Slideshow - Export Video, Preview and Play are not available

Report · Nov 02, 2025

I am trying to create a Slideshow in Lightroom Classic. I noticed the Export Video, Preview and Play buttons were not active. After a search, others recommended uninstalling LRC and reinstalling. Now when I start up the program, I receive the folloiwng message

"Dynamic Link Media Server failed to launch
Slideshow playback is not possible due to an error. Please try relaunching the app. If the problem persists, you may want to re-install Lightroom."

I cannot find any recent posts on how to solve this issue. Any suggestions?

System Info:

Lightroom Classic version: 14.0.1 [ 202410161356-30922cfc ]
License: Creative Cloud
Language setting: en
Operating system: Windows 10 - Business Edition
Version: 10.0.19045
Application architecture: x64
System architecture: x64
Logical processor count: 4
Processor speed: 3.3GHz
SqLite Version: 3.36.0
CPU Utilisation: 1.0%
Power Source: Plugged In
Built-in memory: 16331.5 MB
Dedicated GPU memory used by Lightroom: 23.2MB / 2007.1MB (1%)
Real memory available to Lightroom: 16331.5 MB
Real memory used by Lightroom: 1415.2 MB (8.6%)
Virtual memory used by Lightroom: 1024.0 MB
GDI objects count: 736
USER objects count: 2688
Process handles count: 1648
Memory cache size: 1723.3MB
Internal Camera Raw version: 17.0 [ 2043 ]
Maximum thread count used by Camera Raw: 3
Camera Raw SIMD optimization: SSE2,AVX
Camera Raw virtual memory: 168MB / 8165MB (2%)
Camera Raw real memory: 169MB / 16331MB (1%)

Cache1:
NT- RAM:0.0MB, VRAM:0.0MB, Combined:0.0MB

Cache2:
m:1723.3MB, n:0.0MB

U-main: 81.0MB

System DPI setting: 96 DPI
Desktop composition enabled: Yes
Standard Preview Size: 1440 pixels
Displays: 1) 1920x1080, 2) 1920x1080
Input types: Multitouch: No, Integrated touch: No, Integrated pen: No, External touch: No, External pen: No, Keyboard: No

Graphics Processor Info:
DirectX: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 (27.21.14.5671)
Init State: GPU for Display supported by default
User Preference: Off

Application folder: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Lightroom Classic
Library Path: G:\Photography\Lightroom\Catalog\Lightroom Catalog-2-v13-3.lrcat
Settings Folder: C:\Users\Kevin\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom

Installed Plugins:
1) AdobeStock
2) Flickr
3) SmugMug

Config.lua flags:

Audio and Video info: Loading

Report · Nov 02, 2025

"Lightroom Classic version: 14.0.1"

"Camera Raw SIMD optimization: SSE2,AVX"

""Dynamic Link Media Server failed to launch Slideshow playback is not possible due to an error. "

You have an old CPU that doesn't the AVX2 instructions (which were introduced by Intel in 2013). The LR team mistakenly released LR 14.0 and 14.0.1 without knowing that the Dynamic Link Media Server component, which implements video for LR and is provided by another Adobe team, had dropped support for CPUs that didn't support AVX2. That's why you're getting this error and why you won't be able to update past 14.0.1.

You could roll back to the last version of LR 13, which requires some detailed steps to avoid losing edits you may have made with LR 14. But to roll back to LR 13, you'll have to contact Adobe support, explain your situation, and plead with them to send you a link to LR 13.5.1 -- usually they'll do that, but you may have to hang up your chat a couple times before finding an agent willing to do it.

Report · Nov 02, 2025

"DirectX: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 (27.21.14.5671)"

You have a five-year-old old graphics driver installed. Update to the latest Nvidia driver here:

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/details/228836/

This won't fix your Slideshow problems, but it could other problems using LR, which is very sensitive to bugs in graphics drivers (of which there many). Note that since 2021, Nvidia has stopped fixing most bugs in the GX 650 drivers -- updates since then are "security updates" that fix serious security holes only.