Lightroom crashes on launch on Mac OS 14.6.1

[byrnegerard]

I've just yesterday subscribed to Adobe after many years of avoiding it. Lightroom Classic quits on launch on my 2023 M2 Mac Mini. I've tried a few things like this:

Reset Procedure:

1. Close Lightroom.

2. Hold down [Alt/Opt]+[Shift] while restarting Lightroom.

3. Overwrite the Preferences when prompted by the dialog.

4. Close Lightroom.

5. Restart Lightroom.

Clean Lightroom Install Procedure

1. Close Lightroom
2. Restart the computer
3. Use the Adobe Creative Cloud App to uninstall Lightroom
4. Restart the computer
5. Install Lightroom via the Creative Cloud App without launching any other programs.
6. Restart the computer
7. Launch Lightroom
8. Wait 5 minutes

I also tried to follow some instructions on disk access permissions - not sure if that worked. I'm not sure what to try now. I'm using the latest versions of the OS and the application. 

[GoldingD]

First up, can you clarify what Adobe Plan you have subscribed to, likely possibilities:

Photography Plan

Lightroom Plan

Creative Cloud

[byrnegerard]

I have the Photography Plan.

[GoldingD]

Can you use your MACOS Finder, to show where your catalog is located, And share a screenshot of that.

[byrnegerard]

[byrnegerard]

I have not been able to launch the new install successfully, yet. So I have no idea of what Lightroom Catalog it might be trying to access. A finder search reveals only one folder of "Lightroom Catalog" files - in dropbox. These 17 catalogs are each drive specific, and from a previous installation of the software from a few years ago. 

[GoldingD]

Adobe does not support placing the catalog on the cloud. That includes Dropbox.

In Finder, search on .lrcat

[byrnegerard]

The catalogs are not on the cloud. They are stored locally on my startup disk in my Dropbox folder, and synced to be available to my laptop. 

[GoldingD]

I also tried to follow some instructions on disk access permissions 

This?:

• Quick Tips: How to give Full Disk Access to Lightroom Classic on macOS

[byrnegerard]

Yes that is the article I looked at. I wasn't sure if I followed the instructions correctly, and now I see why. They are very poorly written.

Point  1. asks me to go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > and yet the accompanying illustration shows System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Accessibilty >! Neither match the interface on OS 14.6.1 which is firstly called "System Preferences > Privacy & Security >" and when I look for "System Preferences > Privacy & Security > Accessibility >" the dialogue box says 'Allow the applications below to control your computer". which is again different to what's in the box. Likewise there is mention of "Unlocking" and "Locking" the settings in order to save changes. In my actual system settings interface, there are no locks. Nevertheless I tried to interpret from instructions to actual system preferences and I will now reboot and try to relaunch. Hold tight!

[byrnegerard]

No success. Quits after a quick glimpse of the splash screen. Here's a quote from the "Problem Report" which will automatically be sent to Apple:

Crashed Thread: 0 CrBrowserMain Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread

Exception Type: EXC_BREAKPOINT (SIGTRAP)
Exception Codes: 0x0000000000000001, 0x000000018b05b758

Termination Reason: Namespace SIGNAL, Code 5 Trace/BPT trap: 5
Terminating Process: exc handler [696]

[GoldingD]

As a diagnostic, you can attemt to create a new catalog upon starting LrC. When you do so, a dialog should come up prompting for what recent catalog to open, or create a new one. Not a MACOS user anymore, so hopefully the following is correct:

At the MAC, press and hold down the OPTION key, and click on the LrC startup icon.

[byrnegerard]

As I said above, I have not been able to launch Lightroom successfully, despite multiple efforts. I get a splash screen which disappears after about a second, and a crash report pops up immediately. There is never a moment when it is launched. I never get to the interface let alone get into diagnostics. 

[GoldingD]

Contact Adobe. To accomplish that bring up an Adobe webpage, and click on the Chat button. This will start a Chat. In the Chat include a description of the issue, The info in your discussion should work. And include a link to your discussion. You may want to have all that in a text file before starting the chat just to be more efficient at it. After that, be assertive in requesting an actual Adobe Tech join in the chat, and/or ask for a phone call.

For example, bring up:

https://helpx.adobe.com/contact.html

And click on the Chat button (typically bottom right corner)

[byrnegerard]

Thanks for your help. I guess I'll be escalating this - which isn't a great start to a new subscription, given I very rarely have software stability issues on this machine. 

[byrnegerard]

Just to wrap up this thread. I did contact Adobe, and after getting past the Bot help I got somebody who fixed the issue. It took a while and involved leaving them with remote access to my machine. Various preferences were trashed, several reboots happened, and eventually everything with "Adobe" in the name on my machine was trashed. But eventually it worked.