Lightroom 6 refuses to start / freezes on start

[Added_Order]

A few days ago I upgraded from 5.7 to 6 (standalone, not cloud). At first it was running fine but now I have problems starting the application (Windows 8). It opens but does not show any photos, sidebars etc. and Windows has it down as "not responding". I reinstalled Lightroom 6 and was able to log in once, but after a restart the same issue came up. I have also renamed my catalogue file - after doing that Lightroom starts and asks to create a new catalogue, but once I have done that clicking anywhere causes the programme to freeze again. Therefore I think it is not my catalogue that is to be blamed.

Any suggestions?

[Seabreezeof]

Update, just as I speculated, contacted micosoft, had to delete and reinstall LR6, issue resolved. !!

So if anyone else is having this problem, you now know the resolve.

[dearnold]

I have had multiple phone conversations with Adobe techs -- the second to the last one remoted into my machine, tried several things and promised to call back the next day at 10am after he had done some more research. That was 2 weeks ago!! Earlier this week, I had some time and called back in using the case number; this tech actually listened to me and didn't try to start at the beginning with troubleshooting 101. But, after 2 hours, she was unable to solve the problem. I am now waiting for level 2 techs to call - it's been 48 hours - and, of course, they don't bother to schedule the call. We all are supposed to have nothing to do but wait for them to favor us with their time.

The desktop has a fresh install of Win 7 and almost no programs installed except CC - LR, PS, and Acrobat DC.

I have LR CC running just fine on a travel laptop with win 8.1 - and not as much RAM or as fast a video card as my desktop. 

[LeeEKJr]

Does your laptop have multiple drives?? Probably not. Does your PC have multiple drives, probably. I have 6 drives on my PC and didn’t have any problem with LR 5.7 but I sure did with LR 6. Try this. Remove the cables from all drives except the C drive and run the LR 6. See if that solves the problem. If it does I don’t have a resolution for ‘what next’ but surely Adobe should know why that’s a problem and resolve it. Who programed the software anyway?? LR 6.0 has many other problems but the server busy is the big issue right now.

[dearnold]

My laptop does not have multiple drives.

My desktop has 2 internal drives - the C drive for OS and programs and the D drive for data (the Lightroom catalog resides here).

I usually have one USB drive plugged in; it has been unplugged for several days now and makes no difference to LR CC.

I also have some of my photos on a NAS. It makes no difference if the folder on the NAS is available to the machine before LR is started or not.

Wish I had more options to try.........

[LeeEKJr]

Move the LR6 folder on the D drive to the C drive (temporary). Click on the LR 6 lightroom catalog.lrcat to relocate the catalog and have LR start from C. Disconnect the D drive if it’s a separate drive. ou are doing this to eliminate all Drives except the C. Launch LR 6 and see if that eliminates your problem. If it does at least you can refer your attempt to Adobe Tech. Reconnect the D drive and move LR 6 to the D drive. If that doesn’t work I don’t know what else you can do except wait until Adobe finds a answer.

I would disconnect the NAS too. That way, if you still have the problem, Adobe should know about your tries.

In other words, we are trying to isolate the problem to one drive “C” and one drive only. If the problem still exist then there have to be a problem other than what most users are experiencing with ‘Server Busy’. LR 6 not starting is something different.

[Pete.Green]

Hi all,

Sorry for the trouble getting Lightroom to start successfully.

For the Server Busy/Switch to dialog:

• Does it help if you disable WindowsSearch and Superfetch?
  • Superfetch: http://www.groovypost.com/howto/disable-superfetch-windows/
  • Windows Search: http://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/how-to-permanently-disable-search-indexing-in-windows-8/
  • Note the steps you do here, in case you want to re-enable these services
• Try disconnecting network drives or secondary monitors and see if you still get the same issue
• Try opening Lightroom with a different catalog (Holding Option [mac] or Alt [win] while starting LR prompts to select a catalog)

If looking to re-download Lightroom 6.0.1 and having trouble finding a download link -- head here: Keeping Lightroom Up-to-Date

Let me know if some of these suggestions help (and which ones!)

