Excessive memory usage crashing Lightroom Classic

[johnm54583118]

For the past few weeks I am routinely getting a message from MacOS that I'm out of memory and need to kill a program. The only program using an excessive amount of RAM is Lightroom Classic.

There are no tasks running in Lightroom, this occurs even when just viewing files. I'm going to have to switch to a different photo editor if this isn't resolved. It's unfortunate as I have been using Lightroom since 2019.

My catalog contains about 56,000 images, 667 are currently open in the Loupe.

[johnm54583118]

As a test, I quit Lightroom and reopened it. It started using about 1 GB RAM right out of the gate. I switched to the Develop module and it quickly climbed to 4.8 GB. I then switched to another image and I'm at 5.5 GB. After only a couple more minutes and a few more files open in Develop I'm up to 13 GB. It really seems like a leak, as it gets worse with each image open in Develop.

This issue started roughly around the time I switched to an X-T5 from an X-T4 (40.2 MP files versus 26.1 MP.) My laptop is an M1 Pro w/ 32 GB RAM.

[johnm54583118]

45 minutes of editing later and I'm getting the error again.

[johnm54583118]

Even worse, I ran out of disk space this time. When I cycled Lightroom my used space dropped from 995 GB to 968 GB, so it must be swapping ~27 GB to disk.

[johnrellis]

Please do the LR menu command Help > System Info and copy/paste the entire contents here so we can see exactly which versions of hardware and software LR thinks you're running.

[GoldingD]

How much free space exists on your boot drive? Are you running out of virtual memory?

[johnm54583118]

@GoldingDYes, I noted above that while Lightroom is using 33 GB RAM (according to the MacOS system telling me I'm out of RAM, see screenshot above), it's also using 27 GB of virtual memory and filling up my boot disk. I have ~30 GB of free space on my boot drive until I can edit some of these photos and move them off to my NAS.

[johnrellis]

"I noted above that while Lightroom is using 33 GB RAM (according to the MacOS system telling me I'm out of RAM, see screenshot above), it's also using 27 GB of virtual memory and filling up my boot disk. I have ~30 GB of free space on my boot drive"

It sounds like there are two issues:

- LR is using a higher-than-typical about of memory -- 33 GB is high, though not unheard of in longer editing sessions.

- Mac OS is running out of disk space in which to create the backing store for additional virtual memory.

I think if you free up at least 100 GB of disk space, you can then see if LR memory keeps climbing much above 33 GB or levels out around there.

[johnm54583118]

It's using 33 GB RAM after a 45-minute editing session touching ~45 files.

If I'm understanding you correctly, you're suggesting that Lightroom allocates a large amount of disk space for swapping (virtual memory) in normal usage, and that if this space isn't available it may pre-allocate physical RAM? If I'm reading my system correctly, the total size of memory Lightroom is using is ~60GB (33 GB compressed, physical RAM and 27 GB virtual RAM on disk.

I'll use the Help > System Info as a previous user suggested during my next session to see what RAM usage Lightroom itself is reporting in this scenario. Once I've cleared some disk space I'll also check whether the issue persists.

[DdeGannes]

@johnm54583118 , you indicate you only have only 30 GB of free disk space on your boot drive. As a rule of thumb it's best to keep at 20% of your Disk free for efficient performance. So if your internal disk is a 1TB HDD / SSD you should attempt to have at least 200 GB free, for a 500 GB disk 100 GB.

My thought on the issue is Lightroom Classic utilizes a lot of RAM and if necessary will utilize a lot of temporary disk space for file swapping. However if there is insufficient disk space that will put additional pressure on your available RAM. Performance will suffer, make sure you have enough of both.

[johnm54583118]

Sorry - let me clarify. I'm not sure how much virtual memory it's reported as using, just how much free space is cleared when I exit the app. (I am more familiar with Linux swap RAM than MacOS virtual memory, so unsure of nuances here.)

[Ian Lyons]

In addition to the other suggestions made above, check that LrC is operating in native Apple Silicon mode and not Rosetta. The 'Get Info' for LrC should look like the highlighted area in attached screenshot.

[johnm54583118]

"Open using Rosetta" is unchecked, good thought though.

[MarcoTrosi]

I have the same issue and it became unusable, that's not what I paid for.
- macOS 11.7 BigSur
- Adobe Lightroom 6 (the old good one before the weird monthly renting solutions)

[DdeGannes]

@MarcoTrosi , see if the post I addressed to John M is applicable in your case.

[MarcoTrosi]

I turned off GPU usage, that seems to have fixed it. Thanks for your reply.

[Ian Lyons]

Lightroom 6 was released in 2015 and is longer supported by Adobe. It's also highly unlikely that it just became unusable without something having triggered the change in performance or memory use. Also, since this thread is Lightroom Classic specific, I suggest you start a new thread and provide more information regarding the issue you're experiencing. The more information you provide the more likely we can provide some assistance.

[jens70254909]

My Lightroom is currently using over 45gb of RAM...I only have 32GB. Seems it's not just me! 

[DdeGannes]

@jens70254909 , please indicate the version number of Lightroom Classic you are using and also your operating version number.