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Inspiring
April 5, 2018
Answered

Lightroom crashes when Preferences is clicked

  • April 5, 2018
  • 1 reply
  • 1679 views

I did try searching for the answer first, but only came across older answers that applied to Windows. I'm currently using a Mac (High Sierra OS 10.13.4).

Does anyone have any ideas?

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer johnrellis

I did find the correct pref file, and yeah, rebooted after tossing it. Tossed ALL lightroom prefs (there was an old one from 2015 or something).  I just tried your terminal suggestion, but that failed as well. Still crashed immediately upon opening.

Just for the hell of it, I tried creating a new Admin User, and then opening Lightroom there. It worked. So something bad happened between HighSierra and Adobe, and it's tied to that particular user. wth?


Just for the hell of it, I tried creating a new Admin User, and then opening Lightroom there. It worked. So something bad happened between HighSierra and Adobe, and it's tied to that particular user. wth?

Interesting. Perhaps permissions on some home folder (e.g. Library) got corrupted or accidentally changed. You could try repairing the permissions:

Resolve issues caused by changing the permissions of items in your home folder - Apple Support

1 reply

Inspiring
April 5, 2018

After reading about the latest update of Lightroom crashing for various other reasons, I tried a few of the suggested remedies.

1) Looking for Library > Logs > CrashReport. No such folder exists on my system.

2) Resetting Preferences. Opened Lightroom via Option + Shift. Select "Reset." Lightroom immediately crashes.

3) Turn off GPU via Preferences. But clicking Preferences is what's causing it crash.

johnrellis
Legend
April 6, 2018

You can delete the preferences file manually -- see here for its location: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/how-do-i-reset-lightrooms-preferences/

After deleting the file, you must reboot your computer before restarting LR, since Macos caches the preferences on behalf of LR.

Inspiring
April 6, 2018

Just for the hell of it, I tried creating a new Admin User, and then opening Lightroom there. It worked. So something bad happened between HighSierra and Adobe, and it's tied to that particular user. wth?

Interesting. Perhaps permissions on some home folder (e.g. Library) got corrupted or accidentally changed. You could try repairing the permissions:

Resolve issues caused by changing the permissions of items in your home folder - Apple Support


Resetting permissions did the trick!

Thanks a ton for all your help, John!