Regards

Pete

[ElaFraczkowska]

Pete, I keep having 'Lightroom 6 is not responding' issue all the time. Spent many hours on chats with Adobe employees and nothing's changed, finally I was told to go to forums, so there's no customer support ( email icon doesn't work, no phone number you could call on Saturday). The issue, I think, is caused by trial Lightroom CC that ended. I tired using clean tool, installing and reinstallling Lightroom 6, but the problem remains. I think that after signing it to register your product you get Adobe Installer that Installs Adobe Lightroom (so I think Lightroom CC) that then asks you to choose between installing the purchased Lightroom or a trial, not Lightroom 6. Anyway, if I go to downloaded Lightroom 6 folder and run it from there, it still doesn't work from the start is days that is not reposnding. 

[Seabreezeof]

Get on the phone with Adobe monday morning,  they will walk you through it, or will take over your computer from there end, and get things resolved for you

Here's the number 800 833 6687  or  800 585 0774

Good luck !!

[bertdavid]

Upgrading to the latest seems to have fixed it for me. Several restarts later, no issue.

[gabriellap37077481]

I also uninstalled and reinstalled and it seems to have temporarily fixed the problem.  But what about the users above you say that this is only a temporary solution?

[Seabreezeof]

Will have to wait to see if we come across that gabriella, hopefully we dont.

Keep us updated if things change, I will do the same

Happy processing !!

[poochd]

I had the same problem in LR 6 and found out that the problem was related to the program loading the catalog file .

Solution.

I first removed  the Folder Lightroom from the Directory c:user/owner/pictures/lightroom which contained the catalog file (.ircat) and renamed that to Lightroombak

I reinstalled LR6 and when it first ran it asked me which catalog to use so I pointed it to the old LR5 catalog- in Lightroombak

The LR6 converted that to use with LR6 and now uses that as the default catalog

The problem seems to have been solved so I assume that it had something to do with the .ircat or the upgrading of the catalog from LR5 to LR6.

Hope that helps

David

[Doc DJ]

I completely removed LR6 (NOT CC), deleted all preferences, deleted the C:\user\[me]\Pictures folder and re-installed LR6. It still fails with the error "Lightroom has stopped working". This installation is on an ASUS laptop, w/touchscreen, model X200MA, with Intel built-in (on-chip) HD graphics running Windows 10 Pro. LR6 does not get past the splash screen, so I cannot tell it to stop using graphics hardware. I have already turned off hw acceleration in Device Manager. I have spoken with ASUS support and they do not have a newer display driver.

LR6 was running just fine on this machine when I first upgraded from Win 7 to Win 10, but now it fails. It seems to me that an update from Microsoft has caused this problem, but LR6 still runs fine on my desktop (my license allows using it on 2 machines as long as it is not in use on both at the same time.)

My next attempt will be all the above changes PLUS removing the appdata/roaming/Adobe lightroom data entries. I have to be careful not to remove Adobe AIR because another app uses it.

UPDATE: Removing ALL folders & files related to ANY version of LR + uninstalling LR and re-installing did not help. It opened and asked for a place to put the catalog (I selected the default location), but it died as usual

UPDATE 2: Selecting a different location (my documents) for the catalog did not change anything.

[chrish77007514]

I did what Pete said and installed the latest upgrade and it did the trick.

My Lightroom 6.0 stand alone was locking up on the start screen and as soon as I installed the 6.3 upgrade, Lightroom started right up no problem.

[Doc DJ]

I did the upgrade to 6.3 and LR did open and was able to import but when I tried to edit the preferences file, it crashed. At least it gets past the splash screen and can import, but I'm concerned that there are other problems I haven't found.

[20pictures]

I had the warning message 'this action cannot be completed because the other program is busy...'

Reinstalled LR6 with Preferences retained. However, I then noticed that the cardreader (set to autoload) had 2 cards in it. They were removed & LR works fine. The card conflict was probably the cause of my issue.

[dantzu]

upgrade seems to have solved it. startup freeze also came right after trail period for cloud/mobile was over with LR6. seems to work now after upgrade from here: Keeping Lightroom Up-to-Date

[Flex Crush]

Yeah, I'm in the same boat. Full install and it just locks up my PC and have to do a hard reboot.

Ready to kill the planet. Just want my money back at this point. Never had this problem with adobe products but support has made me hate this product. Absolute shit. Just want my money back.

[markl36283385]

I had the same issue as most of you.  Here is how I was able to resolve this issue.

