V. 14.4 Denoise doesn't work (error)

[ThierryH]

- LrC Version 14.4 (build 202506051112-5918896a)
- Windows 11 Pro and OS version 23H2 on Intel Core i7-9750H
- Select new Denoise (or Raw Details) from Detail develop panel
- Expected result: denoised picture with access to slider and other options
- Actual result: error message "An internal message has occured: ?:0: attempt to index a nil value"

After clicking on OK the image seems fairly denoised, but the Detail panel options are unavailable with exclamation symbols on the right side. After restarting LrC, this denoise has been dropped. I tried this with all 10+ tested photos, taken with Canon R5MkII .CR3, 90D .CR3 & 70D .CR2, everytime with the same result. Optimizing the catalog didn't change the result. Using (PS 26.8 and) CR 17.4, the feature does work as expected. I include LrC System Info and screenshots.

[Ian Lyons]

Your System Info has a linee 

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 (31.0.15.2849)

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 (31.0.15.2849)

This version of the driver dates from April 2023. Best that your update to the most recent veersion. You should be able to download it from https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/

[Per Berntsen]

As suggested by @Ian Lyons , you need to update the GPU driver. A two-year-old driver is bound to create issues with the current version of LrC. Make sure to install the Studio driver, not the Game ready driver.

Your system info also indicates that you have an integrated GPU that seems to be active.

Adapter #2: Vendor : 8086
	Device : 3e9b
	Subsystem : 140a1025
	Revision : 0
	Video Memory : 80

An Internet search for  Vendor : 8086 Device : 3e9b identifies this as a UHD Graphics 630.

Adobe software does not work well with dual GPUs, so go to Control panel > Device manager >  Display adapters, right click the UHD Graphics 630 and choose Disable device.

[ThierryH]

Thank you both for your response.

I tried all of the following steps and checked the result after each step (incl. LrC and/or W11) restart):

- I used the NVIDIA app to update to the latest Studio Driver (32.0.15.7680). 

- While the Geforce was already manually selected (Customized), I disabled the Intel UHD Graphics 630 device.

- I made sure Windows Update was up-to-date: even optional updates were processed.

- Using PC HelpSoft Updater, I made sure all drivers were backupped and updated to the latest versions.

- Back in LrC, I checked the Excire Search version and temporarilly disabled it.

 None of these steps changed the situation in any way: the error is still the same. What can I do next?

Uninstall and reinstall Lightroom Classic? Can I downgrade to the previous version?

[Per Berntsen]

I forgot to address the "?:0: attempt to index a nil value " error message.

Take a look at this thread: https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/0-attempt-to-index-a-nil-value/m-p/1288...

It appears that there is no single fix for this that will work in all situations.

See the Word document posted by @Rob_Cullen in the thread.

The original poster fixed the issue by creating a new, empty catalog, and then importing from the original catalog.

[ThierryH]

@Per Berntsen Thank you for this information. I will try this later today.

For the completeness of the situation, this is apparently worse than what the subject states: all new 14.4 features seem to be corrupt or malfunctioning:

- Activating Distraction Removal > People does not show Overlay color for any of the people. After removal, there are no pins shown for selective removal.

- At some point in editing, clicking on another picture doesn't replace the Develop window's picture. Hitting Full screen does show the latest selected picture, but hitting F again brings me back to the previous one. I have to select another picture/folder in Library to really get to that other picture.

- While I managed to export many pictures with Denoise, Upright Transform, Remove (AI, Distractions...) etc. applied, all that is not applied on all these pictures in LrC after retarting LrC. The changes are however still mentionned in the pictures' History list.

The syncing of 5 of the afforementionned pictures is stuck. They are not showing in Lr (CC/web). One without Remove does, but the Transform is not applied, even after updating the picture.

Note: days before the 14.4 update, LrC mentionned a possible corruption when quitting and backupping, but had no issues when restarting since. I also optimized the catalog since.

Best regards

[ThierryH]

While solving the above issues, the situation got more complicated: Importing the old catalog into a new, empty catalog got me losing 70000+ pictures.

