Experiencing performance related issues in Lightroom 3.x

[laurencec]

Hi

I just upgraded from lightroom 2.7 to lightroom 3. I then proceeded to import my old catalog. this all went fine but lightroom is so slow, the thumbnail previews take forever to load if I manage to have the patience to wait  for them.

is there a quick solution?? How can it be sped up?

thanks

Laurence

Message title was edited by: Brett N

[MelissaJ.G.]

About the slowness-

I wish I had a good answer, a magic bullet that would fix it for everyone. I don't. I think we're running into 3 or 4 different bugs, all rather uncommon.

One clue we've had is that in some cases its related to disk contention. The faster your disk, the less likely you are to run into that. It does NOT seem related to memory size, or core number. (In fact, faster machines MAY run into it more than slower machines, but that is just a guess)

I have heard of 3 pallatives -

1) optimize your catalog. (I don't know why this works. If it works for you, please send me your original catalog so we can see if there are any clues in it - use a file transfer service like YouSendIt - and email me at mgaul at adobe dot com.

2) Throw out and rebuilt your previews. (Ick. sorry.)

3) Reduce the size of your Camera Raw Cache. This is only if you're slow in Develop.

We're trying to fix this, but we are hampered by a lack of truly reproduceable cases in house. (We have a couple machines that reproduce parts of it)

I guarentee that we are reading, and trying to find a common thread in all of this.

[frank0239]

I'm intrigued by the throw out and rebuild previews solution.  I installed LR3 on my portable over LR1.x and imported and optimised the catalogue etc.  I opened LR and had the usual delays opening library folders - loads of grey previews as LR built up the previews as required.  I had 1-200 previews rendered when I opted to 'render all previews'.  LR then did its usual survey of the previews and then opted to render all of my files including the ones already rendered. I had suspected this when I rendered previews on my desktop, but I failed to keep a watch on the numbers and file names.

Does this mean that the previews rendered as required are discarded when LR is closed or after a few days.  If so, then anybody not 'rendering all previews' is always going to take a performance hit when opening a folder in a catalogue that has been converted from an earlier LR (except of course for files newly imported and rendered on import).

Frank

[kwdaves-WfiRTh]

Certainly deleting the standard previews and re-generating them from scratch followed by optimizing the catalog worked for me, but the way I upgraded may have been what caused me problems. I converted a LR2 catalog to LR3 and let it generate standard (2048 pixel) previews. Immediatley after the conversion was completed, I selected all the images in my library, changed to the 2010 process version, and re-generated the standard previews. After all of this LR3 was what I described as "slower than a dying snail". When I scrolled through my library in grid view, I saw blank thumbnails, thumbnails with no labels or badges displayed, or thumbnails with only the top label displayed. It would take up to five minutes for the update to finish (alll the labels and badges appear, the develop settings are applied, and the "..." go away) for the 180 thumbnails I had on screen. With the thumbnails in this condition scrolling in Loupe view was also very sluggish, while it took a very long time for the left and right browser to populate when I opened the program after it had been closed overnight or some similar period, while the program would first jump to the first images in the folder I had open and then jump to the image that was active when I closed the program last. The new previews seem to have fixed this, although I haven't been entirely satisified with the time it takes for the program to be ready for use after being closed overnight.

All of this leads me to wonder about any changes to thumbnail generation in LR3. My experience with LR2 was that it was necessary to go through my entire library and scroll the thumbnails on screen until the "..." to go away in order to get scrolling in Library Loupe or Grid view up to acceptable speeds. My initial impression of LR3 is that this isn't necessary.

My specs:

Windows 7 64 bit, Core2 Quad 2.83GHZ, 8GB DDR2 RAM, NVidia GeForce 8500GT with 512MB DDR2 RAM, Three SATA 300 (SATA II) 7200RPM drives with two of the drives dedicated storage drives for images and video.

[camerahans]

reduce the size of the cache? What is the adviced size?

I did flush the cach, rebuilding takes ages. Dropped the 1:1 previews: rebuilding takes ages. reorganised the hard disks, reorganized the catalogue. All to no avail!

So far I am out of lightroom and reverting to ACR for raw conversion. That works ok here. And for a DAM ... I could have spent that money on more pleasant things!

Sorry for I really liked LR but for me it is now not on the professional level I need for my bussiness

[MelissaJ.G.]

We don't have an advised size for the Camera Raw Cache - but if you've

increased it, you MIGHT see a speed improvement in Develop if you decrease

it again.

