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jamesr33423836
Participating Frequently
October 19, 2015

P: Video Cache is out of control

  • October 19, 2015
  • 148 replies
  • 3139 views

I recently upgraded to Lightroom 6.2.1 So far there has been a lot of fuss over the import dialog... ok, well sure, it has a few issues, but they can be either worked around or just revert back to 6.1.1

I would like to report and ACTUAL bug in 6.2.1

My D drive recently ran out of space... I tried deleting some stuff I didn't need, but still it kept running out of space... So I finally ran windirstat and had a look at it.. Nearly HALF of my drive was FULL of D:/temp/Adobe Local/Lightroom/caches/video/media Cache Files. Now here's the kicker... NONE of these video files are even on the hard drive that has my catalog on it. My lightroom database is on drive L:\ all my lightroom photos and very few lightroom videos are all on L:\ I have a few scans on drive K:\ that I import to lightroom... but these videos are ALL on Drives E:\ and F:\

here's another thing.. I knew Adobe wasted space caching videos, and I do have a GOPRO and I record a little video,.. .VERY LITTLE, maybe 1 video a year... so I don't really want ANY of the video cached.. I will wait for it to load... SO a long time ago, I set my video cache in Preferences>File Handling to the minimum of 1GB (It's was always a BUG to not allow 0GB) I don't want to cache any videos!!!!!!!!!! but here it is.. NEW BUG It's STILL SET TO 1GB!!!!!!!!!!! How is it gobbling up almost 1TB of space when I have it set to 1GB??????????????? So.... here's another problem... I have Cache files that are 4GB for a movie that only takes up 2GB on my hard drive.. what's up with THAT??????????????? I randomly checked a few, and the worst one was a 5GB cache file for a movie that only takes up 750MB on my hard drive... two things, first of all... you NEVER EVER EVER need to cache an entire movie... caching more than 1 minute of a video is useless... if you're going to watch the video in lightroom, it can just play the video on the hard drive fast enough that it doesn't need further caching.. second... DON'T CACHE THE VIDEO AT ALL!!!! just capture the thumbnail of it so you don't have a blank square on the catalog and call it a day... if someone wants to play the video, it will load and play plenty fast enough, Lightroom Can't work with video files, only play them, so WHY BOTHER TO CACHE THE WHOLE THING?? come on Adobe, some COMMON SENSE please!!!!

so now ANOTHER BUG, it's already set to limit video cache to 1GB, so I figure, the new import thing must have built this RIDICULOUS Cache, so I will just Purge it, that will bring it down to 1GB right??/ WRONG!!! It pops up a message saying "Video cache is being purged, this message will be dismissed when the purge is finished... I wait 5 Seconds, and the message disappears, I have NO hard drive activity, and well... I STILL have 1GB of Video Cache files!!!!!!!!!!! Ok, maybe it didn't take.. let me set it to 2GB, then purge.. NOPE! let me set it back to 1GB then purge, NOPE..

ok, so I suspect how to fix it will be, (I Hope) click import, and select the movies folder and then select Ignore source... by the way, how do I add my E:\scans folder as a legitimate source.. I just removed a source, how do I add a nice shortcut button for a new one? ok, now that source is removed, I hope it won't scan it again... now that it will HOPEFULLY not scan that hard drive again, I'll manually delete the offending Video cache.. ok manual delete complete, Ahh my drive can breathe again.. Lets open light room and see what happens.... ok.. open.. lets open the Import dialog because eventually I'll need to import something... oh-o..... What's this??? Scanning Common Locations... OH-NO!!!!!!!!!! first of all E:\Moves and F:\TV are NOT COMMON LOCATIONS FOR PHOTOS Second, I REMOVED THOSE LOCATIONS.. It has a valid location listed, WHY IS IS LOOKING FOR SOMEWHERE ELSE????? Yes it's now scanning VIDEOS and the only reason for it to be taking so long is it went back to my E and F drive... lets look at the cache folder... oh yes, MediaCache already has 3,876 files in it.... not looking very good. Why is it caching files that are not even imported into lightroom??? and why is the cache for each file taking up more space than the entire video??? If you want to make a video cache.. just cache the THUMBNAIL ONLY!!!!! we don't need or want anything else cached.. a thumbnail is all we need cached for our few relevant videos so we don't have a black square in our catalog.

