Troubleshooting
The handful of things that most often trip people up, and how to fix each one. If your issue isn't here, use in the app.
Photos show as missing after a restart (NAS)
If your masters live on a network share (a NAS), they're only reachable while that volume is mounted. After a reboot, sleep or a dropped network the share can unmount, and photos on it show as missing until it's back.
- Remount the share in Finder (), then let the grid refresh.
- Lumidex Studio can remount known servers for you — it remembers the shares your catalogue uses and reconnects them, storing the password securely in your Keychain. Configure the keep-alive in .
- To confirm which files are genuinely gone versus just offline, run once the volume is back.
Mounted, but still shown as offline? Your catalogue points at the path a share mounts to by default (for example /Volumes/photo). If you mounted it somewhere else — a different name, or a folder in your home directory — the catalogue's paths don't resolve and Reconnect can't help (macOS won't remount a share that's already mounted). flags this as a "Wrong mount point" notice. The fix: eject the share, then reconnect it in Finder with (⌘K) and let macOS mount it at its default location.
A camera won't connect for tethering
Tethered capture talks to the camera over USB, and only one app can hold that connection at a time. On macOS, the system and other photo apps often grab the camera first. If Capture shows "no camera" with the camera plugged in and switched on:
- Quit Lightroom, Image Capture and Photos — any of them can claim the camera.
- On the camera, if prompted, choose to allow the accessory / PC connection.
- Unplug and replug the USB cable after quitting the other apps, then reconnect from the Capture module.
So far only the Nikon D4S has been hardware-verified. Other bodies use the same generic connection path and should work, but some need model-specific handling — if yours doesn't connect, please tell us via , including the camera model, so it can be added. Full setup is on the Tethered capture page.
An AI tool shows a download the first time
To keep the app download small, some AI tools (such as Denoise, Super Resolution, AI Select and Lens Blur) fetch their model the first time you use them — a one-time download from our servers. After that it's cached locally and every later use is instant, with no per-use network. The model runs entirely on your Mac; nothing about your photo is sent anywhere. See AI tools.
A photo looks wrong or out of date in the grid
Thumbnails are cached for speed. If one looks rotated wrongly or hasn't picked up a recent edit, ask the app to rebuild it: select the photo(s) and use the Rebuild Thumbnails action, or to regenerate a set. Develop edits refresh the grid automatically when you leave the module.
macOS won't open the app on first launch
Lumidex Studio is notarized by Apple, so it should open with no warning. If macOS still blocks it — usually after a download that stripped the signature — right-click the app in Applications and choose Open, then confirm once. You only need to do this the first time. If macOS reports the app is damaged, re-download a fresh copy from the home page rather than copying it from another Mac.
Licence and activation problems
Lost your key, or need to free a seat because both Macs are in use? Those are covered in detail on the Licensing & activation page — including deactivating a Mac and managing your seats from the web.
Still stuck
Use in the app to email us (it fills in your app and macOS version), or to copy a diagnostic summary to paste into an email. If the app crashed, shows the crash report so you can read it and choose whether to send it. Nothing is sent automatically — you review it first.