-melissa

[camerahans]

Hi Melissa,

I had a cache of 100 Gb. Because of your advice I lowered it again to 50 Gb. No significvant response.

What keeps bothering me here is that when I move my pen over a pic (loupe/develop) processor maxs out on 100%. Not so on the rest of the interface.

[camerahans]

disk speed... All my disk are 7200 RPM because of video needing this speed. I do know some disks have 10.000 RPM but that surely cannot be necessary for photo work?

[MelissaJ.G.]

Really, there are a set of issues that we really don't have a full answer on

yet. Only one part of the issues encountered have to do with disk speed.

-melissa

[BSC_PHOTO]

I've noticed most of the people on this thread are running  windows machines. HAve you found anything related directly to Macs?

Although my L3 has sped up a bit since increasing my cache to 100GB I do still find some slow downs in develop mode while going from one picture to the next and while using the adjustment tools.

Imac 27"

3.33Ghz

8GB RAM

Thanks

[Ian Lyons]

BSC_PHOTO wrote:

I've noticed most of the people on this thread are running  windows machines. HAve you found anything related directly to Macs?

From personal experience and as one of the most vociferous complainers I can tell you that at least one of the issues (i.e. disk contention) afflicts Mac users as much as Windows users. If you are suffering from the disk contention issue you would know about it. The symptoms being, blank thumbnails and severe prolonged disk thrashing when opening large catalogs after cold reboot or switching between large catalogs (i.e. 20,000 plus 20MP plus images). If you avoid the cold reboots, switching between large catalogs or even using apps like Cocktail to clear system caches you'll very likely not see it on the Mac. The other suggested workarounds don't make a jot of difference after the images are recached, so don't waste your time trying it.

Mac Pro 8-core 3GHz 16GB with 4x1TB 7200rpm disks, two of which are configured for Raid 0 (not that it makes a halfpenny worth of difference).

Edit: in case anyone think I'm ragging on Adobe here, I'm not. I know for fact that they have been fighting this issue hard, and worked close with some of us to establish the cause. Asking for a fix is really easy, finding what to fix isn't.

[BSC_PHOTO]

I see some lag time when deleteing images (but not severe) Only once and a while do I see

grayed out thumbnails but only in the film strip on "Develop"

Thanks

[BSC_PHOTO]

I keep rather small catalogs but all my images are 20mb +

if that matters

[camerahans]

for windows... should hd indexing be on or off?

[LittleJu-qMSLMD]

Hi,

here my feedback, hoping this can contribute solving the issue.

My problem:
very slow (compared to LR2.7) in library mode, in Import, and probably in Dev module, due to background rendering of the standard previews.
I can see the LEDs of my external hard drive bliking a while (reading of raw file), then no light during a while (LR rendering this picture), and again, all very slow, until it somehow freezes.

Improvements achieved through:

- very clear improvement of Import task (from SD card) if I perform a "minimal" import (thumbnails only instead of "standard" previews renderings), and saving the pictures onto the local disk, then rendering standard previews manually, then moving the folder to the external drive.

- good improvement by deleting the whole LR previews folder, and then render manualy the standard previews

(library module->library->previews->render standard previews)

by bunches of 800 pictures maxi, selected by folders (the rendering task seems to freeze if I pass this quantity) (I'll try to reproduce this to double check)

being careful at the same time never to select a picture that is not yet "standard" rendered, in any module (otherwise this picture will stuck on loading, and at the same time freeze the rendering task of the other pictures)

and never to select a folder (or to select "all photographs") that isn't yet "standard" or "thumbnails" rendered (otherwise the building of the thumbnails for the Grid View or the Strip view for this folder will freeze the rendering taks of the other pictures)

- maybe improvement each time after I purged the cache (which is 35GB max, but never exceed 20GB through rendering tasks)

- maybe improvement after I upgraded all pictures to the new process. (library module -> library -> find previous process photos)

- maybe improvement if optimize catalog (library module -> file -> optimize catalog) after each batch of "standard previews" rendering.

- simply building the thumbnails allready takes quite a while, as each file needs to be read from the external hardrive,
(I don't know if LR uses the embedded thumbnails from the raw files, of build up new ones from scrap) (for example by selecting "all photographs" in Grid view, and scrolling down to show the next grey thumbnails, the thumbnails turn from grey to pictures as they are created. ) It would be nice to have some function in LR to control the building of the thumbnails (when to start, automantic or manual, which folders to treat, etc.)

