Develop operations become slow with time

​@Jon_p_Taylor 

...The Lightroom CPU load is constantly running at 20-30% even when I am doing nothing at all...

It’s only a idea. This could be due to the way the previews were created. Which type of preview you generated on import? I generate full 1:1 previews directly on import. This does increase the import time, but it makes Lightroom run more smoothly when working with the photos. 

More infos aboit previews you’ll find here:

Previews Best Practice (or why Auto Preview makes no sense) | Lightroom Queen Forums

Lightroom Performance - Previews & Caches | The Lightroom Queen

Taken from Google’s AI search results:

Recommended Preview Settings:

• Import Settings (File Handling):
  • Build Previews: Choose "Standard" for a balance of speed/quality, or "1:1" if you need to zoom in immediately upon import.
  • Build Smart Previews: Check this box to enable faster editing, particularly if your originals are on external drives.
• Catalog Settings (Edit > Catalog Settings > File Handling):
  • Standard Preview Size: Set this to match the longest edge of your monitor (e.g., 1920px for 1080p, 2560px for 1440p, 2880px+ for 4K/5K).
  • Preview Quality: Set to "Medium".
  • Automatically Discard 1:1 Previews: Set to "After 30 days" to prevent your catalog file from becoming excessively large. 

     

    Adobe Help Center +4

Performance Tips:

• Smart Previews: Using Smart Previews (lightweight, lossy DNG files) allows you to edit in the Develop module faster, even when the original files are offline.
• 1:1 Previews: These are necessary for checking sharpness at 100% zoom but take longer to generate, so rendering them on import can save time later.
• Cache: Ensure you have enough storage for your Camera Raw cache, which helps speed up editing. 

   

  Reddit +2

I've seen the a similar behavior on my side in the past. In the Taskmanager the CPU is permanently on 95-100% and LrC reacts in the Library module extremly slow after a few time after startup. I notices also that the LR-Katalog.lrcat-wal file is constantly growing and growing. 

After I restore the catalog from my recent backup all worked fine again. 

I don't know why this happens. I haven't done anything that would have resulted in major updates to the catalog.

Try to create a new catalog with several pictures and check or restore your recent backup.

I’ve read that you had vreated already a temporarly new catalog without success. But I would check the ...wal file of your catalog.

Here are some performance and or troubleshooting tips:

• Go to Preferences > Performance to purge the cache, or increase it to 20-50GB to prevent slowdowns during long sessions.
• Try to optimize your catalog. Select File > Optimize Catalog to improve database performance.
• Ensure "Use Graphics Processor" is set to "Auto" or "Full" in Preferences > Performance.
• Ensure you have at least 100GB or 10% free space on your hard drive.
• Disable Address Lookup, Face Detection, and Cloud Sync while editing.
• Turn off "Automatically Write Changes Into XMP" in the Catalog Settings if it’s enabled. 

What has been changed on your system since the issue occur?

...

GL_RENDERER: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060/PCIe/SSE2
GL_SHADING_LANGUAGE_VERSION: 4.60 NVIDIA
GL_STENCIL_BITS: 8
GL_VENDOR: NVIDIA Corporation
GL_VERSION: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 595.59
GPUDeviceEnabled: false

...

It seems that you’ve installed the Game Ready version or the faulty Studio version of the graphic device driver.

Goto Nvidia’s site (NVIDIA Studio Driver 591.74 | Windows 11 ), download the recent Studio version and do a clean installation of the driver. Then check.

Another point is the synchronisation with OneDrive. If you have enabled the sync with Onedrive make sure the all Lightroom folder (ex. C:\Users\jonta\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom) are exclude form the synchronisation.