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johngersh
Participating Frequently
June 19, 2013
Answered

Lightroom 5 slideshow shows a black screen

  • June 19, 2013
  • 27 replies
  • 30401 views

When I preview or play a slideshow in Lightroom 5 I see a black screen. I've tried it using various settings, images, lengths, and with the show saved or unsaved, all with the same result. In a preview I can see the show advancing through the slides; all remain black.

Sometimes (unpredictably) the screen isn't black, but rather two colors or color washes separated diagonally.

There are no videos in the shows. (A black screen for a slideshow with a video as the first slide is a known issue mentioned in the Lightroom Journal.)

Exporting to pdf works properly. An exported video shows as a black screen.

(Mac Pro, OS X 10.7.5, Radeon X1900 XT video card)

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Craignnhg

Hi

I had the slideshow black screen too.  I fixed it by checking (when slideshow is open) Template Browser on

left of screen and selecting "Default +"  click on it, it does not highlight so maybe I unchecked it somehow.

Prior to that I cleaned the computer fans so the video card would run cool.

27 replies

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D
davida83717947
Participant
April 28, 2015

I have the same problem (as many others). New computer, way more processing power / graphics card power / memory than Lightroom requires. How many people having problems are using a secondary screen (TV?) to display their slideshow? I saw at least one other person mention that. I feel my slideshow seems to work fine on my monitor (at least in a few tests), but when I slideshow on my TV, many times the images don't display (it'll skip one or a few). It's very odd.

mariarose
mariarose
Participant
January 16, 2015

Purchased Lightroom 5.2 last week.  I have the same black screen problem when attempting to use the slideshow feature.  I do not have any special characters in my username.  My OS is Windows 7.  Sometimes, a white border outline of the photo appears, but usually just a black screen.

ssprengel
ssprengel
Inspiring
January 16, 2015

It’s possible something has been fixed since LR 5.2 came out, so the first thing to try is update to LR 5.7.1 from the Adobe Updates page or via the CC Desktop application if you went with the Cloud Photography Bundle:

http://www.adobe.com/downloads/updates

    mariarose
    mariarose
    Participant
    January 16, 2015

    Thank you very much for your response ssprengel and for the links you provided.  I'll give it a try ... crossing my fingers. 

    TOimages
    TOimages
    Participant
    December 15, 2014

    Same problem here on Windows 7, no special characters on name. I got only the black screen and the export process stalls forever till you cancel it.

    A
    Anonymous
    January 3, 2015

    If you look at the first post of this forum, you will see this problem started as soon as the product was released in 2003, today is 2015.

    Users tried everything, including ask the Pope to bless the product, still not working.

    As if Adobe do not recognize this problem. There is nothing we users can do other than avoid products from Adobe. However, I don't think Adobe #$@#^ care.

    S
    StevenUK
    Participant
    July 10, 2014

    Hi


    I recently upgraded from LR4 to LR5.5 and today encountered the same issue of black screen when selecting a set of photos and pressing the slideshow play button for the first time.  Previously, I had not used the slideshow feature in LR4 so not a problem.
    After checking the slideshow settings I realised the program installation had set 'Playback' manual slideshow section to Sliders (0 seconds) and Fade (2.5 seconds).  Changing sliders to say 6 seconds, the slideshow and music works fine on Windows 7 64bit. I just wondered if other people on this forum had been caught out with the same setting problem?

