Adobe Lightroom is a boon for professional photographers. With the help of this software, one can shape his photography to the next level, assuming that the person has some decent knowledge of photo editing. Although Adobe Lightroom works great most of the time, it can occasionally run into problems, like any other software. In this blog post, we’ll be going through solutions when Adobe Lightroom is not working or opening on your Mac.
Try These Fixes if Adobe Lightroom Not Working or Opening on Mac
As reported by some users, they are getting an “Adobe Lightroom Quite Unexpectedly” error message as soon as they open the app. After that, the app gets closed. In case you are getting the same error message or broadly speaking, the app is not opening, we have a few solutions for you to get your Adobe Lightroom up and running once again, assuming that you have an active subscription.
Solution 1: Close the App and Restart the Mac
Generally, an app fails to load if there’s not enough space available in the ROM or there’s a minor system glitch. If the amount of available RAM is very low, remove some unnecessary running applications, and try to open Adobe Lightroom. If it does not work, close the app, restart the computer, and open Adobe Photoshop to check if the problem is solved.
Solution 2: Update Adobe Lightroom and macOS
The current version of Adobe Lightroom might have a bug that is preventing the app from loading. If this is so, either Adobe might be in the works on fixing this or a fix has been released already in the form of a software update. To check for new updates, Open the Adobe Lightroom app, go to the Help menu and click Check for Updates.
If there’s an issue with the macOS, operating system of Apple computers, you know Apple will fix it by releasing a new update. Hence, it is always recommended to keep your Mac updated with the latest version available.
Also Read
Solution 3: Re-Install Adobe Lightroom
If Adobe Lightroom is crashing or not loading properly on your Mac, reinstalling the software can make a difference. After uninstalling Adobe Lightroom, reboot the computer, and then re-install Adobe Lightroom using the Adobe Creative Cloud app.
Solution 4: Optimize the Catalog
The catalog is unlikely to cause Adobe Lightroom to crash; however, it can be a contributing factor to the problem. By optimizing the catalog, the application checks for issues with the data structure of the catalog. You can optimize the catalog by going to File menu > Optimize catalog and waiting for the optimization to finish. Once it’s done, reboot Adobe Lightroom and check if the crashing issue persists.
Solution 5: Reset the Preferences
This solution can fix many bugs, which can eventually resolve the crashing problem with Adobe Lightroom. You might lose all custom preferences.
Here’s how you can reset preferences in two ways on Mac:
- Using Keyboard shortcut:
- Close the Adobe Lightroom app.
- Press the Shift + Option + Delete buttons while launching the Lightroom app.
- Click Reset Preferences.
- Manually Resetting Preferences:
- Navigate to Lightroom Preferences file on Mac. You can file the file in this directory /Users/[user name]/Library/Preferences/.
- Drag the adobe.LightroomClassicCC7.plist file to Trash.
- Restart your Mac and launch Adobe Lightroom.
Solution 6: Update Graphics Driver or Turn off the GPU
Graphics cards and GPU have a direct relation to the Adobe Lightroom software. If any of them is corrupted or not working, you might face many issues with the Lightroom app. Crashing could be one of them. You should keep the graphics driver up to date. Install the latest macOS update, if there’s an update to the graphics driver, it will be included in that.
Another workaround that you can try is disabling the GPU. If Adobe Lightroom opens without any issues after turning off the GPU, you know the problem is residing within the GPU. To turn off the GPU on a Mac, go to Lightroom > Preferences > Performance and uncheck the Enable Graphics Processor box.
Solution 7: Contact Adobe Customer Support
If none of the solutions have worked for you, I recommend contacting Adobe customer support. They will deeply look into the problem and will provide you with the best resolution. You can contact Adobe using the Lightroom forum or directly write to them.
A continuously crashing Adobe Lightroom can be frustrating if you rely on this software heavily. In this article, I mentioned some troubleshooting that might help you in fixing the crashing problem. Did you manage to fix the issue? If yes, then how? Do let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
I am paying for Lightroom and it will not open at all