P: Performance Slow on Large Catalog (540k images). Crash (9690382)
- September 19, 2024
- 35 replies
- 8553 views
I am at my wit's end. I have been a LR user since Beta (2006), and have devoted tens of thousands of hours to creating and managing my catalog. But, in the last 4-6 months, performance (and stability) has reached unusable levels.
Here are my system stats (also attached)
- Ryzen 9 79503D
- 192GB Ram
- 32TB NVME Raid0 (Catalog + Previews) (17 GB per second sequential read]
- 96TB Thunderbolt 4 attached RAID 6 (Original Photos) [1.6 GB per second sequential read]
- Radeon 7900XTX w/ 24GB V-Ram
- 4X 27 inch 4k displays
- Windows 10 Pro for Workstations 22H2 - 19045.4894
Here are my lightroom settings
- Lightroom 13.5.1
- Full GPU Acceleration
- No XMP Autowrite
- 6.06GB Catalog File Size
- Catalog Optimized at every close (daily)
- 3840/High Previews
- Never Discard 1:1 Previews
- Replace Embedded Previews during idle OFF
- Sync OFF
- 200GB Camera Raw Cache
- Generate Previews in Parallel ON
- Enable HDR in Library OFF
Here is what I have tried to fix performance
- Create a brand new catalog and import old catalog into it - no effect
- Delete all 8TB of Previews and Cache and regenerate for current catalog - no effect
- Optimize Catalog - no effect
- Turn Off / On all options I outlined above - no effect
- Check all local disk / network attached disk settings, INCLUDING spending $3k on a new thunderbolt 4 NAS - no effect
- Reduce Preview Size down from 3840px - unclear effect
- Full OS Re-install of Windows
Here are my complaints:
- LIBRARY PERFORMANCE - Scrolling in library, even with no images selected, is choppy at best. Scrolling library folders and performing basic operations is sluggish and error prone.
- PREVIEW GENERATION - Generating previews does NOT utilize all processors. Re-generating 500k previews is going to take 3-4 weeks, when in the past this has only taken a couple days. Why?
- SLOW IMPORT - Related to 2, importing images is almost impossible because generating previews slows the process down to a complete crawl. I have no idea why this is the case with a system like mine. It took me 4 separate NIGHTS of trying to import 1TB of images recently because the act of creating previews made the import process so slow, and then the program would crash.
4. LACK OF STABILITY - Since everything takes so long, the numerous crashes the program encounters during normal operation cause deep frustration. Here's a pastebin of one such crash that occurred 10 minutes into re-creating the previews I had deleted in an attempt to solve the terrible performance issues of late. I have experienced numerous others crashes when batch merging HDRs and Panoramas overnight that require me to then slog through the terrible browsing performance to re-select the files and re-batch them, only for the program to crash again in another 2 hours.
5. SLOW UI OPERATION - Example: setting labels, ratings, keywords, all drag on. Moving between images in library while doing this is barely functional.
I rarely post anything on any forum ever, but the fact that my decades of dedication to the program are now being thrown to the winds of "shove AI into everything" rather than focusing on the QUALITY and USABILITY of the tool makes me deeply sad and frustrated.
In my view, the execs at Adobe need to take a step back from the AI craze and look at their products. People spend their lives learning your tools. Take some pride in them and make them WORK WELL. If this continues for another half a year, I am throwing it all away for C1 Pro and never looking back. I'll have lost thousands of hours of work, but at least I will have a functional tool once again.
Unfortunately, I have worked designing and building software for 2 decades and I understand how prioritization and decision-making works in a large organization. I know this "bug report" will get zero traction because I am complaining of a myriad of issues with no clear repro steps. But maybe someone will hear my voice and decide to do something about it. But probably not. I will hope, at least.
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