Crap, I'm going to be FORCED to revert to 6.1.1 even though I had every intention of working around the other 6.2.1 issues. TEST TEST TEST Test your software!!! the monkeys you have testing it are not doing a good enough job! send it to me, I'll test it for you, It needs to be tested on a real computer, one that is used for other things.. that way you would KNOW it's finding stupid things like CD cover art and every movie and tv show on my hard drive. I seem to find glaringly obvious issues within one day of using the product. I've been developing software for the last 28 years, I know how it should be done, and how things should be tested, and this is NOT being done AT ALL. Your programmers are sub-standard and are missing the mark, and your non-existent SQA department is NOT testing even the simplest of functions.

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148 replies

Victoria Bampton LR Queen
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 16, 2016
Can you please confirm this is fixed for you in the 2015.5 / 6.5 update released today?  Thanks.
Victoria - The Lightroom Queen
Adobe Employee
March 7, 2016
Try repair user folder permission tip to see if it helps. See https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/lightroom-cc2015-4-locks-up.
Inspiring
March 5, 2016
Hi there

For some reason I'm not able to import or play videos in Lightroom CC 2015, v4 anymore. I'm getting this message at import. Purging the video cache did not solve the problem. Please help 🙂
Rune


Inspiring
February 13, 2016
Thanks. There is no folder in that location called "Preview", but the size of the entire Lightroom directory is reasonable around ~8 GB at this point. So if the the cache files for video in the catalog that permit for mouse scrolling in the application are only located there, then I think I've found everything. 

I will still keep a close eye on things and if I spot any other caching directories, I vill be back ~
Adobe Employee
February 13, 2016
If your Lightroom catalog is located at

/Users/username/Pictures/Lightroom/Lightroom 6 Catalog.lrcat

Then Lightroom preview files is located at 

/Users/username/Pictures/Lightroom/Lightroom 6 Catalog Previews.lrdata
Known Participant
February 12, 2016
Good to know that more is on the way. The quick fix in the 6.4 release is already a big improvement.
Inspiring
February 12, 2016
I ran mdfind kind:folder "Previews" from terminal and only the following came up. I don't see anything with either Adobe or Lightroom in this list. Is that a Windows or a Mac piece of advice?


