Inspiring

Answered

Lightroom Keeps Freezing

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
May 6, 2023
13 replies
6448 views

Lightroom 12.3 has become unuseable this afternoon. It keeps freezing. It doesn't respond to anything I try to do with my mouse. All other apps are working fine. I can't even exit the program and have to use Task Manager to quit Lightroom. I tried rebooting my Windows 11 computer but that doesn't help. As soon as I start Lightroom it freezes. Can someone please help.

Windows

Correct answer bob frost

I learn't this some time ago, so now when I do backups of all my LR folder (using xxcopy), I include the prefs file so I can always go backwards to prefs files that worked.

bob Frost

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Tokidokin

Participant

Hello there.

I had these problems always when a new version came up from LRC.
This time I had ready drivers, and updates all over my computer., yes AMD based.
This time when it freezed I tried all old tricks, it didn't work so I just let it freezed-switched on. After time (15min) some screens about updating catalog came, and freom there everything worked alright.
Is it possioble that there is some process running with catalog?
Adobe, please just make it right for once and all. Look, so many people all over internet having this problem.
I am using for my video DaVinci program, and it never left me in trouble.

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WillingSpirits

Participant

Glad you got it working. When I first posted, I didn't get any help from Adobe. However, I found I had a faulty disk drive.
When I replaced the drive, Lightroom was bak to normal. So recently, when I began to have the same slowdown and freezing, I found a bad drive. Just to clarify, the problematic drives were now where my images files are stored. Didn't matter for Lightroom. If any drive is buggy, Lightroom complains.

Jeff A. GouldenAuthor

Inspiring

When I was having disk problems Lightroom DID NOT complain. It just crashed with no explanation at all and some files got corrupted. I had no idea that I had a hard drive problem until I randomly decided to run diagnostics. Adobe tech support didn't suggest that I might have a hard drive problem. I had to tell them what the problem was. It would have been nice if Lightroom notified me that it was having a problem with a file instead of just crashing.

GoldingD

Legend

About the integrity check.

If you either have in the LrC /preferences/general/default catalog, the option to prompt when starting lightroom (instead of previous, or a specific catalog), or you launch LrC with the alternative keyboard/mouse shortcut to bring up the open catalog screen. (On MACOS, press and hold down the OPTION key, and click on the LrC startup icon. On WINOS, press and hold down the CONTROL key and click on the LrC startup icon ). You will be presented with a screen to select a catalog, and in that screen the option to test integrity of the catalog.

Preferably check integrity without a backup in place.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h6JnL51u9I

Jeff A. GouldenAuthor

Inspiring

Thanks for all the suggestions. My original problem is gone now. It turned out to be caused by a corrupted hard drive that I have since replaced. Lightroom detected the hard drive problem but responded by freezing and crashing. I have been working with Adobe experts and they are aware of the problem. I'm not sure if they have fixed the issue in the 2 subsequent Lightroom updates they issued since becoming aware of the problem. My hard drive is fine now and I'm not encountering any freezing or crashing of the program. There are still several annoying problems with Lightroom that I have encountered and reported but Adobe has not been responsive to those so I just adapt to them.

S

Steve249608084d4g

Participant

Hello Jeff,

I have been experiencing your same problem for weeks now. The app just freezes constantly and is essentially unusable. I'd thought the issue was Lr was sucking up so much RAM on creating thumbnails that it froze. Using Task Manager at one point showed Lr was using 98% of memory. I have used Disc Cleanup, Defragmented the Hard Drive, cleared the cache and rebooted my computer all to now avail. Corrupted hard drive was not on my radar. Do you know of another way to address this without buying another hard drive? Isn't there a way to "repair" the hard drive?

GoldingD

Legend

And an document on what does not get backed up via LrC backup, but needs to be backed up:

https://fstoppers.com/business/youre-probably-not-backing-all-your-lightroom-classic-data-526597

richardd35526520

Participant

I am having the exwct problem with version 12.5.

Ian Lyons

Community Expert

Please provide a copy of your 'System Info'. This can be obtained from the LrC Help > System Info menu item as shown in attached screenshot.

System Info provides information on your hardware, device drivers and often highlights computer specific issues such as out of date GPU drivers and disabled functionality.

Jeff A. GouldenAuthor

Inspiring

Thanks everyone for your support and suggestions. However, nothing I tried solved the problem and I had to contact Adobe support. I worked with Wilma at Adobe for 4 hours this morning diagnosing and then fixing the problem. It turned out to be a corrupted catalog file, in spite of the fact that I backup and check catalog integrity every day, sometimes more than once a day. Essentially the catalog had to be re-imported back into Lightroom. The import process apparently detects and fixes integrity problems. Who knew? Anyway, thanks again to those who provided support and suggestions.

