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Gunther Wegner
Gunther Wegner
Known Participant
June 24, 2022

P: Export large Sequences via simple custom export plugin crashes Lightroom 11.4

  • June 24, 2022
  • 52 replies
  • 5136 views

This issue was reported to me by multiple LRTimelapse users that use my LRTExport Lightroom Plugin to export their timelapses.


Symptom: Exporting sequences of multiple thousand images via a custom export plugin consistantly makes Lightroom Classic 11.4 (and later prereleases) crash. This happens on Windows and Mac machines.

There is no problem, with shorter sequences of several hundreds of images, as it appears.

 

I could reproduce the reports from my users on my machine (Windows 10), latest NVidia drivers, etc.

 

To exclude the chance of any programming errors in my rather complex LRTExport plugin, I coded a very simple, basic custom export plugin. This simple plugin, also crashes when used to export several thousand images, you can use it to reproduce the issue:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4om4748izdlaw1y/Gunther_Wegner_SimpleExport.lrplugin.zip?dl=1

 

The more images I export, the faster and more often the crash happens. With 4000 images for example, often after 10 images Lightroom closes. In some cases it sends a crash report (which I submitted under my info(at)LRTimelapse email address) in some cases it just closes.

Another scenario that I observed a couple of times is that the plugin stops logging and updating the progressbar but the export actually continues in background (filling up the export folder). Then obviously you also can't stop the export via the X button.

 

I can reproduce these issues in 100% of all cases when exporting several thousand images.

 

I went back to Lightroom Classic 11.3.1, where everything works fine in the same scenario.

 

I already spent two days in analyzing this issue and I'm willing to help to provide more information, if I can. It is very important for the timelapse community that this issue gets resolved asap!

 

Thank you in advance,

Gunther Wegner

LRTimelapse.com

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    52 replies

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    johnrellis
    johnrellis
    Legend
    July 1, 2022

    I repeated the test with 6000 images and got similar bad behavior (but no crashes).  This, LR stopped providing exported files to the plugin for 70 minutes!  But eventually they were all provided.

     

     

    Gunther Wegner
    Gunther WegnerAuthor
    Known Participant
    June 30, 2022

    @johnrellisWhat you are experiencing is most likely related. I'd recommend to do one more test with 5000 images. I'm pretty sure you will also experience it crashing. I don't know where the threshold is, but the less images the more stable the export seems to be but from a certain couple of thousands things go south.

    johnrellis
    johnrellis
    Legend
    June 30, 2022

    @Gunther Wegner, I see that Adobe employee Rikk Flohr has moved your report into Bugs and assigned it a tracking number, which is great.

     

    I ran another test last night with LR 11.4.1 / Mac OS 12.4, with Preferences > Performance > Use GPU For Export enabled.  Using Simple Export, I exported 2000 DNGs converted from the same raw file, about 28 MB each. The export completed successfully, exporting each file, taking an average of 1.05 seconds/photo, which is the normal speed on my computer.  

     

    Further, file SimpleExport.log shows an entry for each of the 2000 exported files -- the plugin was correctly passed each exported file.

     

    But here's the strange part:  The modified dates of the files show they were created on disk at fairly constant rates. But the log file has a near 9-minute gap with no log entries and then a smaller 1-minute gap.  After each gap, there's a burst of activity as the plugin is handed the queued-up exported files to process.

     

    This table shows the rates by minute at which the exported files were written to disk (the File Modified column) and at which they were handed to the plugin (the SimpleExport.log column):

     

     

    So on my machine, LR is invoking the plugin correctly, but it's getting blocked up, with a huge queue of blocked export requests delayed for 9 minutes before being handed to the plugin.  Clearly not correct behavior.

     

    It may be on those of your exports that don't actually crash, if you let the export wait for a really long time, it will complete correctly.  

