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New Lightroom installation - "not responding" - won't open

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Nat Rich

New Member
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Nov 12, 2016
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I installed Lightroom for the first time yesterday. I spent a fair amount of time getting my arms around the importing of RAW files and file management in Windows 10. Now Lightroml is "Not Responding." I've seen several suggestions to make changes in preferences, but I can't open it in order to make such changes. I'm stuck. I appreciate any advice.
 
Welcome to the forum. You may need to update your video card driver. The lock up might be due to an unsupported Video card and GPU accelleration.
Kill LR. The reboot Windows. At this point you should have access to your Preferences file. Rename it to force LR to create a new one. Make there is not a sentinel file in the folder where you catalog file is located. If present, it will have an extension "{Catalog Name}.lock". You can delete it if it is there. If you can then start LR, open the LR Preferences and turn off GPU accelleration.
 
Thanks for the prompt response. Please forgive my lack of knowledge... I appreciate your patience. By "kill" you mean shut down Lightroom? I've done that. I've rebooted Windows several times. Where is the "access" to my Preferences file? I'll rename it if I can find it. I don't understand your references to the "sentinel" and "catalog" files. I should add that Lightroom opened fine (although I had just loaded LR for the first time and was still struggling to simply import files) until I started messing with the importing of RAW files directly in Windows Explorer... not sure if this contributed to my problem.
 
You can find the preference file here: C:\Users\[user name]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom\Preferences\Lightroom 6 Preferences.agprefs (i'm certain the Windows folder is correct. I think I have the file name correct. If not it should be easy to identify.)
If LR is stopped abruptly, this file with the ".lock" extension gets left behind. LR places it there to prevent LR from opening another instance of the LR catalog file. IOW, the ".lock" file (which is empty btw), acts as a guard (sentinel) watching to prevent two programs from opening your catalog file. LR will remove this ".lock" file when closing normally. But it if gets left behind and LR is not running, you can't open this catalog file until the sentinel file is gone.

RAW files are not different from any other file that gets cataloged in the catalog file. So, this is not a contribution to your problem.

If you are able to open LR, and your LR catalog file, then can you check something for me and report back? On the LR {Help} menu theres is a submenu item labeled "System Info..." Click on that and a dialog will open that describes in detail your hardware, software and LR settings. Can you copy and past the contents of that dialog into a reply here?
 
Again, thanks so much for your help. In my Preferences folder I have two files... "Lightroom 6 Preferences.agprefs" and "Lightroom 6 Startup Preferences.agprefs." Neither has the ".lock extension." Is this what you would expect?
 
Neither would have the ".lock" extension the file with the ".lock" is placed in the folder where your catalog resides. That and preferences really have nothing to do with each other but one or the other could be preventing LR to open properly or respond. (your original post) With LR closed, you can rename the file named "Lightroom 6 Preferences.agprefs" and then reopen LR. Once LR is open, you should be able to provide me with the info from the "System Info..." sub menu item.

Frankly, I have never figured out the purpose of the "Lightroom 6 Startup Preferences.agprefs" file. AFAIKT, it does not pertain to the LR app.
 
Frankly, I have never figured out the purpose of the "Lightroom 6 Startup Preferences.agprefs" file. AFAIKT, it does not pertain to the LR app.

Its purpose is to allow the user to reset the "real" preferences file, whilst retaining the knowledge about the last used (current) and recently opened catalogs.
 
Neither would have the ".lock" extension the file with the ".lock" is placed in the folder where your catalog resides. That and preferences really have nothing to do with each other but one or the other could be preventing LR to open properly or respond. (your original post) With LR closed, you can rename the file named "Lightroom 6 Preferences.agprefs" and then reopen LR. Once LR is open, you should be able to provide me with the info from the "System Info..." sub menu item.

Frankly, I have never figured out the purpose of the "Lightroom 6 Startup Preferences.agprefs" file. AFAIKT, it does not pertain to the LR app.

Again, I appreciate your help.
While LR was shut down I renamed the Preference file and then rebooted windows. No luck. I renamed the startup Preference file and rebooted again. No luck.
AS before, when I start the LR application the screen opens as it should, but the progress wheel turns indefinitely, and ultimately I get the message across the top that it is "Not Responding."
I just installed this for the first time a couple days ago and am trying to get started. It seemed to work for a day, until I started trying to import photos.
Thanks.
 
Early on I said "The lock up might be due to an unsupported Video card and GPU accelleration." Resetting the preferences files can let you open LR to turn off GPU acceleration most of the time. There are other ways and I'll need to dig through the forum to find the instructions (unless some one else can put their finger on the link).
 
Early on I said "The lock up might be due to an unsupported Video card and GPU accelleration." Resetting the preferences files can let you open LR to turn off GPU acceleration most of the time. There are other ways and I'll need to dig through the forum to find the instructions (unless some one else can put their finger on the link).
thanks again for your time.
 
Is the "Manually disable the graphics processor" bit on this page the one you're thinking of? Adobe Lightroom GPU Troubleshooting and FAQ
Thank you.
The instructions are to open the Preferences file, which I've done.
The instructions say to change "useAutoBahn = True" to "useAutoBahn = False."
Unfortunately I can find no lines at all in my Preferences file that say "useAutoBahn." That line is not in my Preferences file.
Suggestions? Thanks again.
 
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