jacklewis014

When Catalina was first released this Forum reported compatibility issues and errors. I run Lightroom 5 and have held off upgrading to Catalina. Does anyone know if the errors have been fixed? Is it safe to upgrade to Catalina? Thanks for the help.

morkie1891

Catalina will not run 32 bit programs. Check in System Info if LR 5 is 32 or 64 bit. I am almost certain it is 32 and not compatible with Catalina.

wrangler5 Loc: Missouri

As I understand it, all versions of standalone LR include one or two modules/functions that are in 32 bit code. I run 6.14, and will not move to Catalina because of that.

jacklewis014

I just went on the Adobe Forum and was told LR5 came in two flavors - 32 & 64 bit.
If LR was installed as 64 bit originally, you should be able to upgrade to Catalina.
If the original installation was 32 bit you can not upgrade OS and still run LR since the Installer program is only 32 bit, won't run with Catalina, and therefore can't be upgraded/installed as 64 bit version.

Still seems risky - upgrade to Catalina and possibly lose LR.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

Do yourself a big favor and let yourself upgrade to the current versions of Lightroom.

wrangler5 Loc: Missouri

Hmmm, I'd never heard that. I'd read that even 64 bit versions of standalone LR still included pieces of 32 bit code that would not run under Catalina, and would keep the whole program from running.

Early on in Catalina, the stories I saw were "LR won't run", from standalone LR users. I don't think I EVER saw a statement "well mine does," which would have started a back and forth to figure out why one version of LR did run under Catalina and another didn't.

I for one have decided not to take the risk. I run a late 2012 Mac Mini which I understand will not be able to run any OS after Catalina, so I'll be in end-of-life territory soon anyway. And what I have is working fine, so sleeping dogs . . .

jacklewis014

I am in similar shape - my MAC is 2014.
I don't need to update OS - I have not experienced any issues that Catalina will address.
So, I think my dogs will continue to sleep

jgm

I use LR 6.14 on a 2017 iMac running High Sierra. One workaround option is to make a bootable external hard disk with Catalina installed, preferably on a fast SSD drive. I cloned the hard drive from my iMac running High Sierra to a bootable external using Carbon Copy Cloner and then installed Catalina from the Apple App Store onto that external drive. This allows me on to use Catalina for certain operations that High Sierra simply will not work with, for example, backing up iPhones and iPads with the latest operating systems. Switching between High Sierra and Catalina thus becomes as easy as selecting which drive to boot from in the systems folder. Not perfect but if you want to use an older version of Lightroom and still have access did the latest OS then this is a workable solution.

Crad1998

I finally bit the bullet and upgraded. I hate paying the monthly fee but felt I was missing out on upgrades to my computer .

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Lightroom 5 will NEVER work with Catalina. If you want to use Lightroom in Catalina, you need to subscribe to the Adobe Photography Plan, available in several incarnations. The least costly is $9.99/month and includes TWO versions of Lightroom, Classic and CC, plus Photoshop CC and Bridge, and some other goodies.

Apple completely dropped compatibility with all 32-bit applications when they released Catalina. HOWEVER, there is a workaround:

Install the latest version of Parallels Desktop in Catalina. Then install (into Parallels) an earlier version of MacOS that is compatible with your version of Lightroom. Then, install Lightroom in that MacOS. To make this work, you need generous system resources, including drive space, RAM, VRAM, and so forth.

Another way to make it work is to keep your old computer on the version of MacOS that runs Lightroom 5, and buy a new Mac for everything else. Expensive? Yes. Worth it? It depends on your circumstances, wants, and needs. You might want to wait for the new Apple Silicon (non-Intel) Macs, coming over the next two years, although Intel support will be there for five years or so as they transition away from Intel chips.

ALL computer hardware and software become obsolete over time. Old systems become vulnerable to hackers when Apple or Microsoft ceases security upgrade support for them. The same is true for software applications and utilities, especially Adobe Flash (which just got updated today on my system).

My souped-up Late 2013 iMac will run Catalina, but I have yet to upgrade because my Epson Scan scanner driver loses Digital ICE support when I use Epson Scan 2 (I have both installed). Unfortunately, Catalina is the end of the line for OS upgrades, so I'll be looking to buy a new computer within the next two years. That's fine with me... Much of my software will require it, anyway.

bonjac Loc: Santa Ynez, CA 93460

Early on I upgraded to Catalina only to discover my LR6.14 would not run. Apple told me to talk to Adobe and they told me there was no way to run LR 6.14 on Catalina. As time went on, I kept reading about problems with Catalina. I decided to go back to Mojave so I could use LR. That move back was a painful process and I spent hours trying to get everything back to working. With some help from Adobe, I have a fully functional LR 6.14 and am totally happy with Mojave.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

"TWO versions of Lightroom" .... More than that if you count the web, phone and tablet versions.

rleonetti Loc: Portland, Oregon

I upgraded to Catalina and found that LR 6.14 ran ok, but had to force quit LR on exit.

Not sure when, but one day I reloaded LR from my back up, choosing a time stamp before before Catalina was installed and it has worked fine. LR is 32 bit, but the loading process must call some 16 bit instructions that Catalina does not support.

No guarantees, but it seems that only very old groups of photos that I re-open and then re-edit seem to trigger this need to force quit LR afterwords. The force quit does not seem to change anything, anyway, even if it only occurs on very old processed photos.

GEngel-usmc Loc: Spencerport NY - I miss Lakeland, FL

Will not run on Catalina. I had same issues with all my other Adobe software. 32-bit vs 64–bit issue. Too expensive to update all my Adobe, etc stuff.
I just stayed with Sierra and am happy. I’m also an 82 year old keeping my money, not giving it out to Adobe. Lots of other Apps I can use in place of subscriptions.

jacklewis014

I appreciate all the "war stories", insights, suggestions and experience. Lots to consider. So glad I asked before upgrading to Catalina.
Thank you all!!! :)