The newest Mac operating system, macOS 13 Ventura, goes live today. The big question is, do Lightroom and Lightroom Classic work?
It’s a good question, as the last thing anyone wants is to update their Operating System only to find critical apps either don’t work or don’t work properly.
The short answer is – it’s too early to be sure of all the potential issues. However, some issues are already known and are listed below. As we hear of more, we’ll update the list. But at this point we’d recommend waiting. It’s not just Lightroom itself (and there are some issues, although these will be fixed), but we’re also awaiting feedback on compatibility of peripherals. Again, see our notes on these at the end of this post – we’ll update as fixes or new drivers are available.
Here’s the official Adobe post on Adobe Apps and Ventura.
Lightroom Classic
There are known issues in the latest Lightroom Classic releases when running on Ventura:
Catalogs running on external drives won’t run.FIXED in Classic 12.0.1- Tethering with Nikon cameras doesn’t work. (Reported to be working for some people in 12.2, but not for others.)
- Importing from a Nikon camera using a USB cable is broken. FIXED in Classic 12.1
Import from iPhone via USB cable gets confused over capture date/time– FIXED in Classic 12.2Page Setup button in Print module crashes Lightroom– FIXED in macOS 13.3 update- Some other Print issues are also under investigation, but it’s not yet clear whether they’re caused by Lightroom or the operating system or the driver. If Print is essential for you, do not update to Ventura yet.
Lightroom Desktop (the cloud-based version)
- Importing from a camera using a USB cable is broken. FIXED in 6.1
Wacom tablets
Wacom have released a driver for Ventura – see their Release Notes for additional details.
Shuttle Pro
Current Drivers are listed to support macOS Big Sur and macOS Monterey and macOS Ventura. However, there are disconnect issues with Ventura (meaning the device has to be unplugged and plugged back in again periodically.)
Other peripherals to check
- Lightroom Classic Plugins.
- Printer drivers.
- Scanner drivers.
- Backup software compatibility (for example, Chronosync lists macOS 10.12 or newer, Monterey compatible but are usually quick to update for new versions.)
As we gather more feedback, we’ll continue to update this blog.
To disable automatic updates, go to System Preferences > Software Update and uncheck Automatically keep my Mac up to date.
For extensive information on Lightroom Classic, see Adobe Lightroom Classic – The Missing FAQ.
If you have the Photography Plan, then as well as Classic you have access to the Lightroom cloud ecosystem including the mobile apps and web interface. For more information on these apps, see Adobe Lightroom – Edit on the Go.
Note: purchase of these books includes the first year’s Classic or cloud-based Premium Membership (depending on the book purchased), giving access to download the latest eBook (each time Adobe updates the software), email assistance for the applicable Lightroom version if you hit a problem, and other bonuses.
We also have a special bundle offer for the two books. This includes Premium Membership for the first year as described above for the whole Lightroom family!
Kevin says
If LR Classic is working for you on Monterey but you want to upgrade to Ventura (where it will not work), do as I did and add a new volume/partition, ‘reinstall’ Monterey there (the option is available on restart) then upgrade your ‘main’ partition to Ventura. Then, when you want to edit photos, just reboot into Monterey and save your work to iCloud, Dropbox, external drive or whatever. Why shell out money in subscriptions for what you already have and are probably mostly happy with? Think Different? Think Smart!
Victoria Bampton says
I assume you’re referring to Lightroom 6 instead of Lightroom Classic, as the latter is subscription. Yes, good solution if you have hardware that still supports older operating systems.
Jeff Ellis says
Victoria – my main machine currently is a 2019-16″ MacBook Pro with Catalina OS 10.15.7
Id really like to be able to use the newest Lightroom and Photoshop but am leery of updating the OS. I’ve got installers for Monterey -OS 12, and Ventura- OS 13
A- will Adobe allow me to update to either and
B- which one has least functionality problems with Lightroom?
thanks!!
Jeff Ellis says
Meant to say also I use LR Classic….
Jeff Ellis says
And tethering Nikons (D850 & D810) is VERY important. I use Nikon’s Camera Control for that, not LR
Victoria Bampton says
Yep you should be ok with either. Ventura’s pretty stable, only issues still outstanding are odd reports of issues printing. Sonoma’s also looking good, with the exception of the very latest release (14.2) which breaks device import including tethering, but I hear that Nikon’s Camera Control is unaffected.
Dan says
I recently upgraded my 2016 Macbook Pro to a new 15″ Macbook Air. I used a Time Machine backup to transfer my files including Lr6.14. I was surprised that Lr6 worked (for a day) after it prompted me to load an app before starting. Unfortunately, it stopped working a day later and when I try to open Lr it won’t open.