/Users/username/Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary/Previews /Users/username/Downloads/My15 Selected Photos/My15 Select Photos - Lightroom Export/My15 Select Photos Previews.lrdata /Library/Application Support/Apple/Photos/Print Products/Themes/Picture_Book_Photos_OSX.pptheme/Contents/Resources/ThemePreviews /Library/Application Support/Apple/Photos/Print Products/Themes/YearInReview-Postcard.pptheme/Contents/Resources/ThemePreviews /Library/Application Support/Apple/Photos/Print Products/Themes/YearInReview-FoldedCard.pptheme/Contents/Resources/ThemePreviews /Library/Application Support/Apple/Photos/Print Products/Themes/Travelogue.pptheme/Contents/Resources/ThemePreviews /Library/Application Support/Apple/Photos/Print Products/Themes/SquareBySquare.pptheme/Contents/Resources/ThemePreviews /Library/Application Support/Apple/Photos/Print Products/Themes/PremiumClassic-FoldedCard.pptheme/Contents/Resources/ThemePreviews /Library/Application Support/Apple/Photos/Print Products/Themes/Portfolio.pptheme/Contents/Resources/ThemePreviews /Library/Application Support/Apple/Photos/Print Products/Themes/PictureCard-Postcard.pptheme/Contents/Resources/ThemePreviews /Library/Application Support/Apple/Photos/Print Products/Themes/PictureCard-FoldedCard.pptheme/Contents/Resources/ThemePreviews /Library/Application Support/Apple/Photos/Print Products/Themes/Picture-Calendar.pptheme/Contents/Resources/ThemePreviews /Library/Application Support/Apple/Photos/Print Products/Themes/PhotoEssay-Large.pptheme/Contents/Resources/ThemePreviews /Library/Application Support/Apple/Photos/Print Products/Themes/ModernLines-Large.pptheme/Contents/Resources/ThemePreviews /Library/Application Support/Apple/Photos/Print Products/Themes/ModernLines-Calendar.pptheme/Contents/Resources/ThemePreviews /Library/Application Support/Apple/Photos/Print Products/Themes/Journal-Large.pptheme/Contents/Resources/ThemePreviews /Library/Application Support/Apple/Photos/Print Products/Themes/HolidayColors-Postcard.pptheme/Contents/Resources/ThemePreviews /Library/Application Support/Apple/Photos/Print Products/Themes/HolidayColors-FoldedCard.pptheme/Contents/Resources/ThemePreviews /Library/Application Support/Apple/Photos/Print Products/Themes/BigDate-Calendar.pptheme/Contents/Resources/ThemePreviews /Library/Application Support/Apple/Photos/Print Products/Themes/BentoBox.pptheme/Contents/Resources/ThemePreviews /Library/Application Support/Apple/Photos/Print Products/Previews /Users/username/Library/Application Support/HandBrake/Previews /Users/username/Pictures/iPhoto Library.migratedphotolibrary/Previews /Users/username/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~Keynote/iWorkPreviews /Users/username/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~Pages/iWorkPreviews /Users/username/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~Numbers/iWorkPreviews
Adobe Employee
February 12, 2016
Once Lightroom was able to successfully retrieve the thumbnails for videos from the DLMS, it would store the thumbnails as regular preview files in the Lightroom preview system. It is the folder named something like *Previews.lrdata next to your catalog.
Inspiring
February 12, 2016
Test results...

Identified Cache Directories
(DIR 1) /Users/username/Library/Caches/Adobe/Lightroom/Video/Media Cache Files
(DIR 1) /Users/username/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Common/Media Cache Files

General Usage
PASS - Turn off Secure Erase in Finder (Command + , then Advanced, then uncheck "Empty trash securely"
PASS - Delete all files DIR 1
PASS - Delete all files DIR 2
PASS - Empty Trash 
PASS - Change DIR 1 to read only
PASS - Change DIR 2 to read only
PASS - Launch Lightroom 
PASS - Able to see video thumbnails in grid view
PASS - Able to move mouse over video files and see various time points in grid view
FAIL - Able to play the video in Loupe view - error message “There was an error working with the video”
PASS - Able to see photo thumbnails in grid view
PASS - Able to see photo thumbnails in Loupe View

Import Usage
PASS - Test directory 1 photo file and 1 video file
PASS - Able to see preview of photo in grid view
FAIL - Able to see video preview in gride View - error message “Preview unavailable for this file”
PASS - Able to see preview of photo in Loupe View
FAIL - Able to see video preview in Loupe View - error message “Could not read preview”
PARTIAL FAIL - Import both files - photo imported but video file import failed.

Summary
The failure behavior here is acceptable and more in line with my expectations. My guess, because I was able to move mouse over already imported video files and see various different points in time in the grid view, there is another cache directory out there representing those files. The question is whether or not that 3rd directory has cache data beyond the 6 video files I've accidentally imported into Lightroom. I am hoping that further import data usage will be stable, but given the existence of a likely 3 directory, I will still continue to monitor disk usage.


Simon, any idea where this 3rd directory might reside on the hard drive?
jamesr33423836
Participating Frequently
February 12, 2016
Simon, Thanks for the info!  I'm glad there is some activity happening to solve this issue.      It's lot easier to have patience when we have a little re-assurance that there is work being done on it.