LrC sluggish and uses lots of CPU in the background

Question

After using LrC for several minutes editing and deleting files, it becomes very sluggish. Scanning through photos and making edits/deletes becomes very sluggish. In the Task Manager I see that Lightroom is using 10% to 25% of the CPU. This use persists even if I am doing nothing in LrC. I thought this may be due to LrC managing 1:1 previews in the background so I turned off all preview management, but no change. If I shutdown, a Lightroom background process continues using CPU for 10 minutes or more before it exits. When I restart LrC is resumes CPU use and is sluggish. If I shutdown and backup, so that the catalog is optimized, when I restart it starts out running well but after a short time, maybe 10-30 minutes it becomes sluggish and the CPU use has returned. If I use the File>Optimize catalog…, after several minutes to optimize and a restart, it again runs normally, but again after several minutes of use, becomes sluggish and the CPU use returns.

The sluggish performance seems to be the result of the CPU being busy with some LrC tasks. I have no idea what LrC is doing that occupies so much CPU. It seems to run endlessly and continues for several minutes after LrC has been shutdown. Does anyone know what LrC tasks are running in the background that are causing this problem? Is there anyway to prevent this?

Win11, LrC 15.2

Jao vdL · Answer

It could be running face detection and assisted culling in the background. Check in the nameplate (top left of the window) whether there is a background task running. If that is not it, make ABSOLUTELY sure you do not put the catalog and preview folders in a location that is synced and managed by oneDrive, DropBox, or similar syncing service. Second, exclude the catalog and previews from any virus scanner that you might be using.

Regarding previews, 1:1 previews are only useful if you are a high volume shooter and use the library to do rapid culling checking for sharpness. Even then, it is lightyears faster to import using embedded previews and cull using those. This is because 1:1 previews get invalidated as soon as you go into Develop and will need to be regenerated over and over. Most users should just use standard previews at the correct size for your display as the setting in catalog settings.

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