     

    Rikk Flohr_Photography
    Community Manager
    Rikk Flohr_PhotographyCommunity Manager
    June 30, 2022

    setting status to Investigating

    Rikk Flohr: Adobe Photography Org
      Gunther Wegner
      Gunther WegnerAuthor
      Known Participant
      June 29, 2022

      BTW: This happens with graphics acceleration on and off. I just made a video where I show the issue and how to replicate it:

      https://youtu.be/kTiuRw537RE

        johnrellis
        johnrellis
        Legend
        June 28, 2022

        I tried the plugin (modified as described above) with a number of very large exports of raw photos (3200 photos, 1260 photos, 660 photos), on LR 11.4 / Mac OS 12.4, with the option Use GPU For Export enabled.  LR didn't crash, though I did get the error "No rendered photo exists on disk. (16)" once, and I got this error once (before I fixed line 47 as described above):

         

         

        I shouldn't have gotten any errors.  Those errors may or may not be directly related to the crashes you all are experiencing, but it does suggest that 11.4 introduced bugs into Export.

         

         

         

         

          johnrellis
          johnrellis
          Legend
          June 28, 2022

          [This post contains formatting and embedded images that don't appear in email. View the post in your Web browser.]

           

          Based on long experience, Adobe will likely not pay much attention to this kind of bug unless many more people report it  or there is a reliable recipe that provokes the problem on Adobe's computers.  Gunther's sample plugin didn't provoke the problem on my computer, and I think that if this bug occurred repeatedly on all or most LR installations, we'd see a lot more reports about it.

           

          My suggestions for how to make it more likely to get Adobe to pay attention: If you experience a true crash where LR exits abruptly and a crash-report window appears, when asked make sure you submit the report to Adobe with the email address you've used in this forum.  If/when they pay attention, Adobe engineers will look up the crash report with that email address.

           

          Also, ulrichf32819305 has reported that disabling the GPU didn't eliminate the problem.  Others here should try unchecking Use GPU For Export and report here whether that works around the bug:

           

          The more details posted here, the more likely someone might be able to post a reliable recipe for provoking the bug.  ("Same exact issue" isn't that helpful, since often the particular details differ.)

          Gunther Wegner
          Gunther WegnerAuthor
          Known Participant
          June 29, 2022

          I already submitted many crash reports (in fact every time I got the chance - but it doesn't always happen).

          GPU can be on or off, the bug appears either way.

          I posted a video below where I show exactly how Adobe and anyone else can replicate this.

            johnrellis
            johnrellis
            Legend
            June 28, 2022

            I've been doing tests with your sample plugin.  A couple of necessary changes:

             

            - Rename "info.lua" to "Info.lua". 

             

            - Change line 47 of MySimpleExportServiceProvider.lua to be:

             

            myLogger:debug( "Could not render: " .. (pathOrMessage or "nil"))

             

            ("pathOrMessage" should never be nil, but it was, suggesting a bug inside LR.)

            Gunther Wegner
            Gunther WegnerAuthor
            Known Participant
            June 29, 2022

            Hi John, thanks for pointing those things out. I don't think they change anything about the problem, but you are certainly right that they should be fixed. I've just uploaded a new version:

            https://www.dropbox.com/s/fiq8roh5v7vggj9/Gunther_Wegner_SimpleExport.lrplugin_2.zip?dl=1

            Unfortunatlely I cannot seem to find a way to edit my first post.

              Timestorm Films
              Timestorm Films
              Participant
              June 24, 2022

              I have the exact same problem. Got a bunch sequences with over 10000 photos to be exported in TIFF. This is a critical bug and absolute deal-breaker and needs to be fixed ASAP. I downgraded currently to version 11.1 since this is also a version that reliably renders on all 32/64 cores.

                S
                sophieh47611451
                Participant
                June 24, 2022

                I have the exact same problem. Got a bunch sequences with over 10000 photos to be exported in TIFF. This is a critical bug and absolute deal-breaker and needs to be fixed ASAP. I downgraded currently to version 11.1 since this is also a version that reliably renders on all 32/64 cores.

                  Luis JG
                  Luis JG
                  Participant
                  June 24, 2022

                  Hello Gunther and everyone.
                  I have the same problem, it's true. Yesterday I was with a sequence of exactly 1,000 photographs and I have the same problem as Gunther says.
                  Before there were no problems with Lightroom.

                  Thanks for the collaboration.

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