My (obsolete!) system:
laptop 1GB RAM, 1.8 GHz, 2 cores, windows xp, deeply optimized (most xp service desactivated, disk defragmented, all xp eye candies desactivated, antivirus excluding LR folders and cr2 files, windows disk indexing desactivated, etc).

My catalog:
29.000 pictures, many cr2 of 14MB each,

catalog and previews on the local disk, but not on the same partition as Windows and the LR software.
pictures on external Hard Drive connected through USB port.
Upgraded catalog from LR2.7 to LR3

[LittleJu-qMSLMD]

Summary:
for some pictures, but not for all, When building thumbnail or standard preview, LR3 takes over full CPU and RAM, then pagefile which is very slow. especially as reading raw file from external USB hard drive.
then doesn't free the ressource anymore when done, even if restart LR. You need to restart Windows.
Pictures making problems seems to be the one with specific development adjustement in old process, or some JPEG from specific cameras.
Well, maybe...

Details:

First, build up on the fly the thumbnails of a folder with many pictures. Task takes some time, but normal on my slow machine.

Then start "standard preview" rendering of ONE picture of the folder (IMG_3922.CR2, from a canon eos 450D camera).
Computer gets very slow. CPU usage is actually stuck at 100%, even after the task is cancelled.
CPU usage goes back down to normal if close LR.
CPU usage goes back to 100% if restart LR, without running any task (see screenshot 1).
http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/6364/lr3cpu100screenshot1.jpg
(but LR is still accessing my external hard drive, which contains the RAW files!)
CPU usage goes back again to normal if close LR again.

If I stop windows, plug external hard drive out, and starts LR, CPU usage is normal, LR is working smoothly again.
If then I connect my external harddrive (still not touching anything on the LR interface), Hard drive is accessed during a few minutes, and CPU usage rockets up again for a while, then goes down.
(screenshot 2)
http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/8530/lr3cpu100screenshot2.jpg

I start then the standard rendering of ONE other picture (DSC00072.JPG from a sony DSC-W200 compact camera), CPU usage goes to 100% during 45 seconds then goes down, then everything is normal again.

The strange thing is that sometimes my LR3 has been able to performs the standard rendering in just 1 to 3 seconds per picture, so why so slow on this folder?

I select IMG_3932.CR2, and move to Develop view. CPU goes to 100%, during many minutes, with a lot of hard drive access, pagefile slowly increase from 600MB to 700MB, CPU usage goes down when I switch of antivirus and unplug network cable, maybe not related. Image is ready now, CPU is down to normal, but pagefile stays by 700MB.
I close LR.
Pagefile is down to 600MB
I start LR again, LR loads the picture in dev module from the cach, cpu goes very shortly to 100%, and pagefile to 646MB. All normally behaving. screenshot 7.
http://img576.imageshack.us/img576/1703/lr3cpu100screenshot7.jpg

One specificity of this pictures compared to others: it had some development settings, and the picture has been upgraded to new process.

[vtihomir]

I noticed that LR3 is much slower than LR 2.6 for me. I want to see picture at 1:1 magnification LR 3 spins Loading... message at least 10-12 seconds. Version 2.6 generates the same preview at 3-4 sec the most. Computer is 2.33 GHz Core 2 Duo with 2 GB RAM, ATI video card and 7200 RPM WD Scorpio Black HDD. OS is Windows Vista and freshly installed Windows 7.

I tried every advice posted here but speed is about the same. Interesting thing is that LR 3 in my case renders each 1:1 preview in Library module twice - first it renders it, then image gets a bit blurred and it renders it again. In develop module it renders image only once therefore it's about twice as fast.

[ocabj]

I'm having the same 'slow' performance with the retail copy of LR3. Doing basic stuff like clone/heal and skin softening is very laggy. I was not having these issues with LR3 Beta 1 or Beta 2. My work flow hasn't changed between Beta 2 and Final Release so I can only imagine it's a LR software issue.

[goodlux7]

I'm having the same problem as the original poster, I'm using a new iMac, Quad Core, 4GB RAM. Here's what lightroom looks like on my computer. This is a catalog that I've upgraded after installing LR3.

I thought I would just "let lightroom run" like I often do. Nothing seemed to change over the period of 24 hours.

Restarting makes some (about a page) of thumbnails show up. I have optimized, and it didn't do anything. Not sure how to fix this.

