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S
stanhu
Participant
November 30, 2019
Question

Lightroom 6.14 stops working on MacOS Catalina (10.15.1) after exiting and relaunching

  • November 30, 2019
  • 2 replies
  • 1010 views

On MacOS Catalina, I've found that after using Migration Assistant to transfer Lightroom v6.14 from Mojave onto a MacBook Pro 16" running Catalina, Lightroom v6.14 runs fine until I exit the program. After exiting, Lightroom crashes at startup after flashing the logo.

 

A workaround I've found: Restore a backup of /Library/Application Support/Adobe from the Mojave machine:

 

tar cvf ~/adobe-lightroom-support.tar /Library/Application\ Support/Adobe

 

Copy this file onto the Catalina machine. If Lightroom fails to start, I just untar the files again:

 

cd /

sudo tar xvf ~/adobe-lightroom-support.tar

 

I'm not sure why this is required, but I think this is something that needs to be fixed.

 

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    2 replies

    H
    herb2k
    Participant
    June 30, 2020

    I was able to fix this by installing the Creative Cloud desktop app.


    For anyone searching, it would also keep working if you updated the AAM (Adobe Application Manager) to the Creative Cloud App prior to upgrading to Catalina (but seems to work just fine if you miss this step, and need to install it after upgrading).

     

    Enjoy!

     

      Sahil.Chawla
      Adobe Employee
      Sahil.Chawla
      Adobe Employee
      November 30, 2019

      Hi there,

       

      Lightroom 6.14 itself is 64-bit, but the installer and licensing code are 32-bit. If it’s already installed, Lightroom 6.14 may continue to work, but you won’t be able to install, uninstall or reactivate it. For these reasons, Adobe does not recommend using it on Catalina and it is not supported on Catalina.

      If you’re still on Lightroom 6 or earlier, you have two options: You can stay on macOS Mojave (10.14) or earlier and Lightroom will continue to work as it does at the moment. If you want to update to Catalina safely (without the worry of it not working if you need to reinstall) then it’s time to subscribe to the Photography Plan. Lightroom Classic still runs on your computer, just like Lightroom 6, but it’s just paid on subscription instead of a one-off cost. Here are the changes since Lightroom 6.

      Please have a look at this article for more info: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/lightroom-macos-catalina-compatibility/

       

      Regards,
      Sahil

      S
      stanhuAuthor
      Participant
      November 30, 2019

      Thanks, I'm aware of the 32-bit and 64-bit issues. I did want to bring attention to the fact that I couldn't get Lightroom v6.14 to work after exiting without recopying the support files again.

       

      That's not an ideal situation, but I also wasn't able to install Lightroom Classic (or Lightroom Creative Cloud) on Catalina. The installer got stuck at 6% and never went higher than that after hours of waiting. I tried this several times and attempted to use the Adobe Creative Cloud Install Cleaner to no avail.

       

      I also wanted to point out that buyers of the new 16" MacBook Pro don't have the option of downgrading to Mojave; Catalina is required to support this latest hardware.  I hope Adobe rushes out an update to fix the install issue.

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