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mlaprise
mlaprise
Participant
December 27, 2021
Question

LrD Apple M1 unusable (freezing randomly)

  • December 27, 2021
  • 3 replies
  • 1548 views

Hi,

 

I’ve been losing a ton of time lately trying to debug the issues with Lightroom  which is completely broken on my MacBook Pro M1 (32GB of RAM). I’ve been using Lightroom for years but I have to say I’m about to loose patient with this. I’m thinking about switch to an other application.

 

My config:

 

  • A brand new MacBook Pro M1 Pro (32GB)
  • MacOS updated to 12.1
  • Installed Lightroom CC directly from the App Store

 

I added my credentials and started working on my photos (everything is stored in the Adobe Cloud). Here’s the problem, every time I edit a photo and start zooming/dezooming after some time everything is freezing and the infamous MacOS beachball is turning infinitely (with a CPU core @ 100%). Then the only thing to do is to Force quit app.

 

I uninstalled the app and wiped everything “Adobe” related in the Library/ folder and reinstall the app using the Creative Cloud installer. Same issue. At some point I suspected the trackpad to be related to the bug since the issue is happening only when I’m using it. So I tried using an external mouse instead. Same issue. I also tried to disable the GPU altogether in the Performance Preference (and all the other combination of settings). Same issue.

 

I’ve seen a number of similar issues in the support forum and nothing seem to improve. So here’s my question, what the plan with this ? I’m aware that the M1 is a totally new platform but it’s available since more then a year now so I think it’s fair to expect at least a working app.

 

Thanks,

 

Martin

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    3 replies

    J
    Community Expert
    Jao vdLCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    January 3, 2022

    If you are sure all your files are in the cloud, one thing I would try is to wipe the local copy of the library. My guess is that it is corrupted somehow. The default location of the Lightroom Library is in your Pictures folder and it will be called "Lightroom Library.lrlibrary". Simply drag it into the trash (make sure Lightroom is not running while you do this) and start up Lightroom. It should generate a new copy of this data from the cloud data. Note that uninstalling Lightroom or even everything Adobe does not result in this kind of reset.

    mlaprise
    mlapriseAuthor
    Participant
    January 3, 2022

    yep, I though about wiping the external drive. I was somewhat hesitant since it will be a ~ 600GB download. But I guess I could simply try it using another drive first and see how it goes

    K
    Kevin M. Gates
    Participant
    January 3, 2022

    I have the same issue on a new 16" M1 Pro. When it hangs, it lasts 15+ seconds and it is extremely frustrating. About 1 out of 10 times, MacOS crashes as a result. 😞

      mlaprise
      mlapriseAuthor
      Participant
      January 3, 2022

      I ended up chatting with someone in Adobe support team. We identified the local syncing of the files as the culprit. I’m using an external disk (USB3 spinning disk) to keep a local copy of each files. When I’m disabling this local backup altogether, things are running smoothly. So for now I’m working without any local backup which is obviously not ideal but at least it’s not freezing all the time. Obiously, would be nice to have a fix for this that do not involve disabling the feature entirely, I'm not comfortable having a single point of failure like this.

        K
        Kevin M. Gates
        Participant
        January 3, 2022

        Thanks for the update....glad to hear it is performing better for you. Sadly, I'm not using any external disks and not keeping a local cache of files so there must be something else wrong with my setup....or Lightroom itself. Maybe I should reach out to tech support... but scared of the time investment and potential for the issue to be unresolved. Your post was helpful either way. Take care.

        Sahil.Chawla
        Adobe Employee
        Sahil.Chawla
        Adobe Employee
        January 1, 2022

        Hi Martin,

        Sorry to hear about the performance issues. Coudl you try creating a new user account on macOS and test the performance of Lightroom on the new user account and let us know if it helps? https://9to5mac.com/2019/03/04/create-user-account-mac/

         

        Regards,
        Sahil

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