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

[Odin1]

Hamish, spot on! Personally I have been using LR since it was first available and have never experienced any of the problems that other people have said do exist. When I have experienced issues I have phoned Adobe and they have sorted the problem which most of the time was me.

There was only one issue with LR3 which was a pre existing condition LR uses ram and virtual ram and at any point in time LR uses upto 1.8 gb of virtual ram and the same in system ram hence there could be a little delay but after a few days the delay just went away.

To make sure it doesnt return I have replaced both drives, I have installed a WD velociraptor as my C drive upon which reside the LR catalogue and this is the drive that LR use for virtual memory and the data is on a WD Caviar Black 1 Tb and now the previews that run along the bottom of LR go as fast as I can and if you render all of your photographs as 1:1 they are swift as well.

What most appear to forget is that file sizes can be very large with a few layers my 5D II files can be over 100 mbs so you need a fair system to move that data around,  I bought a new Dell workstation when I upgraded from a 5D to a MKII and it now has a fast graphics card with 1gb of ddr3, 8mb of ram and it had two 2.83 quad core xeons, if you want the performance then you need to invest in the machinery that will do the job, laptops will always be slower and two processors will always be better than one and quad core is faster that dual core.

The performance of these 300gb velociraptors is so good I might invest in another and split the catalogue but for now its fast enough.

What never ceases to amaze me though is the number of users who expend huge amounts of time and energy speculating about what could or couldnt be wrong on forums without ever contacting Adobe directly to see if their assumed problem really does exist in reality.

As said when I have had an issue I just phone Adobe and discuss the issue and then get on with it, LR does the job and each update has been better than the last precisely what do you guys want?

Provided the software develops your photographs and allows you to print them or sell them or catalogue them then what is the problem?

It used to be that you could run windows and ms office on a matchbox however that is now not the case as the software grows in size and becomes more capable than you need to buy a quicker machine to cope with it but so what the equipment is cheaper now than ever.

When I purchased my first pc 30/40 years ago it cost me £1500 and a half GB drive was £500 my Dell 7400 with quad cores cost £1500 so the price has dramatically decreased over that period of time, stop whingeing LR 3.2 works fine most of the problems people experience is because they spend more time trying to find faults by deliberately asking it to do what it was not designed to do than just developing photographs in the way it was designed to develop photographs, are you photographers or just geeks with little or no interest in photography for its own sake?

David Wells

[imajez]

Odin1 wrote:

What most appear to forget is that file sizes can be very large with a few layers my 5D II files can be over 100 mbs so you need a fair system to move that data around,  I bought a new Dell workstation when I upgraded from a 5D to a MKII and it now has a fast graphics card with 1gb of ddr3, 8mb of ram and it had two 2.83 quad core xeons, if you want the performance then you need to invest in the machinery that will do the job, laptops will always be slower and two processors will always be better than one and quad core is faster that dual core.

I'm always amused when people talk about 100Mb being a large file. I recall editing 16 bit film scans that were 122Mb as a single layer and often ended up at 750Mbs+ once one starting editing. This was on a machine that only had 512Mb of Ram and may have been a single core PC with the one ancient  Athlon chip. My current 8core MacPro with 4G of Ram doesn't seem much faster if at all when using PS, with much smaller files than PCs I used years back! As an aside, I also tested MP with 6G of RAM and PS ran slower!

When I purchased my first pc 30/40 years ago it cost me £1500 and a half GB drive was £500.

The first PC came out in 1981 but 0.5GB drives arrived in early 1990.

[Odin1]

Hi inasmuch as your eyes adjust to colour hence you need to keep switching

between file and another speed is also subjective and you adjust to it,

the only way of identifying if one machine or process is faster than another is to subject it to specific testing procedures using certifified software designed for the purpose.

You wouldnt be able to run current software on a slower machine hence your argument and assumption as regards speed or lack of it becomes irrelevant.

What you were once happy with would now cause chronic constipation.

David Wells

[imajez]

I am aware of subjectivity and current software not running on older machines, but for the files and techniques I am talking about, nothing has changed other than a general and significant slowing down of workflow of late with Snow Leopard/CS5/LR3 over previous releases. Plus the old computer easily handled files that were 50% bigger than total PC memory. I cannot imagine the pain if I tried working with 6G PS layered files on my current Mac, which can be slow with 12Mb files.

I just created a 733Mb file by duping layers and increasing size of a 16bit G10 file. I then performed a very simple operation by moving a layer, it was about 7 very tedious seconds in responding to any input! Not exactly impressive compared to my old PC. I won't bother with a 6G version!