1) I went to the cache folder in Lightroom..SLCache C:\Program Files(x86)\Comman Files\Adobe

2) Opened the folder

3) Deleted the contents

4) Started Lightroom

5) Lightroom displayed authentication window for trial or license

6) Selected License

7) Dialog displays input for license key

8) Entered my Serial Number...(license key...or whatever's it's called

9) Relaunched Lightroom without loading previous catalog ( I locked the drive so it couldn't access it).. May not be nexcess art at this point

10) Lightroom was now behaving.  Reloaded working catalog...so far so good for the last 15 hours...have backed up and relaunched without issues since then.

Mark

[tims82109048]

I have this problem too.  Have uninstalled / deleted the old version and downloaded the latest version of Lightroom, deleted catalogs, caches, disabled the plug-ins and switched off graphics accelerators.  I have a solid state drive so it's not the "disk spinning down". 

This is bulls**t. 

In the past, I would install software on my machine, never update it and it always worked without a problem. This "cloud" crap that constantly installs unstable updates which chew up my data allowance, slow my machine down and cause the application to stop working for weeks / months at a time until a fix is released is a disgrace.

[bernardos41504564]

This is a joke. Keep having the same problem. Already reinstalled it 2x.

I have LR6 (standalone and not the CC) and it doesnt work as well.

Adobe is a mess. Probably will never buy their products again.

Let me know if you find a solution to this.

[peterm73000097]

I deleted the contents of the SLCache and restarted. It asked me to start the trial. And it now loads. I too previously tried pretty much everything prior to this working.....

[Mark Regan - The Regsy]

I have exactly the same issue, mine is the full standalone version, after purchase it ran fine for a few weeks, twice in the last two days it has pulled the loading screen freeze, with Lightroom not responding and no option but to close or wait.  The only way around it is to re-install over the top.  no other option, this is shocking to be honest and even more shocking that Adobe appear to have done nothing to address the issue, if anyone finds a simple solution I await with baited breath.

[sojsoj]

Using this you should be able to install any previous LR release, just download the proper 'base' + 'update' you desire.

I had slightly different problem, not able to get latest LR update through Creative Cloud, but instead getting even older, baseline LR6 release when did reinstall through CC app.

To get the latest version properly installed I tried the Adobe chat help.

But that's useless, took them 2h to guide me through various steps and then finishing the support saying "if the problem not resolve on it's own. please contact us in 12h again". As a paying CC subscriber, you got unqualified support from Adobe, unable to resolve problems with software which Adobe created, and you're on your own.

So based on what Adobe chat gave me, and multiple other internet sources I put together these steps which finally worked for me to get the latest LR installed.

Here you go:

1. go to https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb/lightroom-downloads.html
   • download the full LR installation pack (~700MB)
   • download the update file fo the LR release you want to get to
2. uninstall your current LR intallation
3. install the initial full LR pack (first download ~700MB)
4. if you try to install the update now you will get error saying something in sense that you're not allowed/entitle to upgrade.
   • Go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\AAMUpdaterInventory\1.0
   • Find AdobeUpdaterAdminPrefs.dat
   • Delete (or rename) this file
   • This is Windows path, so if you have Mac just google location of this file.
5. Now the update installation will work.

BTW Adobe: your editor on this forum sucks, jumping up & down across the whole page when typing text, or suing home/end buttons.. you can't get even this right?!

[Scott220438093ehw]

I think Adobe is forcing it to crash/close. When I purchased Adobe Photoshop Elements 2021 and installed it, Adobe installed a whole lot unnecssary garbage. After that, Lightroom stopped working. I since then re-installed Lightroom, and ended up at the same problem. I would start it, it would come up, then it would suddenly close. Well, if I disable my network interface, turns out Lightroom will start up and run just fine.

To me this suggests that Lightroom is probably checking the license server (I am licensed and it shows I am licensed on Adobe's web site), and adobe is responding with something that causes it to die. No error messages, no warnings, no diaglogs. Just closes, and closes gracefully, not a crash. The conspiracy theorist in me says Adobe is doing it on purpose to try and force upgrades to their cloud, which I do not want and will never purchase. I use the product like twice a month at most. Why would I subscribe to something I would barely use. I'll switch to something like ON1, Luminar, or RawTherapee before I purchase their cloud BS. I legitimately purchased this software, as a standalone product, and I should be able to use it.