Does anyone know what the name of this intermediate app was so I can get Lr6.14 running on my new Mac?
Thanks
Paul McFarlane says
Assuming your new Mac is running a current macOS, unfortunately you’re unlikely to get Lr6 running on it. It hasn’t been supported since Catalina (when Apple changed the requirement to only 64-bit programs)
Dan Chan says
Thanks Paul. My new macbook air is running on Venture 13.4.1 so I’m likely SOL. What surprised me was that LR6.14 worked for the first day after it prompted me to load another app. Unfortunately I didn’t pay too much attention to that and can’t recall what I did to let me run LR6.14.
Oh well.
Denis de Gannes says
Apple released a new update to macOS version 13.2 has this done anything for the outstanding issues with LrC 12.1?
Paul McFarlane says
macOS 13.2 concentrated on Apple additions and security fixes, check our Adobe Release Blogs for outstanding issues with Adobe.
Jodie says
Will Lightroom Classic CC 8.2 work with Ventura , need to know before i upgrade ?
Thanks
Victoria Bampton says
8.2 is a subscription version, so you can just update to the latest LR Classic which is fully compatible.
Pyers Tucker says
I have a 2 month old M1 MacBook Pro and upgraded to Ventura. LR and LrC both work fine (as far as I can tell…)
The only thing I have noticed not working is that when trying to move photos from a CFXpress 512GB memory card to the MacBook, it will only move between 4 and 50 photos before the MacBook with Ventura stops the process and comes up with error code 8058. I spent 2 hours on the phone with Apple who were unable to fix it, claiming the problem was Nikon or CFX…
I therefore have to copy and then delete. (Worked fine with Monterey…)
Sake good order, the camera is a Nikon Z9 and has latest firmware, as is the Ventura.
Ann Eldridge says
I am about to buy a new computer as mine is 10 years old & I can no longer get any updates! It will come with Ventura installed, I am very nervous about moving Lightroom classic over to this, any tips for me please?
Victoria Bampton says
I wouldn’t worry too much Ann, unless you need to tether Nikon. The rest is looking fairly reasonable at this point.
Matt Schlotzhauer says
Wow, when reading the official Adobe Post under the LR section I could not believe that under Ventura, backing up your catalog (which is part of the complete backup of my MBP) to a network destination will fail. Backing up your computer to the home NAS is a fundamental procedure. How the heck did this happen? More importantly, it needs fixing ASAP!
Victoria Bampton says
Let me check into that Matt. Where did you read that?
I haven’t upgraded my machines to Ventura yet as there’s always issues with new operating system releases.
Matt Schlotzhauer says
On the link you provided at the top: Adobe post on Adobe apps and Ventura
Matt Schlotzhauer says
Scroll down to Lightroom then click on known issues
Victoria Bampton says
Got it. Thanks, that’s appeared since I last checked that page. It appears it’s not Ventura-specific, but is specific to 12.0.1 on macOS, so we’ll add it as a known bug to the 12.0.1 post too.
Chad Wagner says
I am still having this problem. It took almost 1.5 hours for the backup to complete to my network drive. I can’t find where the problem was listed by adobe. I am on macOS 13.1 and Lightroom Classic 12.1.
Is it just me or is this still an outstanding issue?
Victoria Bampton says
That was this thread and it looks like the bug has been reopened. https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-backup-won-t-write-to-network-drive/idi-p/13308966
Michael Cytrynowicz says
Couldn’t resist either, and installed Ventura. Now my CUPS driver for Canon Pixma Pro 200 seems broken – can’t set the Printer Options in the new-fangled Ventura settings dialog. As soon as I click it, it causes Lightroom Classic to quit. Any similar experiences? LR is totally up-to-date (to this morning dot update)
raoulco says
It works absolutely fine on my 2019 iMac.
What machine do you have?
David Langham says
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom does not work with Mac OS Ventura. I am now unable to process any pics and as a result am paying for LR without any benefit.
Victoria Bampton says
What issue are you having specifically David? And are you running the latest 12.0.1 version of Lightroom released a few days ago?
Zenon says
The older apps will run (not sure about Ventura) but don’t uninstall LR6. You will never be able to install it again. The install app is 32 bit. I think at Catalina the OS went 64 bit? I can’t remember.
Paul McFarlane says
It was with Catalina that Apple stopped supporting 32-bit applications. You’re correct that the installer (and the uninstaller) for Lr6 are 32-bit. Of course, Lr6 has been unsupported for several years now.