I followed the advice, creating a new catalog, but keeping the LrC settings. Before importing from the original catalog, I decided to first test the v.14.4 features. So I imported a set of fresh photos. Denoise works fine now. But after 15 minutes I got a LrC crash (corrupt catalog), which made Lrc restart and rebuild the catalog.

When I selected Import from another catalog, a LrC message said my (big v.14.4!?) catalog was first to be converted to version 14.4 ... LrC then showed only a subset of my catalog folders and suggested to place it in into a *_RecentEdits folder. It created only around 110 items, plus 500 Imported photos in 2 Other Lightroom Device (smartphone items?). None of these pictures are even recent! I presume it didn't overwrite a previously saved (part of my) catalog.

I don't know what my best option is at this point... Maybe I should start over.

On top of that I noticed that, in my full catalog, many of my best synced pictures (RAW + DNG/TIFF/... edits) are in a folder called Lightroom! Is that coming from Lightroom CC/web back-synchronisation?

[ThierryH]

I finally found the way to import the full catalog, instead of a small portion of it. I obviously have inserted a subset of a catalog sometimes in the past called LR_Catalog-v13-3_RecentEdits.lrcat. For some reasons, even by pointing to the right one (LR_Catalog-v13-3.lrcat) to import, LrC kept trying to import the subset. Even renaming the subset's folder didn't help.

So, I decided to delete the subset's folder, and tried again. This time I got the list of all folders with 70900+ items, which currently is in the process of importing. 

When that is done, I will probably still have some small issues.

- I hope to not have any corruption anymore. I got it twice since the update.

- I replaced the latest (corrupted) files by the last backup before the update.  That caused some "Other Lightroom Device" to be added, which I couldn't remove. Any suggestions?

@Ian Lyons

@Per Berntsen

@Aleke

Best regards

[ThierryH]

(I might have to move this to another discussion.)

It is now about a week ago that I updated LrC to 14.4.

While the above issue (Denoise AI) can be partially solved by creating a new catalog, I got a catalog issue within 15 minutes of testing (import of 200+ raw files, and using the new denoise, upright, crop and  the usual Basic Edit sliders). That catalog was fixed after restart, but...

I restarted properly with Importing the full catalog of 71000+ items into a new empty one. 

I ended up with only 10000+ of the 71000 items. At first it looked like every folder was imported, but most contained 0 pictures. What happened here?
The creation of smart previews and Excire Search tag creation didn't get processed.

I tried importing the missing pictures (and their respective XMPs) directly in imports of 10-15000. Every time it ends prematurelly while building the smart previews. I now have 37500 of the 71000 items and I don't know if I can trust this catalog anymore. I don't know what to do now.

Catalogs and most pictures are on an external 3.6TB SSD with 1TB free space. Are my cache settings ok?

[Noel Orridge]

Hi @ThierryH, Thank you for reaching out! I'm sorry that you're still facing trouble with Lightroom.

If you haven't, please try resetting your preferences. For steps and further information, you can refer to this helpx article: How to reset Lightroom Classic preferences

Cheers!

[ThierryH]

Hi @Noel Orridge and @Per Berntsen, thank you for your suggestion to reset the LrC preferences.

While my newly created catalog did let me use the new Denoise AI, neither the overlay nor the pins were available to (de)select distracting people.

I also had so many issues with importing my original catalog that I decided to do damage control, and get back again to my original catalog.

- I did reset LrC preferences, but that didn't help: 

- I also did an uninstall/reinstall of LrC's version 14.4.

- I also decided to use the 2025-06-24 backup as my earlier choice to use an older backup is probably the reason why many pictures lost their whole History while keeping the latest changes (due to the XMP?)

I still get the "?:0: attempt to index a nil value " error message, whenever I try the new Denoise AI.

(- meanwhile I imported or moved 3rd parties' overlays, skies and texture files to a separate root folder in the same catalog.)

In each step I restarted the computer. I also did optimize and did a backup when asked. I had one of 2 occasions where LrC had to restart/repair the catalog. 

