Why is Bridge CC so slow?

[PhotoEye]

I'm trying to figure out a way to diagnose why Bridge CC is so slow. I regularly use programs like Photoshop, Lightroom and Premiere and don't notice any kind of inapropriate lag or delays at all. However, when working in Bridge it just feels slow. Opening menus occasionally just hangs for seconds on end before dropping down. Thumnails from a gallery I've previously viewed can take upwards of 10 seconds to appear after opening the software. But the most noticeable and repeatable issue comes when trying to select more then one image files. CTR-Clicking a second (or however many additional files) can take anywhere from 5-8 seconds to happen. This, more then anything else, is making bridge unusable.

What should I do?

[funzone39]

I agree with your technical distinction that removing dead links from libraries is a "workaround" and not a "fix" but it get the job done and removing dead links is good practice anyway, so for me, at least, the distinction is moot. My Bridge is now acceptably speedy again. It does seem strange that Bridge is taking so many actions behind the scenes. I certainly don't need or want it to do so. I can't imagine what Adobe was thinking when they programmed that kind of behavior. Still, ordinarily it isn't a real problem and doesn't seem to slow things down - at least on my system. If it were currently causing me problems I'm sure I'd be a lot more upset about it!

[dkfidler]

But it's not just dead links - that's the point.  One Drive, Network drives, etc.  I have 2TB+ of photos on my NAS system (RAID mirrored for performance and redundancy) on a 1G link - which means (ignoring latency) i can access my photos about as fast as I can on a SATA3 HDD.

What if people want those things in their libraries? 

And have you ever noticed that when you browse, with Bridge to a folder and you copy photos into it or if you save a file in PS, the changes are reflected nearly instantly in Bridge?  That's why they did it this way.

But that decision has far reaching performance implications and, now that it's been identified, it sure would be wonderful if they put a fix in place for it.

[dkfidler]

PS - I work in the software world.  When a customer says, to a developer or product manager, "It's fixed" they walk away feeling great about how great a job they've done and they move onto the next issue without even recording a bug.

It's important that I make the distinction because if an Adobe person does actually read this, I want their support person to file a bug, and possibly an enhancement request.  I want it to be reviewed by their bug board and I want them to push it back as not critical until, some day, a developer comes across this old thread/bug and says, "Holy crap, that's just stupid.  I can fix that in an hour" - and then they fix it - or they realize that the 2s polling length is set somewhere in the registry and they release that info to the community.

But with everyone declaring victory like this - none of that will ever happen.

[funzone39]

WRT Adobe fixing things - you're more optimistic than I am. My experience has been that they aren't all that keen on listening to their customers or keeping them happy. Look at the crazy idea of going to a subscription-only product! Nuts! Still, one can always hope...

WRT having lots of photos - I have a Drobo connected to my computer with USB 3.0. It has at present 1.39Tb of data on it. (Actually I have 2 Drobos attached. The other has 1.52Tb which I'm in the (slow) process of migrating over to the newer one.) In any event, I have LOADS of photos on my system. Some of these directories are in my libraries for quick access. It doesn't seem to slow Bridge down noticeably. The only thing that killed my Bridge's speed is when I had links in my libraries that pointed to non-existent directories.

[Shellettephotog]

Thanks Happy Guy ...you sure made me a happy girl.  I was ready to dump my new HP workstation with Windows 8.1 and go Mac.  How many cases of beer and what kind?

[Reality Reimagined]

I've been having this very same issue and a bunch of weird bugs with my recent upgrade to Windows 10.  I followed the instructions from Happy Guy and there weren't any random libraries linking to old comps or network issues.

However, after watching a tutorial on why I was encountering a slow Wacom tablet, I found a fix that not only solved that problem, but instantly fixed Bridge.

If you go to your Wacom tablet properties and select the pen tool and then in the fields below select the Mapping tab, there is a small check box in the bottom left hand corner.  It says "Use Windows Ink" and it's check by default.  Uncheck this for not only your pen tool in the basic "all other" option in the programs listed for the Wacom tablet, but Photoshop or any other program you use.

Then go to Pen and Touch in your control and under the "Press and Hold" option you can click settings and disable that feature.  Also disable the Flick feature on the second tab.

I don't know how many of you use Wacom tablets and are having these slow issues from Bridge - but this fixed it immediately.

Hope it helps!

[P Moloney]

Hi Guys,

I'm on Mac - and recently I posted here "Performance issues after 6.2 upgrade" and got no replies...

Anyway after reading this thread I tried creating a new Admin User Account and tried Bridge and it created 39 Raw previews & Thumbnails (Canon 5DsR) in less than a third of the time in my normal user account.

MacPro 10.10.5, 3.7GHz Quad Core, 32Gb Ram, ADM FirePro D300 2048 MB.

So has anyone any idea how to do a "HappyGuy" fix on a Mac???

This is really driving me nuts!

Peter

[heidsterrrr]

Not just "slow" since the update for me, but basically unusable. I can click a time or two and then it just goes to "Not Responding". I use Windows 7 Professional and nothing has changed in a couple/few years: XPS8700; 16GBRAM; 64-bit OS ... Bridge has always worked flawlessly. Until the update ...

[soundinfusion]

Thank you guys!

I followed what HappyGuy described in post 30 and jprotz in post 38. My links were correct so it didn't change anything. However, it got me thinking that I might have inaccessible links in Favorites - and I was right.

1. Open Bridge

2. In left panel, next to Folders, click "Favorites"

3. Try to open links, if they can't open delete them (in my case Bridge deleted them automaticaly)

That's it, thank you HappyGuy and jprotz!

[Floline Media · Accepted solution]

Hello... so I have also been experiencing some pretty substantial slowness in Bridge that "seemed" to get worse as the newer versions released, but has existed for what seems to be the last 3-4 versions. I'm on the current 2022 version on two systems, a xps 15 laptop with windows 11 and custom built PC with windows 10 pro. Both were seeing this horrible slowness in Bridge and it was to the point that I was researching other options. But I couldn't find anything that could do what Bridge can do with ACR and photoshop integrations, etc. I could go on and on about that road, but I'll come back to how I ended up fixing my speed issue. This post helped me to ultimatly discover what was causing my Bridge slowness. It without a doubt came down to on both systems have mapped network drives to a local server and a web server that I VPN into. Some of them aren't always connected, but still show up in windows as a disconnected drive. As soon as I removed all the mapped network drives that weren't connected, Bridge instantly performed like lightening!! It was incredible. So, my guess is that on both windows or mac, if some sort of drive is connected, but not linked... maybe even to the point of a dropbox connection, or similar, that may be causeing Bridge to crawl. Mine was litterly taking 20-30 seconds to open a directory with 1 or 2 small web sized jpgs in it. I could open a folder, click to another and clicking back into a folder would lag on loading. If I batch renamed files and clicked refresh, it would take 10, 20, sometimes even up to a minute for the files to show again. Both systems are now like lightening and I couldn't be happier. Just wanted to share my discovery and hope it helps someone else. I'm now on to seeing alternative ways to connect to other computers on the network... but for now, I'm absolutely thrilled that Bridge is fast!