[Odin1]

My apologies I didnt take account of you using a Mac, LR was of course designed initially for use with Windows whereas PS was fundamentally for Macs because most who used PS were Mac obsessives who refused to even countenance the idea that a Windows machine couldnt do anything other than download viruses.

Again the 64 bit code that Adobe use for PS is primarily designed to run on PC's because Steve Jobs refused point blank to update Mac machine code to 64 bit then reluctantly did so but I am sure it would run more slowly even then on a Mac simply because it was not written originally for a Mac so it needs to be interpretated.

Steve Jobs is behaving in the same way with Adobe now with Iphone 4 he is refusing to use Adobe Flash to play video on his phone thinking that by keeping everything in house he can make more money.

I have Ipods and would like an Iphone but Mr Jobs is just a complete arse I am reluctant to give him any more of my cash.

I buy Dell or Sony but my Son has just bought the Sony equivalent of an Iphone and its crap really slow.

I have always used Windows but preferred the look and the specification and apparent performance of a Mac because of your comments I am glad I stayed with Windows and Win 7 is excellent even thought I hold Mr Gates with the same lack of esteem as Jobs but there you go.

No point you buy a G6 now because neither LR or PS would know how to use all six cores, its taken Adobe years to write the 64 bit code that could adequately exploit a quad core chip having six cores will not make software not designed to use them run any faster.

My 2.83 quad core xeons achieve the highest Win 7 benchmarke so there is no point me buying better kit because the software is the limiting factor not the machinery.

Regards

David Wells

[Lee_Jay-ZyZk56]

Odin1 wrote:

LR was of course designed initially for use with Windows...

LR Betas 1&2 were released only for Mac.  Beta 3 was the first release for Windows, thus it would appear the opposite of what you said is more likely to be the case.

[Guest]

Isn't there a moderator around that can put this thread out of its misery and start a new one that purports to organize the facts of the problem?

If this thread can't be shut down please at least rename it to:     "Why Lightroom 3.0 caused me to hate Adobe".

Anyone else notice that Dan and Melissa have been quiet for almost ten days now?

I repeat here what the House of Commons said to Neville Chamberlain in 1938 (which echoed what Cromwell said about the King a few hundred years earlier):

    "You have sat here too long for any good you are doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"

I can't think of a better way to voice what I think should happen to this thread at this point. If it was applicable to a King and a Prime Minister it should be OK for this thread as well.

[Guest]

sherlocc wrote:

Isn't there a moderator around that can put this thread out of its misery and start a new one that purports to organize the facts of the problem?

If this thread can't be shut down please at least rename it to:     "Why Lightroom 3.0 caused me to hate Adobe".

Anyone else notice that Dan and Melissa have been quiet for almost ten days now?

I repeat here what the House of Commons said to Neville Chamberlain in 1938 (which echoed what Cromwell said about the King a few hundred years earlier):

    "You have sat here too long for any good you are doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"

I can't think of a better way to voice what I think should happen to this thread at this point. If it was applicable to a King and a Prime Minister it should be OK for this thread as well.

Excellent point. I too have noticed they have been gone, and I really don't blame them. I don't think they really care about workflow discussions, and any discussion about why LR3 is slow are buried between dicsuccions that have little to do with the whole point of the original post!!

I thought there was a moderator, but at some point I wonder if they just give up...

[JayS_In_CT]

LydellPhoto wrote:

sherlocc wrote:

Isn't there a moderator around that can put this thread out of its misery and start a new one that purports to organize the facts of the problem?

If this thread can't be shut down please at least rename it to:     "Why Lightroom 3.0 caused me to hate Adobe".

Anyone else notice that Dan and Melissa have been quiet for almost ten days now?

I repeat here what the House of Commons said to Neville Chamberlain in 1938 (which echoed what Cromwell said about the King a few hundred years earlier):

    "You have sat here too long for any good you are doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"

I can't think of a better way to voice what I think should happen to this thread at this point. If it was applicable to a King and a Prime Minister it should be OK for this thread as well.

Excellent point. I too have noticed they have been gone, and I really don't blame them. I don't think they really care about workflow discussions, and any discussion about why LR3 is slow are buried between dicsuccions that have little to do with the whole point of the original post!!

I thought there was a moderator, but at some point I wonder if they just give up...

Sherlocc/Mark,

Great to be able to quote history.  As for Dan and Melissa..they see all these threads in their readers, and I know that they will pick up what's needed and pass it along.  As for the recent workflow and tips discussion, if you picked it up from the beginning you'll notice it was based on a performance issue, that being exports are taking exceedingly long times.  A bug report has been written, Adobe is looking at it, others (in this thread) have contributed supporting data for it, and then others suggested different work flows (and we learned some techniques along the way).  For a User to User forum, I'd say that's pretty much what's supposed to happen.