I think I will wait for the next update before having another go at fixing LrC. Is it the catalog, or is it a Denoise AI bug? A new catalog didn't end with Denoise working as advertised.

Best regards,

Thierry

[Ian Lyons]

Use the 'H' key to hide/unhide the pins. Unfortunately, you may have to tap the key a few times as it cycles through the new Overlay visibilty options.

[ThierryH]

Hi @Ian Lyons,

Concerning the Distraction Removal, things are really not going the way it should. I tried this on many pictures:

- I select Distraction Removal and open People.

None of the people is shown with Color Overlay. There are no pins shown. Tapping the "H" key many times changes nothing. Changing the Overlay Color doesn't make any difference. 

Hovering over the people doesn't give feedback.

Clicking on Remove will remove all or most people, and sometimes will replace one with an object (barrel, buggy...).

Once done I still don't get pins, nor placeholders, nor variations to choose from. I can only select Reset or Close.

For Reflections the slider is oversensitive and the result (of e.g. -100) still looks as 100%. It can take up to 5 minutes to reprocess (I don't see how I can choose between Local or On Server.). Selecting another picture then keeps showing the same picture.

Best regards

Thierry

[ThierryH]

Hi @PerBerntsen,

After creating a new catalog and importing my full catalog, I got an error message explaining LrC had issues with the disabled Intel UHD Graphics 630 GPU, asking me to enable and update it to the latest version. According to Windows and PC HelpSoft Updater, it is the latest version. So I enabled it while still using the NVIDIA Geforce latest driver.

[tonyhartphoto]

I have also been encountering this issue and was advised to post here by a helpful Adobe employee over on reddit. I am not willing to try moving my entire main catalog to a new, clean catalog (my main catalog is close to half a million images*) but I will make a test catalog with a few images and see if I still encounter the error. 

For reference I am running Mac OS 15.5 on a Mac Studio M1 Ultra (64GB RAM). My Lightroom Catalog file lives on my internal SSD and my working edits are on an external SSD. 

*I've been running Lightroom since the original version and have always used a single large catalog. It is one of the main reasons I use Lr so please don't advise me that a single large catalog is a bad idea! 

[tonyhartphoto]

I have tried making a test catalog with a small number of images and the problem doesn't present under those conditions. 

I am loathe to try moving my entire catalog over over 400k images to a new catalog though. Even with backups it feels very risky.

On updating to 14.4 I didn't get any notification about a catalog upgrade. Should I have? In the past I remember certain dialog boxes advising that a new version of Lr would involve upgrading the catalog. I didn't see that happen this time. 

[Ian Lyons]

Catalog upgrades only occur when moving from say LrC 12 to 13 or 13 to 14. The upgrade doesn't happen with dot releases (e.g. 14.1, 14.2, 14.3, 14.4, etc)

[tonyhartphoto]

Thanks for clarifying that Ian. 

I've tried doing disk first aid (via Mac OS Disk Utility) on all my drives but nothing outside of a new catalog seems to be working. As such I'm going to roll back to an earlier version of LrC until this issue is resolved. I'll keep following along in case anyone finds any solutions but I have loads of work to get done!

[tonyhartphoto]

Are we any closer to a proper fix for this issue? My gut instinct is this is some sort of corrupted catalog issue that Lightroom is not catching. I feel like a future update needs to address this and repair whatever is wrong with the catalog.

Moving all of my images to a new catalog isn't really practical. I appreciate that for those who use a multitude of smaller catalogs, creating a new catalog and importing files from the old catalog may be a reasonable workaround in the short term, but for those of us who use a single large catalog it is not realistic. 

Would appreciate if any Lightroom devs could chime in and offer an update. This is impacting my workflow significantly. For my last wedding edit I rolled back to the previous version, but this then caused all sorts of weirdness with AI remove work being forgotten - even after recalculating it kept forgetting and presenting the image as it was 'before removes' had been made.

[johnrellis]

Moderators, @Rikk Flohr: Photography, please merge with this Bug:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-lightroom-v14-4-error-when-attempting-to-use...