Error Message Server Busy During Startup

[SteveRuddy]

During LR startup I get a Server Busy Window that says

This action cannot be completed because the other program is busy. Choose switch to to activate the busy program and correct the problem.

This does correct the problem but why is this necessary and how to I get rid of the error during start up?

[Ryadia_]

Lightroom (unless you set it not to) will attempt to download images from any card you install. I suggest if you seldom use that card reader, and have not set LR NOT to download images files on discovery, Windows may have dropped the driver for your card reader and LR waited for it to be acknowledged by Windows before starting. If there is no trouble with LR now, Probably just as well to ignore the issue.

Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 make decisions based on information not even Microsoft can clearly explain when it updates itself. I know Adobe has some issues with some some software but compared to the issues Microsoft are having with 64 bit Windows 7 and 8 (which was quickly and quietly replaced with 8.1)... Adobe's issues are trivial and easy to fix.

[Corconia]

Was having issues with slow startup with photoshop and LR. I had SD card in slot and as soon as I removed it Bam! back in fast action!

[Chrisinhouston]

Well, add me to this list for the Server Busy Error message. I upgraded from LR 5.7 to 6, I am not a CC member and paid the usual $79 for the upgrade and started getting this message almost immediately. I tend to go several days without closing out LR or restarting my computer so while I don't get the message often I do if I have restarted my system. When I open LR I get the message for about 1-2 minutes and then it goes away by itself and the catalog loads but that is time I don't always have. I tried moving those folders to the desktop but that didn't seem to help.

Nothing else changed since I upgraded, I use my C drive for all programs but images are on my internal F drive a 2TB which is only half full. I have a fast fairly up to date machine with 16gb ram so I don't think it is a hardware issue.

[Ryadia_]

Far be it from me to support another brand here but you might find an interesting solution to this 'Windows' problem if you present the question of "server busy error message" or "Switch tasks or retry error message" in a Corel Draw forum!

Yep... I first got his problem 4 years ago when I installed Corel Draw. It took a while but eventually they provided a fix for it that is probably still documented on their support forums. The problem is a Windows matter. Not an Adobe one. If it were and Adobe issue, other brand software users would not also get the same errors, would they?

If you can afford the $65 payment Microsoft ask for, you might strike a technician there who has come across this issue and give you a fix for it. It has only come back on my computer since I put a new drive and fresh Windows on it. If I get time later this week, I'll put the old drive in a PC and see if I can find the permanent fix message.

[judymaca]

Don’t know if this will help, but I found an Adobe link for steps to correct Error 16, which is what I apparently am dealing with. Am once again finding Lightroom to be “Non-responding” and eventually got the prompt to uninstall and reinstall..which of course I have already done once. Anyway here is the link:

https://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/policy-pricing/configuration-error-cs5.html#Windows%20Vista/7

I started going through the steps, but ran into a glitch at one point...a step I was unable to complete. So I’ll have to go to Adobe eventually...Maybe this process will work for you.

Good luck...

Judy M.

[Gary Gray]

I began seeing the server busy error while still running LR 5.7.x, late in the update cycle.  I upgraded to LR 6 stand alone and I get the problem just about every time I open LR6.   I tried the fix posted earlier, it fixed it for one computer reboot.  The problem still persists.

I'm on a Windows 7 Pro platform, 16 gigs of memory.  No other problems with any other software.

What a pain.

[christonabicycle]

OK, I did the 6.0.1 upgrade yesterday.  It fixed it for me and has held through about 10 reboots. (win7 update files --- grrrr).

Good luck folks, and I hope mine holds!

By the way, the folder removal or renaming mentioned above did nothing for me.

[Gary Gray]

Here's what I've noticed.  The problem doesn't always appear when starting LR.  It seems to be more prone to do it if I'm loading LR for the first time in a while (I haven't figured out how long a while is), but once it clears, I can reload different catalogs and it seems to load without the error.

I'm wondering if it's looking for an idle hard drive or something.  Some hard drives go to sleep and don't necessarily wake up very fast when you try to use your system.

[Chrisinhouston]

Same here. I mainly get it after the computer has been shut down. If I merely close LR and restart it later without shutting down I don't get the message. The messages stays on the screen for a minute or so and then goes away on it's own.

[Gary Gray]

Working on the assumption that the problem with getting Server Busy errors may be related to hard drives going to sleep.  At least in my case.

I have 4 internal hd's.  After 20 minutes of inactivity, they would spin down and go idle.  Other symptoms associated would be long delays getting a File Manager view of the HD contents, or possibly delayed prompts when emptying the recycle bin.

I downloaded a trial version of KeepAliveHD ( KeepAliveHD - Home ), which is a free utility, in beta stage.  What it does is write a little file to the hard drives at definable intervals.  This prevents the hard drive from going to sleep.  It's configurable, and you can tell it to stop doing it if the computer goes totally idle for a definable length of time.  This prevents the hard drives from sleeping while I'm working on the computer.

Since loading this software on the PC, I haven't had one instance of LR giving me a server busy error.  I've tested it by letting it sit for an hour, at boot up, and with constants catalog switching.  No errors.

I'll report back if I find any problems with this solution.

It definitely looks like a LR problem to me, not checking for nor allowing enough time to get the HD's up and running after a timeout.  Once the drives are up to speed, LR loads catalogs just fine.

[Wags2015]

This was the same problem I had, but there is no need to use other software to solve the problem with Windows. Just go into control panel -system and security - power options - change when the computer sleeps - change advanced power settings and with hard drives change from the default 20 minutes to whatever you like. I chose 90 minutes. I have not had a single re-occurrence of the problem since doing this,

[Gary Gray]

‌That worked for the system drive, the other drives didn't respond to that change.  I haven't tested any of this with the external hard drives though.