Nigel says
I am still using Lightroom 6.14 on Mac OS Monterey with no issues. I think I will hold off on Ventura but would be interested if anyone has tried it. Of course it will be lights out if anything goes wrong as the install files are 32 bit and have been useless for years.
raoulco says
I couldn’t resist so I installed Ventura. Everything so far appears to be working fine, no bugs, no hassles at all. I honestly wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between this new Ventura and the previous OS Monterey. The main bell & whistle is Stage Manager which I’m still getting used to. As for LR Classic, I don’t know why anyone would want different catalogues stored on external drives unless they really have to, which understandably some people do have to, but the common wisdom is to only have one catalogue. Great to see that there’s a fix now.
Victoria Bampton says
That’s good to hear, thanks for sharing!
Milly says
The external hard drive issue affected me. I keep photos and catalogs out of my Mac Desktop internal hard drive and only use external hard drives. This also helps for when I want to edit while traveling since I can just hook up the external hard drive to my laptop and continue editing. Hoping for a fix soon. For now I went back to the older Lightroom version.
Chris Nguyen says
I had the same problem !!! 🙁 Sadly , I need to work on the project and there is FIX yet !!! I am counting daily for the fix !!!
Paul McFarlane says
Adobe released a double-dot this morning (12.0.1) to address this problem. It should be in your CC App (click Check for updates)
jose says
It didn’t work with my M1 Mac Mini with 16GB of Ram. I had to revert back to Monterey to get LRC working again.
wirrah says
I was forced into Ventura due to a warranty repair. I’m now having issues with the “Creative Cloud” application which appears to be running but does not show up in the menu bar as it did. Lightroom Classic just hangs on start up. Still investigating…
Zenon says
Best thing usually is to uninstall and reinstall the app.
wirrah says
I uninstalled creative cloud app but the installer does not work. It is in the process list but, unfortunately, does nothing. Eventually goes into “not responding” mode. Will try again later. Had all sorts of other issues with Ventura this is the last one I need to resolve.
wirrah says
Just an update on this. I created a temporary new account on my Mac and successfully installed everything. After doing that it all worked on my normal account so I was up and running. Odd…
Victoria Bampton says
How strange! Sounds like some installer cruft left over in your main account, so if you hit it again, you might try running the CC Cleaner app (after very careful backups!!!)
wirrah says
Thanks. I did run the cleaner application to no avail. I also had some communications with Adobe and it was suggested that it may have been the result of having to restore from time machine onto the new drive. Anyway we’re back up and running and my Spaniels are happy!
Bob M says
For info:
The Panasonic Lumix Tether software does not work with the Ventura. (I’ve got a DC-G9). I spoke to Panasonic on a chat line today and they haven’t got a new version ready for release yet. They gave me this link to check for updates:
https://av.jpn.support.panasonic.com/support/global/cs/soft/download/d_lumixtether.html
Steve says
Thanks for this information. Holding off or now as I have no real need to upgrade, and frankly, don’t want issues! Will be keeping an eye on this page and your Facebook info!
Denis de Gannes says
Thanks for this heads up, while it is not affecting me at the moment since I am stuck at BugSur 11.7 on my iMac mid 2015, this does not come as a surprise to me.
In October 2020 and 2021 both Adobe and Apple made major upgrades to their Applications / Operating system within weeks / days of each other.
In both 2020 and 2021 it took three to four months to get things operating smoothly and I hope it’s not going to be arepeat
Charles HUBY, (Belgium) says
Hi,
You’re not necessarily stuck to BigSur: Have a look at “OpenCore Legacy Patcher”, the way to avoid Apple’s limitation on older machines. I’ve installed BigSur on a MacPro 2009 ! Sure, it’s a long process but it’s worth it. More info on https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/
Hope it’ll help.
Have a nice day
rosario says
Mi ha aggiornato in automatico in serata e ora non mi apre più i cataloghi su hard disk esterni
Paul McFarlane says
As you see in our blog, that is a known issue. Until a fix is availale, the only workaround is to move the catalog to your system drive.
Zenon says
LrC 12 and PS working for me so far. Sent a file to Photo AI and back. All good. I’ve never installed Lr.
Stewart says
Been using it with Ventura for a few months… no issues at all on my M1 MacBook Pro!
Sam Cox says
Is the Ventura upgrade automatic? Is there a way to avoid it?
Paul McFarlane says
In System Preferences > Software Update, make sure ‘Automatically keep my Mac up to date’ isn’t checked.