    G
    GHP1
    Participant
    July 10, 2014

    I was able to fix the problem by replacing my motherboard, processor, RAM, and video card.

    jsk09
    jsk09
    Inspiring
    June 11, 2014

    Just bought a new laptop as I was having the same issue with LR5.4. Fresh install, new computer and still, the slide show will run and then a number of slides will be blanked out then after a minute or two, slides will come back all the while the sound track is playing. I've changed timing, went to zero transition, changed slide sequence. no change. and it's random. I've now invested another $600 and can't present a slide show in LR5.....Not a happy camper

    fleping
    fleping
    Participating Frequently
    June 26, 2014

    Hi jsk09,

    Do you playing slideshow in preview mode? If you playing slideshow in preview mode, I mean the filmstrip is shown, the slideshow maybe to blank after playing few minutes. This is an known issue. Would you please try to play the slideshown in full screen mode? Thanks.

    jsk09
    jsk09
    Inspiring
    June 26, 2014

    Hi fleping,

    I ran the show in the "Run" mode, full screen attached to a TV via HDMI cable. I am using LR V5.5 running on a Windows 8.1 Dell laptop. What is confusing is that when I ran it the first time on one TV, it blanked out several slides while the sound track kept on. Then I ran it again a couple times and it was perfect. I took the show to a gathering and clicked on the saved slide show in library collections, LR went to the slide show module. When I hit play, it had to render all of the slides again, then the show ran in full screen, again missing about 4 slides. The bad part was I was showing how well the slide module works in LR5...... If there is something I need to do or set while creating the show other than what I did, any insight would be great. Thanks.

    EMSI68219
    EMSI68219
    Inspiring
    February 21, 2014

    I had the same problem with my Windows System. My Windows Login User Name was (René van der Voorden) before and contains a special charakter (the french é). The Slideshows option only shows a black screens. Now I created a new User called (RVDV) with no special characters  like (é). Now Slideshows are working fine. Maybe this will also help with the MAC?

    T
    TJAsher
    Participating Frequently
    October 13, 2013

    I too have this issue. The slideshow has not worked in any version of Lightroom 5 from the beta up through 5.2. I even tried the new calatlog thingy described above to no avail.

    Mac Pro - dual 3GB Quad core Xeon processors, 16GB RAM, OSX 10.7.5 and a Radeon 1900XT video card.

    What annoys me the most is no acknowledgement from Adobe on the problem and no fix at all.


    Lightroom 4 slideshow works fine, Lightroom 5 does not. What gives here, Adobe?

    B
    BirdLives_
    Participant
    February 20, 2014

    I'm having this problem in my trial period of 5.3.  Shutting LR down and reopening seemed to resolve it, for now at least.

    Adobe . . . do you care?  It looks like the problem was there in 5.1, and is still there in 5.3.  It will certainly factor into my decision whether to purchase the upgrade from 4.

    EMSI68219
    EMSI68219
    Inspiring
    September 26, 2013

    Problem exists since June and still not fixed? Is there no workaround for it?

    J
    johngershAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    September 26, 2013

    As I suspected, the problem seems to depend on the hardware configuration. I just got a new MacBook Pro. I installed LR 5.2 and the slideshow works fine there.

    EMSI68219
    EMSI68219
    Inspiring
    September 26, 2013

    Same here with LR 5.2, NVIDEA GeForce GTX 560 Ti, Driver 327.23, WIN7 X64, 32 GB RAM.

    W
    witkacy
    Known Participant
    September 18, 2013

    The problem still there after 5.2. Slideshow of ~40k of photos: impossible, filtered down to ~4k: impossible, to ~500: possible, although extremely slow to start. It all worked fine (if a bit slow) in previous versions. Win 7 64bit SP1, 18GB RAM, GTX 660.  Regards m.

    J
    johngershAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    September 18, 2013

    Problem's still there on my Mac, too. No fix in 5.2 (There was no fix in the RC, so that's not surprising.) It's even worse, actually. If you choose another module while the (blank) sildeshow's running, the black rectangle of the blank show remains on top of all the other modules. The only way to remove it is to quit LR and restart it.

    R
    rics-XeaXtq
    Participant
    September 20, 2013

    I was having the same issue until I adjusted the timing in the Playback section then it started to work. It seems leaving everything set to the default may have been causing the issue. I created a 274 image slideshow, dropped the Slides timing to 3.5 seconds and the Fades to 1.5 seconds and it now works.

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