Develop Module not working (grey screen), folders not found, no import possible, no metadata

[Tinny1986]

Today I updated Lightroom from version 11.2 to 11.4.1. The reason I am still at version 11.2 is that all newer versions of Lightroom don't work on my desktop either. This all started with version 11.3.

After updating Lightroom from version 11.2 to 11.4.1 there are again several problems occuring in the software for which I really don't know what to do anymore. Lightroom used to work fine but since version 11.3 it seems like a downward path...

The following problems occur:

1) the folders are greyed out in the library module. It takes over an hour before the folders are not greyed out an look "normal". When I click on one of the folders I can see the photos but it takes a very long time (over 5 minutes) to load one photo and see the photo in full magnification (without pixels showing up). After closing Lightroom and reopening it, all folders are again greyed out and the whole process starts again.

2) Metadata and histogram are not shown in the library module. Even after I can see the photo in full magnification the metadata and histrogram are still not shown.

3) I cannot import any photos. When I click on "import photos and videos" and navigate to the corresponding folder, select all photos and click on "import", nothing happens. No photos are imported and the option "import photos and videos" is greyed out and cannot be selected for a second time. Only after restarting Lightroom I can try it again (without any result by the way...).

4) When I click on the develop module, I can use it for approx. 5 seconds before everything freezes. I can jump back to the librabry module where I can navigate through my photos and see all photos. Switching back to the develop module only shows a grey screen. Nothing seems to happen. All develop sliders are greyed out. Even after an hour of waiting nothing happens.

I tried following without results:

1) I disabled the GPU in Lightroom. Closed the application. Shut down the computer. Turned it on again and opened Lightroom. All problems are still present.

2) Switching back on the GPU in Lightroom. This does not solve any of the problems either.

2) I updated all drivers on my computer:

     a) latest GeForce RTX 3060 drivers (Version 516.93, release date 26-07-2022)

     b) latest AMD drivers (4.06.10.651)

     c) all windows 11 updates.

None of the updates solved the problem.

3) I cleared all camera raw cache. This didn't do anything.

Going to older versions of Lightroom only works for version 11.2. All other versions (11.3, 11.3.1, 11.4) do not work on my system and give similar problems like version 11.4.1. At the moment I can only use the version 11.2 which works completely normal.

System Info:

Windows 11 Home 64-bit

AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 8 Core 3.8 GHz

64 GB Ram

NVIDEA GeForce RTX 3060

I hope someone can help me. I am currently paying for something that doesn't work at all and I am slowly losing hope here...

Best regards,

Martin

[GoldingD]

One possibility you did not mention in what you have attempted is to reset the preference file. The preference file can get corrupted leading to odd behavior. The preference file does not get changed during updates, upgrades, uninstall, or reinstall, unless it is deleted on purpose. When you reset the preference file, Lightroom Classic will create a new one upon launch. Note that many if not  all preferences will be reset to defaults

[Tinny1986]

Hi GoldingD,

thank you for your suggestion. I just tried it out but unfortunately without any success. I used the method with "press and hold the Shift + Alt keys" when launching Lightroom Classic. And I used the manual way by going to the Adobe\Lightroom\Preferences folder and manually delete the preferences file. However,  both methods didn't work. I even did a restart of my pc inbetween hoping that would do something.

I also did a complete deinstallation of Lightroom Classic, Photoshop and Camera Raw. Afterwards I just installed Lightroom Classic (like a clean install) but even then the Version 11.4.1 is giving the same problems I described above.

I have the impression that the Develop Module works for the first 10 seconds after opening the module. During that time I am able to click through my photos in the develop module. After about 10 seconds the photo "freezes". When I click on another photo, the screen is not updated and the little preview window is also not updated. When I hoover my cursor over one of the photos, the preview is changed but clicking on one of the photos doesn't update the main view neither the little preview window.

These problems start with version 11.3 and upwards. Everything seems fine with version 11.2. Unfortunately I am slowly running out of ideas.

[Jao vdL]

Do you get the same problem with a fresh catalog with just a few pictures imported?

[Tinny1986]

Hi Jao vdL,

Thank you for your response.

In the meantime I managed to solve the problem. However, I don't know what the exact cause was.

First I removed the "previews.lrdata" file to another directory. I opened lightroom so it would make a new preview file. However, this didn't solve the problem so I deleted the new "previews.lrdata" file and put back the original one.

Then I thought about your comment. In my current catalog there are three types of hard drives connected. Therefore I tried to see if it was a problem with just my main hard drive or if I also experience the problem with my other hard drives in my catalog. As one of the hard drives is a NAS-Server I manually connected to my NAS in windows explorer. Then I opened Lightroom and navigated to the NAS folder. Suddenly everything worked fine. When I then navigated back to my main hard drive everything worked normal here as well. 

I don't know if this really was the solution to my problem but since then, all problems in Lightroom are gone and I am able to use the latest Lightroom version without restrictions (first time since three to four months). Even without connection to my NAS, everything works fine now. It seems that Lightroom had to make contact once to avoid getting stuck somewhere.

Anyway, thanks again for all the support!