[christonabicycle]

People, just take the 6.0.1 upgrade and see if it fixes it. 

It did for me and hasn't failed for two or three days now.

[Gary Gray]

I did the 6.01 upgrade right after purchasing the 6.0 upgrade.  The problem has been there at least since 5.x and 6.01 did nothing to resolve the problem for me.

[h4xintl]

I did what I said in #57 and haven't had a problem in 3 days (picture my crossed fingers here).

LR6 stand-alone upgrade is the only program to have given me a problem. Although it may be possible for different apps to create a similar problem, I agree that this appears to be an Adobe-induced problem. All of my seven hard drives, LR6 and the and computer have been sleeping, shut down and restarted since I upgraded to 6.01. I remain hopeful.

John

[m___m1]

All I am reading on this forum is concerning Adobe LR which I don't have. This message started occurring for me a few months ago and I can't figure out what program may be causing it. Does anyone have any info on this error without LR installed?

[christonabicycle]

Update:  After posting about the success of the 6.0.1 upgrade working for me for days, today, the second time I opened Lightroom 6.0.1, it gave me the "switch to" stuff again.  So, the 6.0.1 only lasted about 72 hours in a good state.

'

[judymaca]

Even after uninstalling and reinstalling Lightroom 6 and doing the 6.1 update, Chris, I continue to see Server Busy and have to click Switch To every time to open Lightroom. The good news is that the program opens normally after these extra steps. I can live with that for now.

Judy M.

[Gary Gray]

Since I've found a way to keep the hard disks from sleeping, I've had no further examples of Server Busy messages.

Someone up there was going on about Firefox, which I don't use.  I don't know what Firefox has to do with Lightroom, so you can weigh all the for what it's worth.

What I do know, if I don't let the hard drives go to sleep, Lightroom won't generate this error.

[Ryadia_]

Hi Gary... "I'm the someone up there" who used Firefox as an example of the 19 or so different programs I've found that are capable causing that error being generated by Windows. It's good you found that keeping your portable drives running helps you but what of the other people getting that error who are not using portable drives?

Microsoft identified the source of the problem and provided a fix for it on 32 bit Windows as far back as 2005. If you search the Internet for "How to prevent the "Switch To" or "Application Busy" error messages" you'll come up a plethora of different programs producing that exact same error message and a different fix offered by dozens of different websites run by people usually trying to sell you software. This is not a problem specific to Lightroom even though for you and the handful of others posting here, Lightroom is the trigger for it happening.

When I disable Firefox on 4 of my PCs the problem stopped. My notebook that doesn't have and never has had Firefox on it, still produced that problem but it doesn't have any  Adobe software on it and never has had!  If you phone Microsoft support (as I did) they will ask you to give them remote access to your computer and 10 or 15 minutes later, fix the thing. I've since duplicated what they did on one workstation to the others and reinstalled firefox on them. No more errors.

I know how frustrating an error like this can be but when you consider how many installations of Lightroom Adobe must have sold, and that only a few people in this forum are complaining about it, surely the likely hood that it has nothing at all to do with Lightroom must be a very real possibility? Add to that Microsoft having articles on how to prevent it ...there is a very real likely hood all the fixes proposed here that only last a few days are just that, Fixes that don't fix anything. When it happens again, call Microsoft support, they are very professional at fixing the problem.

[Gary Gray]

My portable drives aren't part of the equation.  They are disconnected.  The problem occurs on my desktop PC with four internal SATA drives installed.  When they stay awake, Lightroom works fine.  When they go to sleep, Lightroom vomits.  Firefox and the myriad of other programs that can cause this problem aren't my concern.  I use my system as an editing session.  I use Opera for a browser when I need to surf the web.  I've never had an issue with Opera, I don't think it even warrants dragging browsers into this discussion since this is a Lightroom problem, not an open source software problem.  So, I hope you're through because you're not really helping anyone.

[Ryadia_]

Thanks Gary...

What you've just written confirms what I've said all along. It's not a Lightroom  problem but a Windows one.

If you let Windows shut down your internal hard drives and started getting the error message, then by re-setting your Power plan to prevent that happening, The error message stopped happening, you fixed the Windows problem that was causing the error. It had nothing to do with Lightroom but everything to do with how Windows was configured.

I'm done here now but not at your invitation.

[PJ_Traveler]

Not running firefox....

[Chrisinhouston]

Gary, just curious as to where you keep the catalog that  you usually access when opening LR? In my situation I keep the program itself on my C drive which is mostly my boot up drive for software. I keep my catalog and working archive images on a 3TB internal and I do get the error message when opening LR after it the machine has been shut down or had a restart. I assume it is a communications issue that the program is looking for the catalog and it the my image drive might have been tasked yet to answer but that's just a guess. Generally I leave my desktop on most of the time and only reboot as necessary and I leave LR open and ready to use so the issue isn't happening for me too often.

For me this problem happened right after installing LR6, never had it before after running Windows for years.

[h4xintl]

Chris, I keep both the program and catalog on my C drive. My images and backup catalog are on a different internal drive. After having no problems for several days, the server busy screen sometimes shows up, freezing LR before the splash screen disappears. But now, when I click 'Restart,' it continues to load properly. Although I haven't been able to verify it, I'm pretty sure the image drive is sleeping when I get the screen, which I assume I am able to clear because the image drive has started.

Many of us seem to have similar, but slightly different symptoms. My situation would seem to lend credence to Gary's solution.

Like you, this problem only emerged with the installation of LR6 after many years of using Windows, LR1-5 and many other apps. FWIW, I shut my system down nightly and only run LR when needed.