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MatthewTurley
Participating Frequently
June 20, 2023
Question

collection operations slow in very large catalog

  • June 20, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 163 views

Full disclosure, I manage most of my work within a very large catalog (VLC) with over 500K images (and for anyone who might object, I have commensurately large and compelling reasons for continuing to doing so;) Despite the immense size, most of LR's functionality is suprisingly nimble & responsive, for which I am grateful.

 

However...when it comes to collections, upon which I rely heavily, things suddenly get very laggy. Creating each new 'collection' or 'collection set' in my VLC can often take upward of 20-30 seconds. Similar lags occur during most collection operations (i.e. moving, deleting, or renaming collections). At one point I suspected the issue might have something to do with my many smart collections, and so deleted them all....but the issue persists.

 

My current workaround is to do most of my collection creation/organization in fresh catalogs (where such operations occur as instantanously as any other function) which are then imported into the VLC.

 

FWIW, I estimate my 'collection of collections' to be in the neighborhood of 4,500 (collections and collection sets).

 

While it is natural to expect certain delays when working with such a large database, please consider the fact that there are no similarly corresponding lags when creating new folders, new keywords, or new presets.

 

MacBook Pro 16"

macOS Ventura 13.4

Adobe LR Classic 12.4

 

[moved from bugs to discussions according to community rules - Mod.]

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    2 replies

    Sameer K
    Community Manager
    Sameer KCommunity Manager
    Community Manager
    June 21, 2023

    Hey, @MatthewTurley. I'll need more info about what you're experiencing.

    The first question is as @johnrellis asked about the rough number of images in each collection.

     

    Has this catalog been the only catalog you've used over time? Have you tried some housekeeping of the catalog database?

    Where do you keep the catalog? On the internal or external drive? The catalog is a database; changes & optimization to how Lightroom handles the database are done in the background, and it is always a work in progress. 

     

    The issue could be specific to the catalog in question. Try this change and let me know the outcome.

     

    • Go to Edit > Catalog Settings > General > Backup > When Lightroom Exits next > Proceed to close Lightroom.
    • In the backup window, uncheck 'Test Integrity before backing up' & 'Optimize Catalog after backing up and take the backup for now.

     

    If this does not help, we can bring everything from an existing catalog to a new one.

    Follow these steps:

     

    • Press the ALT/OPT key (win/mac) when launching Lightroom Classic.
    • Choose the option to create a new catalog and create a new one on the internal drive.

     

    • In the new catalog, head to File > Import from Another Catalog, as shown below.

     

    Proceed with merging the (potentially) corrupted catalog into the newly made, internal storage-based catalog. 

    For more help via video-based steps, check here. See Merging individual catalogs into a master catalog. 

     

    Let me know how it goes from here,

    Thanks!
    Sameer K

     

    johnrellis
    johnrellis
    Legend
    June 21, 2023

    How many photos are typically in the slowly created collections?

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