Lightroom Keeps Freezing

[Jeff A. Goulden]

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.

[KR Seals]

Please describe exactly what happens. When does the freeze happen and what do you see on the screen after the freeze. 

No guarantee, but anytime LrC does strange things, it's a good idea to reset the LrC preferences.

More information about your computer like this will help

[Jeff A. Goulden]

I searched the forum and found that I had the same or similar problem back in March 2023 using Lightroom Classic 12.2.  Back then I deleted the previews.db and root-pixels.db files in the previews.lrdata folder. When I restarted Lightroom it worked.  I tried doing the same thing this time in 12.3 but I still have the freezing problem.  I also deleted the lock file Lightroom Catalog-v12.lrcat.lock but that didn't help either.

[KR Seals]

Please provide the information I asked for in my earlier post. The clues to your problem are in that info.

[Jeff A. Goulden]

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.

[dj_paige]

Resetting preferences is not as drastic as having the software not working.

[KR Seals]

@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.

[Jeff A. Goulden]

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.

[WillingSpirits]

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.

[gabrielm44071202]

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. Goulden]

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

[KR Seals]

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.

[gabrielm44071202]

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]

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

[Ian Lyons]

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. Goulden · Accepted solution]

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.

[Jeff A. Goulden]

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.

[TheDigitalDog]

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

[Jeff A. Goulden]

Haha, I'm a little late to the dance for that one.  I had a few screen shots but not everything.  I had the important stuff backed up but not every little preference that I changed.

[GoldingD]

Not sure how the plug-ins would go missing, unless you selected in preferences to store them with the catalog.

[Jeff A. Goulden]

Thanks!!  Good to know in future.

[bob frost · Accepted solution]

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

[richardd35526520]

I am having the exwct problem with version 12.5.

[GoldingD]

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

[GoldingD]

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