The really frustrating thing here is that there is no indication to the user that anything is happening. No spinner, no status info, nothing. What does a user do? Wait for Adobe! I really wish the LR team would include more status information, like photoshop bridge has.

[camerahans]

trash the previews and generate them again in 3.0

[hamish niven]

Thanks for this suggestion. This has been suggested many times by Victoria B, myself and others and it works. It does speed things up.

hamish NIVEN photography on the move

[LittleJu-qMSLMD]

what worked for me:

TO FIX YOUR CATALOG IN LR3:

Close any unrequired program, service, antivirus, network connection.
Delete your catalog previews folder. (the heavy folder called "*.Previews.lrdata")
Open LR.
Press E to switch to Library, Loupe view.
Close all panels excepted upper one (close left, right, and strip view).

Select a big cache (but still not too big for your hard drive), and purge it:
    Edit -> preferences -> file handling -> camera raw cache settings
Select one picture.
Choose to render only this one picture: library -> previews -> render standard previews,
When task is done, restart Windows.

Open LR.
Press E to switch to Library, Loupe view.

Select the one picture you rendered in previous steps.
Close all panels excepted upper one (close left, right, and strip view).

Select one folder with many pictures (by hovering with mouse over the left side of the screen to temporarely show the left panel), and including this one picture currently on screen.
Ctrl A (nothing visible happens, but all pictures in the folder get selected)
library -> previews -> render standard previews.
Let run, and check from time to time in upper panel that the task isn't frozen.
Sometimes it still freezes, eating up all CPU without apparent reason (sometimes for some jpg file, sometimes for .cr2 picture with adjustements in old process). Then you need to restart windows.
When rendering of all standard previews of the catalog is done, LR should behave normally.

I believe that, because no thumbnails are shown either in strip view nor in grid view, this procedure allows to render the standard previews without needing LR to render thumbnails for other pictures at the same time, which seems somehow to freeze LR by overtaking all available CPU ressource.

TO IMPORT NEW PICTURES INTO LR3:

to import new pictures, choose "minimal", and destination somewhere on your local hard drive.
When import is finished, do "standard rendering" of these pictures.
When rendering is done, move the pictures to the external hard drive (using LR, not Windows Exlorer).

AND NOW,
wait patiently for the next update of LR with bugs corrections!!!!

[hamish niven]

AND NOW,*

wait patiently for the next update of LR with bugs corrections!!!!

We are all waiting for this.

Adobe are working hard get us this update

Still overall I think the upgrade to 2.99x was worth it. My workflow with better noise control, lens correction and perspective is so much faster

Here's to the proper LR3 coming out

hamish NIVEN photography on the move

[molwizard2]

LittleJu wrote:

I believe that, because no thumbnails are shown either in strip view nor in grid view, this procedure allows to render the standard previews without needing LR to render thumbnails for other pictures at the same time, which seems somehow to freeze LR by overtaking all available CPU ressource.

Interestingly, on my system with 16 CPU cores, LR3 seems to be rather slow in rendering  (non-cached) images because it is the other way round: most cores are idling and even the few onesthat are  working are far from being really busy.

[goodlux7]

@hamish

I agree, things do seem a little quicker in LR3 when everything is working

as expected.

I do wish Adobe would spend more time on the database / image management

features of LR instead of the image quality / photoshop parts. I'd gladly

use photoshop/bridge for editing...i just need to be able to find/tag and

manage my photos!

r

[mei_-EPZwbs]

Another data point:

I left my computer running for the last 8 hours rendering standard size previews for a load of images. Before starting this it was running normally and fairly quickly. I cancelled the rendering before all the photos were done (about 10k left and I have stuff I need to do) and Lightroom was then very unresponsive, with many grey boxes where thumbnails should be and taking many seconds or minutes to move between images, often sticking at the loading message with a very pixellated picture.

I closed and restarted lightroom but it didn't help. I closed it again and it was not showing as an application or a process in the Windows Task manager, but if I look at resource monitor it's shown as still being there and taking up about 2.7gb of RAM - in normal use it never gets much about 1.5gb.

I restarted the machine and reloaded lightroom, ram usage and performance seems to have gone back to normal. But... then it bogged down again and I'm now optimizing the catalogue trying to speed it up again.

It seems Lightroom has a memory leak somewhere and/or isn;t releasing resources when it closes.

----

Windows 7 64bit, 4gb RAM.