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Participant
November 2, 2025
Question

P: Failed to initialize AI Edits storage

  • November 2, 2025
  • 10 replies
  • 4032 views

Hallo, with the recent update of LrC, it upgraded my catalog file and then ended with an error screen telling: Failed to initialize AI Edits storage

 

What/where is AI Edits storage?

How to open my catalog file?

 

Windows 10 with latest AMD drivers.

LrC 15.0 Build 202510171722-44f87028

That catalog file is 1.3 GB

free disk space is >100GB

10 replies

Participant
November 18, 2025

Hola, tenía el mismo error, algo que hice y me funcionó fue verificar el catálogo, sólo debes mantener presionada la tecla Alt (Windows) y cuando abre una ventana, crear un nuevo catálogo.

 

Eso solucionará el problema del catálogo y te dejará funcionar Lr

 

Participant
November 16, 2025

I expereinced this today. 

The error is catalog-specific, not programatic. 

The corrupted file is in the .lrcat-data file. 

FIX
Move the .LCAT file to its own, non-cloud folder. Double-click. It will give you an error message about missing previews. Click continue. It will generate all new support files. 
Close LR. Now delete all the files in your original folder, except, optionally, Previews and Smart Previews. Now move all LCAT and the newly generated files into your original LR folder.

Now it should work. 

johnrellis
Legend
November 16, 2025

@NotThatBobJames, "The corrupted file is in the .lrcat-data file."

 

It's important for others reading this to be aware that deleting the .lrcat-data file (which the steps above effectively do) will force new variants of Generative AI Remove to be generated, and you won't be able to recover the original variants. The new variants are more often than not perfectly acceptable, but sometimes they're not, especially if you had examined many variants before deciding on the best one.

Participant
November 16, 2025
Didn’t know that! Thanks for letting us all know. For me, it’s not a big deal, as my photos currently are edited and exported and I don’t plan to go back to them.

Yeah, so maybe do such a repair between shoots when you’re caught up 🤣
Participant
November 10, 2025

Same error here. I have just sent my files to @arjunhaarith .

Participant
November 15, 2025

This workaround worked for me (for now): opening Lightroom 15 with a new catalog and then importing the updated version of my latest catalog.

Participant
November 9, 2025

Try deleting the CURRENT file in the lrcat-data folder. I was told by someone who I outsourced to that this fixed the problem after they got the error message when trying to open my catalog.

arjunhaarith
Adobe Employee
Adobe Employee
November 10, 2025

Hi @KristiKamera ,

 

Is this working fine for you now?

Can you please share the above requested data.

 

Thanks,

Arjun

Participant
November 16, 2025

Yes this has been working for me. I have swapped a couple different catalogs back and forth between my editors and each time I just make sure the CURRENT file is deleted and then it has worked. 

Participant
November 9, 2025

Hi, I have had the same issues this week.  I have solved it by:

Uninstall Lightroom 15

Install 14.5

Start lightroom 14.5 and it highlights that the catalog i had was newer 

Choose another catalog to get it running

then upgrade back to 15

open and it will ask to upgrade your catalog to new

open lightroom 15

 

That has worked for me and not sure whats gone wrong and had to use an old catalog but at least its running for me again.  Hope it helps.

Participant
November 12, 2025

Replicated your approach. Created a new catalog with only a small sample of images in 14.5 which opened successfully in the 15.1 upgrade.  I then loaded the main catalog that was created in the first failed 15.1 so now all is well.  Thanks Jason

Participant
November 9, 2025

Same exact error message today, and after acknowledging the error message, LrC just closes down.  Not able to launch, not able to change/revert back.  Super frustrating as I'm working through wedding shoot edits.

 

arjunhaarith
Adobe Employee
Adobe Employee
November 9, 2025

Kindly share the below information :

 

1.  Are you using any third-party plugins with Lightroom? If yes, please share the names of those plugins.

 

2. Please share the following files:


a) The affected Lightroom Catalog file (.lrcat)
b) The corresponding LightroomCatalog.lrcat-data file
c) The lrc_console.log file located at:

  • Mac: /Users/xxxx/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom

  • Windows: C:\Users\xxxx\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom\undefined

d) System Info (from Lightroom Classic → Help → System Info)

e) Diagnostic Report (HTML file):
Go to Lightroom Classic → Preferences → General,  hold the Alt/Opt key — a new button called Generate Diagnostic Report (HTML) will appear. Click it and share the generated HTML file.

