# Lightroom 6 won't open



## Martha (Feb 11, 2016)

Hi,
Brand new to this forum.  I have been using Lightroom 6 for months on a macbook pro retina with no problems.  Yesterday, it just won't open. Just get the little colored wheel spinning. Help! I have a project due for school!
Thank so much!
Martha


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## clee01l (Feb 11, 2016)

Martha, welcome to the forum. If you are truly on LR6.0, the first item would be to update the app to LR6.4.  This resolves a lot of issues with the initial LR6.0 release.

The Second item is your OS information.  If you can complete your user profile in LR forums, it will help.  We can't do much without knowing about your OS.


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## Martha (Feb 11, 2016)

*Lightroom 6 not opening*



clee01l said:


> Martha, welcome to the forum. If you are truly on LR6.0, the first item would be to update the app to LR6.4.  This resolves a lot of issues with the initial LR6.0 release.
> 
> The Second item is your OS information.  If you can complete your user profile in LR forums, it will help.  We can't do much without knowing about your OS.




Thanks for getting back to me.  How do I update LR 6 to LR6.4? Don't I have to be in it to do that? Sorry, not that savvy! OS mac OSX Version 10.9.5.


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## clee01l (Feb 12, 2016)

Here is a link to update to LR6.4 http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/2013/06/keeping-lightroom-up-to-date.html#lrcc2015

Other things that we might need for you to do:

Your LR preferences file might has gone squirrely and it may be necessary for you to rename or delete it so that LR will create a new one.
Your previews may have become corrupt and and it may be necessary for you to rename or delete it so that LR will create a new one.

Your preferences file:
[h=2]File locations in Mac OS X[/h]



The preferences file is the com.adobe.Lightroom6.plist file, located in [user name]/Library/Preferences.
Apple made the user library folder hidden by default with the release of Mac OS X 10.7. If you need access to files in the hidden library folder to perform Adobe-related troubleshooting, see Access hidden user library files.


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## Martha (Feb 12, 2016)

*LR 6 won't open*



clee01l said:


> Here is a link to update to LR6.4 Keeping Lightroom Up-to-Date
> 
> Other things that we might need for you to do:
> 
> ...


Thank you, the update worked!


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## clee01l (Feb 12, 2016)

Martha said:


> *LR 6 won't open*
> Thank you, the update worked!


Great! I'm glad we were able to help.


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## divya (Aug 6, 2016)

Hello there,
New here and pretty new to MAC and LR too appreciate your help,
Tried the same what you said, it says can't delete preferences file as it is required by the OS


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## Victoria Bampton (Aug 10, 2016)

It sounds like you're slightly off track somewhere divya. Are you using the keyboard shortcut to reset the preferences, or finding it in Finder and deleting the file there?


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## Mike Mannov (May 3, 2017)

hello everyone, and thanks to Victoria for the help with signing in the forum!

Im on mac OSX 10.8.5, with Lr6 on a standalone license.
For more than a year Lr worked perfectly, and since yesterday it just blocks while starting, exactly when it displays the Lr credit window, and make the mac rainbow wheel turning for indeterminate period of time and the app doesn't respond...

As clee01l recommended, I installed the latest update, and now it just wont open at all, and i get an OS warning window saying something like "Adobe Lightroom cannot open because of a problem. Verify with the devlopper that this version is compatible with your version of mac OSX. Be sure to install all the updates on adobe lr and mac OSX. "

What option do I have now, considering I dont want to update OSX immediately?


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## Victoria Bampton (May 3, 2017)

Hi Mike, welcome to the forum! 

Lightroom 6.1 was the last version supported on 10.8, so that could explain why it's not working for you. I'd uninstall, then reinstall 6.0 then 6.1 from here (or from your disk.)


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## clee01l (May 4, 2017)

Victoria Bampton said:


> Hi Mike, welcome to the forum!
> 
> Lightroom 6.1 was the last version supported on 10.8, so that could explain why it's not working for you. I'd uninstall, then reinstall 6.0 then 6.1 from here (or from your disk.)


The preferred solution would be to simply upgrade your Mac to Sierra.  It is a free upgrade.  If your hardware won't support Sierra, then you are going to be limited as Victoria says to 6.1.  FWIW, I think I would prefer LR5.7.1 to LR6.1as these early releases of LR6 were quite horrible.


