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J
jayne_1983
Participant
November 7, 2025
Answered

Every change causes a spinning icon

  • November 7, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 201 views

So grateful for any help there is. I'm a photographer and rely on lightroom to do all my editing but in the last 48 hours the platform has become so slow its unworkable. Each time I try to make a change to an image a spinning rainbow appears. My latop does seem to be running the fan alot (but not sure if I am only just noticing this now because of the other isse)

 

I have a MacBook Pro. I use Lightroom Classic. I have about 40% storage left. 

 

Trouble shooting wise I have updated software on laptop, made sure I have the latest version of LRC. I have set up a new catalogue for the images I am editing (where before I had alot of images in the catalgoue 30K 😬), optimised the catalogue, I have the graphics processor set to custom (I have use GPU to export is ticked )(GPU to preview generation is off). Camera raw cache is set to 50GB.

 

Any help would be MASSIVELY appreciated. 

 

Many thanks

 

Jayne

    Correct answer johnrellis

    "Can you recommend a fan/temp monitoring app (preferabbly free one!)"

     

    Intel used to have a good one for Mac they distributed for free, but they discontinued it a couple years ago after Apple move their CPUs to Apple Silicon. I don't have any recommendations, but this article might help:

    https://www.macworld.com/article/351897/how-to-check-mac-temperature-cool.html 

     

    "Dedicated GPU memory used by Lightroom: 163.5MB / 1,536.0MB (10%)"

     

    This is unrelated to temperature -- it's the amount of memory that the graphics processor (GPU) has dedicated to it.  Adobe's "minimum required" is 2,000 MB (2 GB), while you only have 1,536 MB. 

     

    Your symptoms are really sounding more like a fan/vent issue, though.

    2 replies

    johnrellis
    johnrellis
    Legend
    November 8, 2025

    Two possible issues:

     

    1. "My latop does seem to be running the fan alot (but not sure if I am only just noticing this now because of the other isse)"

     

    Your fans or cooling vents could be clogged.  The last years of Intel Macbook Pros were susceptible to overheating, and when the fans/vents get clogged, they can overheat very quickly. Try vacuuming them.  If that doesn't help, download a temperature utility and monitor the temperature and CPU clock speed as you use LR -- that will indicate if the CPU is overheating.  If so, then take it to a repair technician to clean it out.

     

    2. "Dedicated GPU memory used by Lightroom: 1,684.9MB / 1,536.0MB (109%)"

     

    That's significantly less GPU memory than the minimum requirements of LR:

    https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/system-requirements.html 

     

    In past years, the main symptoms of this would be AI masks failing. But perhaps with the latest LR and Mac OS, the symptoms are more pervasive.   Try setting Preferences > Performance > Use Graphics Processor to Off.

    J
    jayne_1983Author
    Participant
    November 8, 2025

    Hello John,

     

    Thank you so very much for getting back to me.

     

    1. I have now hoovered the vents and will monitor the fan. Can you recommend a fan/temp monitoring app (preferabbly free one!)

     

    2. I have since turned the CPU off, as this has helped in the past and it's reading:

     

    Dedicated GPU memory used by Lightroom: 163.5MB / 1,536.0MB (10%)

     

    Is that a good thing?

     

    Sometimes it seems to work fine, like last week it seemed to work fine in the morning, but by afternoon there was loads of buffering (whirly rainbow thing) and editing was insanely slow and painful. 

    johnrellis
    johnrellisCorrect answer
    Legend
    November 8, 2025

    "Can you recommend a fan/temp monitoring app (preferabbly free one!)"

     

    Intel used to have a good one for Mac they distributed for free, but they discontinued it a couple years ago after Apple move their CPUs to Apple Silicon. I don't have any recommendations, but this article might help:

    https://www.macworld.com/article/351897/how-to-check-mac-temperature-cool.html 

     

    "Dedicated GPU memory used by Lightroom: 163.5MB / 1,536.0MB (10%)"

     

    This is unrelated to temperature -- it's the amount of memory that the graphics processor (GPU) has dedicated to it.  Adobe's "minimum required" is 2,000 MB (2 GB), while you only have 1,536 MB. 

     

    Your symptoms are really sounding more like a fan/vent issue, though.

    J
    jayne_1983Author
    Participant
    November 7, 2025

    Here is the system info from LrC, just incase this helps in anyway:

     

    Lightroom Classic version: 15.0 [ 202510171722-44f87028 ]
    License: Creative Cloud
    Language setting: en-GB
    Operating system: Mac OS 26
    Version: 26.1.0 [25B78]
    Application architecture: x64
    Logical processor count: 8
    Processor speed: 2.0GHz
    SqLite Version: 3.36.0
    Power Source: Battery, 74%
    Built-in memory: 16,384.0 MB
    Dedicated GPU memory used by Lightroom: 1,684.9MB / 1,536.0MB (109%)
    Real memory available to Lightroom: 16,384.0 MB
    Real memory used by Lightroom: 2,984.4 MB (18.2%)
    Virtual memory used by Lightroom: 45,458.5 MB
    Memory cache size: 163.6MB
    Internal Camera Raw version: 18.0 [ 2389 ]
    Maximum thread count used by Camera Raw: 5
    Camera Raw SIMD optimization: SSE2,AVX,AVX2
    Camera Raw virtual memory: 872MB / 8191MB (10%)
    Camera Raw real memory: 1123MB / 16384MB (6%)

    Cache1:
    Final1- RAM:166.0MB, VRAM:0.0MB, 6S4B5339.CR3
    Final2- RAM:37.0MB, VRAM:0.0MB, 64BBC3E9-6AAA-41F6-9A16-14C089EB25C7.dng
    Final3- RAM:231.0MB, VRAM:235.0MB, 6S4B5333.CR3
    NT- RAM:434.0MB, VRAM:235.0MB, Combined:669.0MB

    Cache2:
    m:163.6MB, n:368.1MB

    U-main: 85.0MB

    Standard Preview Size: 2880 pixels
    Displays: 1) 2880x1800

    Graphics Processor Info:
    Metal: Intel(R) Iris(TM) Plus Graphics
    Init State: GPU for Display supported by default with image processing and export supported in the custom mode
    User Preference: GPU for Export enabled
    Enable HDR in Library: OFF
    GPU for Preview Generation: Off (S4_1)

    Application folder: /Applications/Adobe Lightroom Classic
    Library Path: /Volumes/2nd backup/2025/2025 Event Photography/2025.10 Brian 80th Knowlton/Catalog/2025.10 Brian 80th Knowlton/2025.10 Brian 80th Knowlton.lrcat
    Settings Folder: /Users/jaynenottage/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom

    Installed Plugins:
    1) AdobeStock
    2) Aperture/iPhoto Importer Plug-in
    3) Flickr

    Config.lua flags:

     

     

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