P: Plugin Crashes when a Plug-in uses LrTasks.execute

[fischerluebeck]

I am a developer of the Lightroom Classic plug-in Excire Seach (https://www.excire.com). The plug-in uses the function LrTasks.execute to start a background process. The plug-in has been used by many users for some years and this part always worked well.

Since version 13.5 of Lightroom Classic some Intel Mac users with the current macOS Sonoma experience the issue, that a subprocess of Lightroom Classic crashes (with a segmentation fault) when LrTasks.execute is called by the plug-in. It does not always crash but most of the times. LrTasks.execute returns the value 11.

The newest version 13.5.1 does not fix the issue.

I have attached the crash report generated by macOS (as txt because .ips is not supported to be uploaded).

The plug-in starts several LrTasks and interacts with the LrC catalog before it calls LrTasks.execute. I tried to write a very simple plug-in that does nothing but calling LrTasks.execute, but it does not reproduce the issue.

[John R Ellis]

Moderators, @Rikk Flohr: Photography, please merge with this bug report:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/crashes-when-a-plug-in-uses-lrtasks-exe...

[John R Ellis]

Another example of the same crash during export on an Intel Mac:

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/community/threads/crashes-when-export-just-me.51208/

[John R Ellis]

"Lightroom Classic will stop in the middle of an export and give me an error.  The app doesn't close, but the export stops and the "Problem Report for Lightroom Classic" pops up."

From the crash report:

"Application Specific Information:
crashed on child side of fork pre-exec"

Most likely, your Export settings include a post-processing action supplied by a plugin, e.g. Metadata Wrangler or JPEG Mini.  A recent bug with the LR SDK for plugins sometimes causes this error when the plugin tries to run a child program.  The bug only seems to occur on Intel Macs.

[John R Ellis]

Moderators, @Rikk Flohr: Photography, please merge with this bug report:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/crashes-when-a-plug-in-uses-lrtasks-exe...

[Addison33594689kznf]

Thanks - do you have a way to "reset" LR back to default without ANY plugins installed.  Or a way to remove every single thing that could be tied back to LrTasks.execute?

I am going to "remove" all of my plugins in the plugin manager and start fresh.  But is there anywhere else in the LR settings where I could make a change?

Any other part of the EXPORT process that I can disable to stop this Value 11 crash?

[John R Ellis]

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@Addison33594689kznf, you described the crashes as occurring during exports, and the crash report shows the crash occurring while LR is trying to execute a child program. So check the settings in the Export window for the presence of a post-processing plugin such as Metadata Wrangler or a post-processing After Export program.  In this screenshot, there are two export plugins enabled, LR/Transporter Keyword Export and Metadata Wrangler:

If you see such a plugin, remove it by clicking the "x".  Ensure Post-Processing > After Export is set to Do Nothing.

[Addison33594689kznf]

Thank you - I'll give this a try.  We had already played around with export settings and really thinned it down.  I'll see if there is more we can remove.  One thing we didn't rry is AFTER EXPORT setting to DO NOTHING.  But that would be weird if that solved the problem because the crashing occurs randomly during the export, not at the end....but we'll see!

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Engineering has reviewed it and is asking if we can get the plugin/process that is crashing for us to review. Can anyone provide an example for examination?

[John R Ellis]

One of the victims above uses the Commit Locations command (free) of my Any Tag plugin on an Intel Mac, LR 13.5 , Mac OS 14.6.1.  Commit Locations runs the Exiftool program.

To hopefully provoke the problem:

1. Enable Address Lookup.

2. In the Map module, select 100 or more photos.

3. Drag them to a new location on the amp.

4. With all the photos selected, do File > Plug-in Extras > Any Tag > Commit Locations.

[John R Ellis]

 Another report above encounters the problem with the Metadata Wrangler plugin  (Friedl) and the Capture Time To Exif plugin (@john beardsworth), both of which also invoke Exiftool. 

Since the problem occurs at the very beginning of forking the child process, it probably doesn't depend on the exact parameters for invoking the plugins. It smells like a race condition that's triggered infrequently (e.g. over tens or hundreds of invocations of the plugins, such as export 100 photos or changing the capture time of 100 photos).

[Addison33594689kznf]

I disabled AND removed every Plugin in the LR Classic Plugin Manager, and I'm still having the same export issue...

[John R Ellis]

@Addison33594689kznf: "I disabled AND removed every Plugin in the LR Classic Plugin Manager, and I'm still having the same export issue..."

Can you please do these diagnostic steps:

1. In the Export settings window, select the settings that are causing the exports to crash.

2. Create a new Export preset by clicking Add in the panel in the left column of Export.

3. Close the Export window without starting the export.

4. Select the photos previously doing the crash, right click them, and do Export > <name of the preset from step 2>.

5. If it doesn't crash, then you've got a viable workaround. If it does crash, please send post the preset here following these steps:

a. In the Export window, right-click the preset and do Show In Finder. That will open Finder with the preset's .lrtemplate file selected.

b. In Finder, rename the file to end in ".txt" instead of ".lrtemplate".

c. Drag that file to the "Drag & drop here" box at the bottom of the forum reply window.