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## Mike Mannov (May 4, 2017)

Hello Victoria, Hello Cletus, thank you very much for your answers. I have reinstalled and it seems to work fine as before! THANK YOU!

Cletus can you explain which Lr6 early release you find horrible and why you would prefer 5.7? what are the difference? do you use special features that are not on 6.0?


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## Victoria Bampton (May 4, 2017)

Yeah, 6.0 and 6.1 were a bit on the buggy side. They've fixed a fair bit since then.


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## terry mcguire (Feb 5, 2018)

Martha said:


> *LR 6 won't open*
> 
> Thank you, the update worked!




Hi. I am new here to so not sure this is the correct spot for this. 
Until recently my LR 6.0 worked fine (on windows 10 and Dell XPS laptop). Suddenly it now freezes on the start up screen if I am not connected to the internet. Its very annoying. Furthermore I now have the app "adobe creative cloud" on my laptop and have to log in via this before opening LR. 

If anyone knows how to stop this from occuring please help! I do alot of tehtered work and dont have the net with me alot. 
Also, I see the forum suggesting to update to 6.1... but when I try to LR keeps telling me to subscibe to Lightrrom CC. I for one dont like having to pay money every month just to use the product so stayed with LR6.0.
Thank you for your time.
Terry (brisbane AUS).


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## Johan Elzenga (Feb 5, 2018)

The suggestion is not to update to 6.1 but all the way to 6.14. Lr 6.1 was also buggy. Adobe tries to persuade you to take a subscription, but you can update to 6.14 just fine. If you have a problem that this version seems to install a trial subscription, then follow these steps: How to convert a Lightroom CC trial version to licensed Lightroom 6 copy


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## LoriBuffalo (Feb 8, 2018)

I've been using Lightroom 6.14 on a MAC OSX 10.9.5 for about 6 months. Suddenly it won't open. I'm just getting an error report. My power went out in the house the night before it happened. Could I have a damaged file? I'd like to uninstall and reinstall, but since I bought the software (standalone) I'm not sure how to go about getting it replaced. Thanks for any help.


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## Johan Elzenga (Feb 8, 2018)

Uninstalling and reinstalling is usually not the way to solve this. A file could indeed be damaged, but that would more likely be your preferences file than the application itself. So try this first: How do I reset Lightroom's Preferences? | The Lightroom Queen


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## Hal P Anderson (Feb 8, 2018)

If you were running LR when the power failed, you might have a file in the folder with your catalogue that ends in the extension '.lock'. If it's there, delete it and then try running Lightroom.


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## Johan Elzenga (Feb 8, 2018)

If not, it might help to say what the error message is...


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## LoriBuffalo (Feb 9, 2018)

Hal P Anderson said:


> If you were running LR when the power failed, you might have a file in the folder with your catalogue that ends in the extension '.lock'. If it's there, delete it and then try running Lightroom.




Hal and Johan, thanks for your help. Sorry for this long reply.
I tried Hal’s suggestion first but that didn't fix it. I searched my computer for any file with the .lock extension. The only one that the computer found was one that was supposedly created about 1 minute previously, which would have been when I started the search. I moved it to Trash, rebooted (including rebooting the modem), tried to open LR, and got the same error message that I was getting before:


Crashed Thread:  0  Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
Exception Type:  EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Exception Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x00000000203400ad

Then I tried Johan's suggestion to delete the preference files (moved them to Trash) and got a slightly different error message:

Crashed Thread:  0  Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
Exception Type:  EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Exception Codes: EXC_I386_GPFLT

I then looked at my directory again and saw that not all of the preference files had been moved to Trash. I deleted the one that lingered (moved it to Trash), rebooted everything again, tried opening LR, got this message:

Crashed Thread:  0  Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
Exception Type:  EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Exception Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x0000000092420048

Checked my directory again and guess what? That same LR preference file was back in the folder. Now for the weird part: I checked Trash, and it was there, too. Not only was it there from today, but according to Trash, I put it there YESTERDAY. It’s still today as far as I know (7:30 pm MST).

Do I need a new copy of LR?


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## Johan Elzenga (Feb 9, 2018)

LoriBuffalo said:


> Checked my directory again and guess what? That same LR preference file was back in the folder.


That is to be expected. Lightroom will rebuild the preferences when you delete them. That was the reason you deleted them in the first place.