TheDigitalDog

Inspiring

I just wanted to leave a few words of caution regarding my problem.

Disabling the GPU is not a huge issue and is easily reversed. However, if you disable the GPU and it does fix the problem in Lightroom, it indicates a possible hardware problem or maybe at least an update to a driver. Disabling the GPU is not a fix; it is just a workaround. In my case, disabling the GPU did not help.

Resetting the Lightroom Preferences to default values is a bigger deal than I thought. I have been using Lightroom since Version 1 came out. I didn't realize how much I had customized the preferences to fit my own way of doing things. Trying to remember what preferences I modified is no easy task. Also, I rely on a number of plugins to support custom metadata. All of that is gone when you reset preferences. Luckily, I have backups of the plugins and the custom metadata presets. Regardless, it will take some time to put all that back together. In my opinion, resetting the preferences should be done only as a last resort when nothing else works.

Now is the time to back up your preference and make screenshots of the settings.

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management/pluralsight"

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gabrielm44071202

Known Participant

This happened to me too - and practically Lightroom became useless.

The only workaround that I found was to completely disable my GPU.

Now it works - of course slower than could be w/o the GPU.

TheDigitalDog

Inspiring

This happened to me too - and practically Lightroom became useless.
The only workaround that I found was to completely disable my GPU.
Now it works - of course slower than could be w/o the GPU.

By @gabrielm44071202

If turning OFF the GPU works, it's a GPU bug, and you need to contact the manufacturer or find out if there's an updated driver for it. This is why disabling GPU is an option as more and more functionality moves to the GPU in newer versions of many Adobe products. Disable third-party graphics accelerators. Third-party GPU overclocking utilities and haxies aren't supported.

Also see: https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/troubleshoot-gpu.html

If the GPU and display profile isn't causing the problem, see:

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/lightroom-gives-error-preview-cache.html

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management/pluralsight"

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gabrielm44071202

Known Participant

This happened to me too - and practically Lightroom became useless.
The only workaround that I found was to completely disable my GPU.
Now it works - of course slower than could be w/o the GPU.

Gabriel

--
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Jeff A. GouldenAuthor

Inspiring

I'm not sure what the GPU does or how to disable it.

KR Seals

Community Expert

Menu -> Preferences -> Performance -> Top item "Use GPU ....."

You still haven't provided your full computer info, especially the GPU specs. If disabling the GPU solves the problem, then you have a GPU issue. Lower than required performance level.

Ken Seals - Nikon Z 9, Z 8, 14mm-800mm. Computer Win 11 Pro, I7-14700K, 64GB, RTX3070TI. Travel machine: 2021 MacBook Pro M1 MAX 64GB. All Adobe apps.

KR Seals

Community Expert

@Jeff A. Goulden Resetting preferences is not really drastic. It's pretty much an SOP for strange behavior. There is no downside to doing it. It's very easy to go in to preferences and reset your personalized things.

Ken Seals - Nikon Z 9, Z 8, 14mm-800mm. Computer Win 11 Pro, I7-14700K, 64GB, RTX3070TI. Travel machine: 2021 MacBook Pro M1 MAX 64GB. All Adobe apps.

Jeff A. GouldenAuthor

Inspiring

Okay, I reset my preferences. I see that all my personalised settings are gone. However, I still have the same problem. Lightroom starts where I left off in grid view. It lets me change my photo selected once and then program freezes. "Freeze" is the only way I can describe it. I can click on anything in Lightroom and nothing happens.

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WillingSpirits

Participant

Hi Jeff. I am having the same issue. Lightroom freezes when I attempt to do something. For me it is episodic. This morning, I started Lightroom and was able to do a few things and then it freezes. Sometimes if I'm patient, I wait a few minutes for Lightroom to recover. Sometimes it does. Most times it doesn't. When Lightroom is working, I find file management actions are painfully slow. My catelogue and cache files are on an SSD. My images are on a regular disk drive. I have 32 GB of Ram and 400gb on my OS and program drive.

This problem takes some of the joy out of editing pictures.

Jeff A. GouldenAuthor

Inspiring

Kenneth, thanks for the response. Lightroom seemingly launches normally. There are no error messages. After the program is loaded, when I click on anything, nothing happens. For example, I click on a thumbnail to select that photo. The photo doesn't get selected. I click on a collection to see the photos in that collection. The collection doesn't display. I click on X to exit the program. It doesn't exit the program. It's as if my mouse is not working except it works fine in all other applications. Resetting my preferences seems like a drastic step so I'm holding off doing that for now. I have 63GB of free space on my C(OS) drive and 950GB of free space on my D drive where the Lightroom catalog and photos are located.