. When I try to mask anything, LR crashes out. It is apparently a bug with the AI masking that occurs whenever a user has less than 2gb of dedicated memory, and whether or not the user is using the subject-mask function. Downgrading to v12.0 seems to solve the problem without sending me back to an obsolete version of my catalog. 

[Jao vdL]

And can you paste in the result of help->system info?

[Jao vdL]

Ah is it this problem: https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/known-issues.html

"Select People mask crashed on macOS 12 when VRAM is < 2GB."

[Jao vdL]

https://helpx.adobe.com/camera-raw/kb/select-people-mask-crash.html

And this. Very disappointing that a two year old machine would crash like you describe on the select people mask and that the only solution is getting another machine indeed. Sorry I wasn't aware of this.

[Paul Karns]

No worries. I guess I'm just going to have to sell more pictures to afford a new machine AND lenses. 🤷‍:male_sign: