Collection filter locks up long time

[ceesjw]

When searching through my collections with the filter bar, the program locks up after typing the first charachter, the cursor is gone and I cannot cancel the search as well. After waiting somthing like a minute or more the program comes back with the search result. To avoid this I have to type the search word very quickly.

I may have more collections than most people, but specifically then a good search facility is essential. This issue is already there is many versions. Not sure this is a bug, but it certainly is a great nuisance. 

I am on Windows. 

Cees Wouda

[Sameer K]

Hi Cees,

Thanks for reaching out. We are sorry for the trouble with Lightroom Classic. We are here to help.

Please specify the version of Lightroom Classic from Help > About Lightroom Classic, and are you working on Windows 10 or 11?

Could you please confirm the location of the catalog by going to Edit > Catalog Settings? Is it stored on an internal or external drive? How many collections does your catalog have in total? Does Lightroom Classic get stuck in any similar operation like smart collections or keywords?

If the catalog is stored on an external drive, please move it to the internal drive or desktop and try launching it from there. Please check here for more help related to Lightroom Classic Catalogs:  

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/catalog-faq-lightroom.html

We hope this helps,

Thanks!

Sameer K

[ceesjw]

thanks a lot Sameer for the quick response.
To answer your questions:
- I am on Windows 10
- my catalog is on C: internal drive SSD
- rough estimate: 3000 collections
- I only experience it in collections, not in keywords
- I don't use smart collections or folder filter.

appreciate your help,
Cees

[ceesjw]

forgot to mention Lightroom Classic version. I am on 11.3, latest version. But this issue is not version dependent it is there already a long time.

[dj_paige]

I may have more collections than most people, but specifically then a good search facility is essential.

How many collections do you have?

Can you be more specific about "searching through my collections with the filter bar" as I am not aware that the filter bar can search for collections.

[Todd Shaner]

DJ see below screenshot.

[ceesjw]

I have about 3000 collections, and growing. Extremely useful tool, even if the filter does not perform perfectly.

Cees

[Todd Shaner]

Did yout try optimizing the catalog as I suggested? Better yet change the below Catalog setting. and then check the Test Integrtiy and Optimize catalog options as shown below.

[Todd Shaner]

Try going to menu item File> Optimize Catalog and see if that helps.

[ceesjw]

Thanks voor all the tips, but they don't provide a solution. I am a long time user, and I am quite often helping other people with Lightroom, so I know most of the tips and tricks, but this one is pretty deep in the program. It has been there for many versions and accross platforms, and from what I know myself from software development, I am pretty sure the issue is in the code. I may so far be one of the few to experience it, because of my large number of collections. It is related to the way the collection filter responds to typing characters in the filter bar. And it is not limited to collections, also I found out that the folder filter enjoys more or less the same problem. Type one character and it locks up for some time, type a few characters quickly and the filter shows the results immediately. Would be very nice if the development team could look into this. 

Cees

[johnrellis]

You're tripping over a bug in Windows LR that's existed since the very beginning, which Adobe has declined to fix: The maximum height of the contents of the Collections panel, Folders panel, Keyword List panel, and Metadata browser columns is limited to 65,535 pixels (2^16 - 1). When you have too many collections, folders, or collections to display in the panels, LR behaves very badly, silently refusing to display the lines, locking up, refusing to do drag-and-drops, etc.

The maximum lines of text that can be displayed depends on the pixel height of a line, which in turn depends on the Windows display scaling and the LR setting Preferences > Interface > Font Size.  My Windows 10 LR can currently display 3253 lines in the Collections panel.

You can ameliorate the symptoms of this bug by introducing hierarchy (collection sets, parent keywords, parent folders) and keeping most of the hierarchy collapsed. However, there can still be lockups when you use the filter boxes for those panels. The filter box will show all the matching collections/keywords/folders even if their parents were collapsed. If you type too slowly, then LR will try to display more than the maximum number of lines, and then it grinds to a halt for a long while (as you've observed).  The only workaround I know for that is to type very fast or copy and paste your filter text from another program.

There used to be separate bug reports about this for collections, folders, and keywords, but they got dropped when the forums were migrated to a new platform last year.  There's just a bug report for the Keywords panel:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-fails-on-large-keyword-lists-windows-only/id...

But I don't think it matters, since Adobe has shown no inclination to fix it in 15 years. There's even a Help article about it:

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/lightroom-doesnt-display-all-keywords.html

When Adobe implemented the Windows version of LR, rather than using a standard UI toolkit that provided infinite-sized scrollable lists, the engineers implemented their own UI controls on top of the low-level Windows facilities. They took a shortcut and didn't implement infinite-sized scrollable lists, and they've never gone back to fix that.

[ceesjw]

Thanks John, very helpful! I was not aware yet of the limition on number of lines, but the behaviour of the filter wrt typing characters is precisely what you describe. I will continue to ues it in it present form, but it would be exremely appreciated if the development team would finally address this. My assumption was that responsible software developers got away from numbers-limitations since BASIC was buried. Wrong assumption. 

Cees

[johnrellis]

"but it would be exremely appreciated if the development team would finally address this."

If you want an Adobe employee to notice at all, you could post a new bug report in the Bugs section, following these guidelines:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/how-do-i-write-a-bug-report/idi-p/12386373

Adobe does review everything posted there. But as discussed, for this bug I think it's just spitting in the wind.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

It is related to: https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-fails-on-large-keyword-lists-windows-only/id...  Probably add your comments to that existing bug thread rather than create a new thread.