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Lightroom Classic Help
Adobe Help Center
Lightroom Classic Help

Troubleshoot crash or freeze in Lightroom Classic

Last updated on Apr 2, 2026

Unable to open Lightroom Classic? Lightroom Classic crashes or freezes on launch?

We're here to help!

Fix common crash issues in 7 simple steps

  1. Force quit and restart Lightroom Classic or restart your computer.
  2. Update Lightroom Classic to the latest version
  3. Check for a Known issue in Lightroom Classic.
  4. Check the Adobe Community for reported issues.
  5. Reset Lightroom Classic's preferences
  6. Troubleshoot GPU and graphics driver
  7. Keep your macOS or Windows operating system up to date.

Sync Crash due to bad sector in the hard disk (Windows)

Lightroom may crash while syncing due to an issue with the hard disk. You may check the hard disk for errors by running a chkdsk command to find any errors your hard disk might have. 
For more information on the chkdsk command, check its documentation from Microsoft. 

Other troubleshooting tips

Disable the GPU to quickly narrow down the issue

In some cases, having the latest GPU driver may not cure all problems related to video adapters and drivers.

The quickest and easiest way to determine if the problem is with your video adapter or driver is to disable the Use Graphics Processor preference.

  • In Lightroom Classic, select:
    • (macOS) Lightroom Classic > Preferences > Performance
    • (Windows) Edit > Preferences > Performance
  • From the Use Graphics Processor drop-down menu, select Off.
  • Quit, and relaunch Lightroom.

For help with accessing preferences, see Set preferences for working in Lightroom Classic.

For more information, see Troubleshoot graphics processor (GPU) and graphics driver issues.

Identify a corrupt catalog

To quickly determine whether Lightroom Classic is crashing due to a corrupt catalog, do the following:

  1. Press and hold the Alt (Win) / option (macOS) key while launching Lightroom Classic. 
  2.  In the Select Catalog dialog box, select another catalog or click Create a New Catalog.

If Lightroom Classic launches successfully, a corrupt catalog is causing the problem. For more information, see Troubleshoot corrupt catalog.

Is Lightroom Classic still crashing?

As a last resort, if you cannot resolve the problem, try reverting to a previous app version.

For more information, see Install previous versions of your Creative Cloud apps.

Need more help?

If you need more help, share information about your crash issue and crash log to help Adobe resolve the issue for you. For details, see Submit a crash report.

You can also participate in Adobe Lightroom Classic Community to find answers to some common questions or issues or share your ideas. We'd love to hear from you!

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