Lightroom 6 - Sign in required

[_-Chris-_]

Dear community,

Today as often clickedon the LR shortcut towork on my photo but instead of launching normaly, I had the "Adobe Phtoshop Lightroom 6 Sign In " pop up. Than it directly goes to the Phtoshop Lightroom 6 Trial window. I click on License this software, put my Serial Number (bought in 2017) click on "Next" but instead of going to the next step, it reload the "Adobe Phtoshop Lightroom 6 Sign In " pop up.

Did not try to uninstall the software as I am not sure it will help and not sure I won t loose my catalog.

Any clue, on what happened?

Thanks,

Chris

{Moved from Lightroom Cloud to Lightroom Classic Forum by Moderator}

[ManiacJoe]

Uninstalling will not lose any of your files, but I am not sure it will help.

[_-Chris-_]

Thanks, is there a way for me to check with an Adobe Customer Service representant? I have the original mail of the purchase.

[DdeGannes]

Was Lightroom 6 installed on the computer you are working with when you purchased it in 2017?

[_-Chris-_]

Thanks Denis, no it was on a different computer. My lightroom was working fine , I used it on Jan 2nd this year.

[_-Chris-_]

Dear community,

I was away from my computer for a little while so did not follow up on this thread. 

I am still unable to acces lightroom qnd I can t find a way to get intouch with the customer support.

ANy idea, on what I should do?

[DdeGannes]

At Chris, if you purchased the software in 2017 and activated the application on a computer you would have created an Adobe ID to complete registration and activation process. You user name should be the email address that you used, if you do not remember the login password there is a process to change the password.

That is the first process you need to accomplish. Once you are logged in to your account you should be able activate the new computer.

A couple of things you need to be aware of is you are only allowed to have two computers activated at any point in time. You have to have the computer connected online with Adobe to activate or deactivate a computer.

Your serial number should be recorded in your Adobe account.

[_-Chris-_]

Thanks Ddegannes for your time.

Indeed, I have my adobe ID and password, working both fine, i can go in my profile page an see my original purchase with the serial number and my invoice number.

Before I used to clicl on the desctop Lightroom button and the software was launching fine. Now I have to sign in but when I put my adobe ID and my password, I am directed on the Photoshop Lightroom trial page. I click on the  ''License the software '' button, than put my serial number... than the signing window popup again.

Maybe I will do the trial version and try to put the seriql number in 7 days??

[DdeGannes]

That maybe guiding you to the Latest upgrade i.e. Lightroom Classic the subscription app.

You may not wish to do that. You need to get a download for the latest version of Lightroom 6 which is 6.14. The download is no longer available on the Adobe web site.

The download is still available but I do not have the link on my system hopefully another user can assist.

When you get the installer downloaded and run the install then proceed to enter the license key and activate the app. You will need to be connected to the Adobe web site on the internet and signed in to your Adobe account.

It may be necessary to log on to a chat with Adobe staff for assistance, just indicate you wish to activate Lightroom 6 and not upgrade the current Photography plan.

[Aboid26035691hmie]

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[brilliant_Walrus0D44]

I was able to use offline activation. I had to reinstall Lightroom 6 and unplug my computer from the internet before the sign in pop up appeared. Clicked "Having trouble connecting to the internet" and it gave me an offline activation option.  I then plugged in my computer, went to the registration website it linked and put in the response code it generate.  My lightroom sign in isn't looping anymore on Windows 11.

[Eldiin]

This is the way. Chat Support wont be helpful to anyone who has Lightroom Classic 6 Desktop version. They will tell you support has ended and will link support articles that are generally not helpful to the sign-in activation loop we will get. So, here is the step by step process:
BEFORE YOU BEGIN YOU WILL NEED 1 OF THE FOLLOWING

1. A different internet activated device

2. Use same computer Lightroom is installed (if using this option, as a warning, you may have to attempt these steps a few times in order for you to get it right)

STEPS

1. Disconnect your internet from the computer
2. Launch Lightroom Classic 6
3. You will get a prompt that you need to activate your product along with a sign-in button. DO NOT CLICK THAT BUTTON. Instead, on that same pop-up window, there will be a link that says something along the lines of "Having trouble connecting to the internet?". Click this.
4. You will eventually be taken to a place, within that window, to generate a request code. Generate it.
5. On your internet activated device, go to https://aoes-prod.licensingstack.com/aoes/aoes/v1/imsauthstatus (If this is the same computer you disconnected the internet from, go ahead and connect back up to the internet, before visiting the website I linked)
6. On the page that comes up, first box, enter the generated request code you received from step 4.
7. The following 6 boxes to the right of that will be for your serial number... If you place your cursoer in the left most box under the serial number section, and so long as you have your entire serial number copied, you can paste it in without having to do each section (it will fill each section for you). You can get your serial number here: https://account.adobe.com/products
8.  Once the boxes are filled out, on that same page, click the Generate Response Code button, then copy what gets generated
9. Go back to Lightroom. You should have an area to paste in the response code you received in step 8. Do it, then activate your product.

