Problems after Migrating Lightroom Classic CC 7.5 from El Capitan to Catalina

[#1]

After using Migration Assistant to move all data and programs from old MacBook Pro (running El Capitan) to a new MacBook Pro (running Catalina), neither Lightroom nor Photoshop will load.  The start screen for Lightroom flashes briefly before disappearing.  Any ideas?   

[#2]

After using Migration Assistant to move all data and programs from old MacBook Pro (running El Capitan) to a new MacBook Pro (running Catalina), neither Lightroom nor Photoshop will load.  The start screen for Lightroom flashes briefly before disappearing.  Any ideas?   

[#3]

Check for a  lock file

[#4]

In catalina, there is a new "security and privacy" program in the OS. Run that and make sure everything is turned on/allowed for Lightroom and Photoshop.

[#5]

Also you will need to Reinstall both of those Adobe programs.

Neither program likes being transferred to another computer.

[#6]

It is very highly recommended that you uninstall those applications, and then reinstall them from the Creative Cloud desktop application, for many reasons.

One reason is that a lot of subtle things about the Mac system changed between El Capitan to Catalina, and many of those changes affected where important application support files should go and how they must be configured. A lot of it has to do with the major changes to tighten up Mac security and privacy. Some of the changes that affected Mac applications the most were in the most recent versions (10.13-10.15), which broke many more applications than usual. Heck, they even changed the name of the system, from Mac OS X to macOS.

Migration Assistant works very well, but the more versions of the Mac system you jump over, the more likely something is not going to work right. Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan to macOS 10.15 Catalina is a jump of four major versions. (I have Catalina on one Mac and El Capitan on another really old Mac that can’t be upgraded any further, so I see the differences.)

Migration Assistant took everything as it was installed for El Capitan and tried to slot them as is into Catalina as best it can, but Migration Assistant doesn’t update non-Apple files for Catalina. The more complex the application and its support files, the more important it is to handle those on a case-by-case basis outside of Migration Assistant. It’s a good idea to uninstall major non-Apple applications before the migration and reinstall the latest versions on the new system, so that the installers have a chance to put everything in the right place in the right way.

Since you’ve already done the migration, try uninstalling and then reinstalling any applications that are not working right.

I only upgraded up one version, from macOS 10.14 Mojave to 10.15 Catalina, but everything I had read about the changes in Catalina made me think that I should install Catalina and everything on it from scratch, instead of migrating. So far that was worked well.

What ManiacJoe said about properly setting application security and privacy permissions is true, but those are totally expected things you have to do even if the entire migration worked perfectly, so that’s probably not the cause of your problems. Because the problems you are having are unexpected, you must resolve those first, but after that you will still need to deal with setting security and privacy permissions for many applications in Catalina, Adobe or not.

Another big reason is that Lightroom Classic 7.5 cannot be installed with the current Creative Cloud application because Adobe provides installers for the last two major versions only (Lightroom Classic 9 and 8). Also, the Adobe tech note Lightroom Classic and macOS Catalina (10.15) says that Lightroom Classic 9.x and Lightroom Classic 8.4.1 work with Catalina (version 7 not mentioned), and in bold it says “Adobe does not recommend that customers using old versions of Lightroom Classic upgrade to macOS Catalina.” So you’re going to have to uninstall Lightroom Classic 7.5 and install something newer anyway. You didn’t mention which version of Photoshop you are using, but if that version is not supported in Catalina you will have to move up to a newer version of it too.

[#7]

Thanks to everyone for your replies... I ended up just updating Lightroom from the Adobe app and it's working fine.  I'm still very confused between the various versions of Lightroom... I think I now have version 7.5 installed - is that the "desktop" version?  I also now have another version installed which I'm not using - I think it's around version 9.4 - is that Lightroom "Classic"?  The version I'm using has the icon "LR" (or maybe it's "LC"... I don't have my laptop with me) and the one I'm not using is "LrC".  I think there is also a version with "Lr" but I think that's just the mobile version.

So I don't know what the difference is between Lightroom Desktop and Lightroom Classic - should I be migrating to Classic?  When I attempted to open the LrC program, it warned me that my catalog would be "permanently converted"... so I bailed. So confused...

[#8]

Lightroom has two Computer apps LrC (Lightroom Classic version 9.4), Lr (Cloud-based version 3.4.1) these are included in the Photographs subscription along with Lightroom Mobile version 5.4.2 and Photoshop.

[#9]

Just to verify.

Please post your System Information as Lightroom Classic (LrC) reports it. In LrC click on Help, then System Info, then Copy. Past that information into a reply. Please present all information from first line down to and including Plug-in Info. Info after Plug-in info can be cut as that is just so much dead space to us non-Techs.

[#10]

Ok... it's actually version 8.2.1 - but it says there are no further updates available. Was the jump after this large enough that they needed a fresh install? Either way, I guess I just need to open the 9.4 version that I also installed and let it convert the catalog?

[#11]

I ended up opening LrC 9.4 and the catalog was converted in just a few seconds - everything is working great!  Thanks for everyone's help and comments.  Still not sure why version 7.5 upgraded as far as 8.2.1 but wouldn't just upgrade all the way to 9.4.... but it worked out in the end.