 

Kindly zip all these files into a single folder and email it to haarithg@adobe.com.

 

Thanks,

Arjun

arjunhaarith
Adobe Employee
Adobe Employee
November 7, 2025

Hi everyone,

 

While we continue investigating this issue, we would appreciate some additional information from those who are affected.

 

1.  Are you using any third-party plugins with Lightroom? If yes, please share the names of those plugins.

 

2. Please share the following files:


a) The affected Lightroom Catalog file (.lrcat)
b) The corresponding LightroomCatalog.lrcat-data file
c) The lrc_console.log file located at:

  • Mac: /Users/xxxx/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom

  • Windows: C:\Users\xxxx\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom\

d) System Info (from Lightroom Classic → Help → System Info)

e) Diagnostic Report (HTML file):
Go to Lightroom Classic → Preferences → General,  hold the Alt/Opt key — a new button called Generate Diagnostic Report (HTML) will appear. Click it and share the generated HTML file.

 

Kindly zip all these files into a single folder and email it to haarithg@adobe.com.

 

Thanks and appreciate your help,
Arjun

pisiAuthor
Participant
November 7, 2025

Hallo Arjun,

 

Today, I created the diagnostics data in v14.
Then upgraded to v15 again.
Now the issue is gone?!

 

Anyways, have sent you the requested diagnostics data.

 

Regards,
Christoph

Participant
November 5, 2025

Same problem migrating to m5 mbp

Participating Frequently
November 2, 2025

Hello all...

 

With the latest series of Adobe updates, once the Lightroom 2026 classic update was downloaded and installed on my Windows 11 machine, I get an error message while trying to load the program that says:

 

"Failed to Initialize AI Stages"

 

There is some smaller print below that in the error window that also says:

 

"Please refer to the backup catalogue and contact customer service."

 

This error window appears just for a split second, then disappears, followed by the program crashing.  I've tried rebooting my PC several times, but that did not fix the issues and as of now, I can't even bring up Lightroom classic without it doing that time after time - meaning, the split second error window, followed by the crash..  Again, that error window appears for just a split second, then it goes away, followed by the program crashing.

 

Any help or suggestions here?  Thanks in advance...

 

Ben Herrmann

Fuquay-Varina, NC

Participating Frequently
November 2, 2025

One more thing here.  So what I did then was to just delete the Lightroom Classic program, assuming (hopefully, not wrongly so), that if I did a Creative Cloud update request, it would notice Lightroom Classic missing, and then download it all over again.  However, that didn't happen?  

Participant
November 5, 2025

I'm having the same issue and I updated to the latest version and it didn't work

Participant
November 5, 2025
Sameer K
Community Manager
Community Manager
November 5, 2025

Hey, @pisi. Welcome to the Lightroom Classic Community. I'll help you figure this out. 

What version of Lightroom Classic are you working on? 

 

Please try this and let me know how it goes. 

1 - Uninstall Lightroom Classic from the Creative Cloud desktop app. 

2 - Restart the machine. 

3 - Install Lightroom Classic again

4 - Make sure you either Launch Lightroom Classic from the Creative Cloud desktop app, or

5 - Go to Lightroom installation folder, C drive > Program Files > Adobe > Lightroom Classic > Lightroom.exe > right-click Run as Administrator and check if the issue exists. 

 

Let me know how it goes. Thanks!
Sameer K
(Type '@' and type my name to mention me when you reply)

Participant
November 5, 2025

I am having the same issue.  Just installed LRC on a second computer and it worked initially and I added some photos locally and processed a couple, incluidng one with IA denoise to check that it was working, and now when I restart the program (and also after following the steps above), I still get the "failed to initialize AI edits storage" message and the program quits...  Any other suggestions? 

Thank you.