[Bec@B]

THANK YOU so much for your clear instructions, they worked perfectly and I'm so thrilled to have my old 'FREE' lightroom on my new laptop!

[Chead]

Hi Eldin

I too had trouble opening LR6 after installing on a new pc,  followed your above steps and it worked  a treat!!

Thank you so much!!!!!

[Christopher38592899mjxz]

I tired following the same steps but after I entered my request code I kept getting the following

"Sesson Expired

Your session was expired due to inactivity. Please Sign In again.
"

[Eldiin]

I was never met with that when I did this, so I am unfamiliar with how to get around it. However, one thing I did notice is that if I visited https://aoes-prod.licensingstack.com/aoes/aoes/v1/imsauthstatus first, to try and prep things in a way that everything was ready to go, I would get stuck in the process and it would never work. One thing I did, to make things easier, was ensure the link above is not open in any browser tab. Then, I would copy out the request code into notepad, along with my serial number. When I was sure everything was ready, I would then (and only then, visit the above link  and copy stuff over. Copy / Paste ensures you aren't typing anything in incorrectly. Visting the above link only when you are sure you're ready to proceed to this step, also ensures there isnt any hokey pokey crap going on that might prevent you from getting your response code.

 If you're getting a session expired after visiting the webiste and immediately entering all the necessary info, then something else is going on that's most likely unrelated. If you have an adblocker on, maybe try with it disabled, or try a different browser. Might also want to try in ingcognito (any chrome based browsers) or a private tab (firefox).

[Christopher38592899mjxz]

The following is what I've done in the past

- Copy/pasted both the request code and my serial number in notepad

- Disabled my adblocker

- Used both Chrome and FireFox in both regular/incognito mode

- Attempted to repeat the steps for the offline activation

Despite all those steps, I'm still running into the same issue

But I called someone from Adobe and they sent me an Lightroom installer executable since I purchased my license and downloaded the Lightroom 6.0 installer through Amazon

With the new installer, I'm able to run Lightroom (Verson 6.14) but when I try to sign in by going through 'help --> Sign in'

I'm still facing the same issue when it comes to re-logging in every time I run Lightroom

[Eldiin]

Where did you get your first installer? The installer I have and used for the steps I originally outlined, is labeled "Lightroom_6_LS11.exe"

[Christopher38592899mjxz]

I eventually talked to someone from Adobe and they sent me a link to download Lightroom_6_LS11.exe

[Christopher38592899mjxz]

Disregard my last comment
I eventually tried activing my account online and that worked for me

[dj_paige]

@Christopher38592899mjxz 

Thank you for reporting back how it went. I'm sure other users will be glad to know this works.

Do you mean "activating your account OFFline"?

[michaelg61302194]

I was able to complete activation with one slight change (done in Firefox). Load https://aoes-prod.licensingstack.com/aoes/aoes/v1/imsauthstatus and disconnect from the internet. Then enter/paste the generated request code. Enter/paste the serial number in the fields next to it. Once done, connect to the internet and hit Generate Response Code. 

[Michael_SUBPhoto]

2025-05-18 I'm trying these steps and they do work up to that last step.  When I click 'Generate Response Code' the browser says "Session expired due to inactivity" and asks me to log in again. This creates a nice loop where I can do the steps repeatedly but can't seem to generate a code.

Not sure anyone can solve this, just saying it's what I'm going through. Will update if I can fix. 

[gerardc28176861]

I have the same problem. I get the "Session expired due to inactivity" message. When I click on "sign-in" it logs me back in, automatically, indicating that the session had not actually expired.

[dj_paige]

It would seem that this server has been disabled somehow, as no one can get this step to work any more. So Lr 6 cannot be installed. Based on the response from @gerardc28176861 below, it does work.

Which means that you should consider upgrading Lr 6 to Lightroom Classic 14 (and you get a huge number of useful new features as well); or time to consider non-Adobe software that will do what you want.