Next thing to check is if this is a problem with the catalog. Move the catalog folder out of your 'Pictures' folder, so Lightroom can't find it. Start Lightroom. If Lightroom asks you where it is, create a new catalog. See if that works. If it does, the problem was in your catalog. If this also causes crashes, the problem may be in the application.


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## LoriBuffalo (Feb 10, 2018)

Thanks. Still stuck. I moved the catalogs out, tried opening LR again, it couldn't find a catalog, asked me if I wanted to create a default one, I clicked on that option, and this time I got two error messages different from the previous ones, saying "an error occurred when attempting to change modules" and "LR encountered an error when reading from its preview cache and needs to quit." When I tried opening a second time, I got the old type of error message that I described in previous replies.


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## Johan Elzenga (Feb 10, 2018)

LoriBuffalo said:


> this time I got two error messages different from the previous ones, saying "an error occurred when attempting to change modules"


That does help pinpoint a possible cause: Troubleshooting guide for errors that can occur when you change modules in Lightroom. As you've tried a few other solutions already, I would now try uninstalling/reinstalling Lightroom.


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## LoriBuffalo (Feb 10, 2018)

Since I can't even open LR, the only option in the Troubleshooting guide that applies to me (that I haven't already tried) is to uninstall LR. But how do I reinstall it since I purchased it online?


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## Johan Elzenga (Feb 10, 2018)

LoriBuffalo said:


> Since I can't even open LR, the only option in the Troubleshooting guide that applies to me (that I haven't already tried) is to uninstall LR. But how do I reinstall it since I purchased it online?


You can download the installer (and updaters) here: Download Photoshop Lightroom


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## Martha (Feb 11, 2016)

Hi,
Brand new to this forum.  I have been using Lightroom 6 for months on a macbook pro retina with no problems.  Yesterday, it just won't open. Just get the little colored wheel spinning. Help! I have a project due for school!
Thank so much!
Martha


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## LoriBuffalo (Feb 10, 2018)

That worked! Thanks so much for your help! So glad I was able to reinstall. It was only 6 months old. Now to get my Catalogs and Preferences back. If I have trouble I'll be in touch!


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## Jan K (Feb 26, 2018)

Hi, I also had a power failure with lighroom open on an iMac running high sierra, and now lightroom half opens and crashes immediately without even showing an error message. 
I tried to delete lock files, moved my catalogue and created a new one, and uninstalled and reinstalled lightroom. It still won't open. Any help much appreciated as this is very frustrating! Thanks


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## Johan Elzenga (Feb 26, 2018)

Have you tried resetting the preferences? Reinstalling Lightroom does not do that. How do I reset Lightroom's Preferences? | The Lightroom Queen


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## Jan K (Feb 26, 2018)

JohanElzenga said:


> Have you tried resetting the preferences? Reinstalling Lightroom does not do that. How do I reset Lightroom's Preferences? | The Lightroom Queen


Hi, thanks, just tried.... the pane came up would I like to reset preferences, I clicked yes and the program crashed


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## Johan Elzenga (Feb 26, 2018)

Remove the preferences manually like my link describes.


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## Jan K (Feb 27, 2018)

Hi, did that, removed all preferences manually, restarted machine it said it had to set up a new catalogue, then exactly the same - the image of trees comes up (ie lightroom image), then program crashes without error messages. What else can I try please? Is this a known problem?


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## Victoria Bampton (Feb 27, 2018)

When you reinstalled Lightroom, did you also install the update to 6.14? You'll find the patch on this page Download Photoshop Lightroom

The original LR6.0 installer isn't fully compatible with High Sierra, so it's possible that's the cause of the crash.


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## Jan K (Mar 6, 2018)

Hi, thanks heaps for the help. I redid everything and something worked! I suspect it was the update (which I didn‘t know you could do even if you could not launch the program). Thanks to Time Capsule I even managed to restore all my preferences etc too with no data loss. Thanks again for your help.


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## Johan Elzenga (Mar 11, 2018)

athman8 said:


> Downloaded Lightroom CC 2015 via Creative Cloud. Will not start on iMac with 10.10.3. The older version, 5.7.1, of Lightroom runs well.
> Ideas?


You use a rather old version of MacOS X. The latest version of Lightroom CC2015 may not be compatible.


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