This is not the list of Google issues with Froyo 2.2 or a buglist that can opened, starred by readers as being critical, etc.  It's a user to user forum.  Look at the list of "issues" being reported up and down the discussion topics.  As someone so aptly put it earlier, it would be great if folks would spend at least a part of their online energies in reporting those issues.  If we expect or truly want Adobe to get these issues that is path.. not here.  Anything Dan and Melissa take from here is because they happen to be the Adobe monitors of this forum.  Not that they are expected to write bug reports.

So again, for a user to user forum, I expect topics to drift.. They do on DPReview, they do on the Apple forums, etc.

Jay S.

[DanTull]

I must admit, I've glossed over posts lately. Part of that is due to signal to noise ratio and part of it is due to the simple fact that I am monitoring this forum not as a designated moderator (I'm not) so much as a means to end. Where the end is for 3.2 (RC and final) to address as many of the issues raised as possible and to get things on my radar I might not even realize otherwise.

I watched this thread via an RSS reader and occasionally browsed other threads, but I have to admit I just pulled this one out because it has tapered off below the S/N ratio threshold. When 3.2 final is released, I'll probably start watching some threads again but will  be only watching passively.

DT

[hamish niven]

tis a shame it will be LR 3.2 final, I'd really hoped, as had many, for a LR 3.3 - one that addressed many of the issues in this biblical proportioned post and many of the others

[Jasonized-nfnCsn]

Actually, I'd hoped for a LR 3.2RC_2, with more bugs fixed for us to hammer on, before they went and finalized it.  Faster turn around, trying to get 3.2 out than waiting for 3.3 to arrive...

Cheers!

[JayS_In_CT]

Jasonized wrote:

Actually, I'd hoped for a LR 3.2RC_2, with more bugs fixed for us to hammer on, before they went and finalized it.  Faster turn around, trying to get 3.2 out than waiting for 3.3 to arrive...

Cheers!

Jason,

I think we heard that 3.2 final will have more than 3.2 RC in some of the posts, but understand your point.  At some point though I guess they have to get a "stable" base platform out there from which to build the next one.  At least I'm hoping there is more in it than just what we saw in the RC. 

Jay S.

[alanranger5]

further evidence and head scratching from me on LR3 speed.

I thought i would try a simple comparison of LR2.7 to LR3 with my library of 18,000 images.  Selected All images and saved metadata to files.

In LR2.7 it took 20mins to complete the task

In LR3 its still running and 76% complete and has been running for 16 hours so far!   Ram and VRam has been sat at 94% and 88% respectively the whole time rendering my PC useless to do anything else on in this time.

Clearly hardware is identical and software OS identical so strikes me that LR3 has some serious code issues that unless they can be fixed pretty damn quick then I'll abandon it and go back to LR2.7

Come on Adobe, pull your fingers out, how on earth can you beta test a product for 6+months and then release something that is clearly slower in every respect to a point of unacceptable performance?

[bob frost]

alanranger5 wrote:

further evidence and head scratching from me on LR3 speed.

I thought i would try a simple comparison of LR2.7 to LR3 with my library of 18,000 images.  Selected All images and saved metadata to files.

In LR2.7 it took 20mins to complete the task

In LR3 its still running and 76% complete and has been running for 16 hours so far!   Ram and VRam has been sat at 94% and 88% respectively the whole time rendering my PC useless to do anything else on in this time.

Clearly hardware is identical and software OS identical so strikes me that LR3 has some serious code issues that unless they can be fixed pretty damn quick then I'll abandon it and go back to LR2.7

Hi Alan,

If you've time, try another test. Create a new catalog in LR3 and import all your 18000 images again, so that you have a fresh catalog untainted by LR2.7. Then run your timing on this new catalog, and on your existing LR3 catalog (that was presumably an upgrade from your LR2.7 catalog). I found that a lot of rubbish can build up in LR2 catalogs that doesn't cause any problems with LR2.7, but when transferred to a LR3 catalog by upgrade, this rubbish really upsets LR3. I cleaned up my old LR2 catalog, and these problems went away. New catalogs made in LR3 were also OK. Only upgraded catalogs gave the problems.

For me, on a fast PC, LR3 is excellent. LR3.2RC is even better.

Bob Frost

[thewhitedog]

@Bob Frost: I can't speak for Alan, but this is the first solid and substantive advice on improving Lightroom 3 performance I've seen on this forum in some days. Kudos.

[alanranger5]

@ Bob, thanks Bob, this must be the first constructive suggestion I have seen in this thread on how to possibly solve the speed issues.  I hadnt read anywhere that there was a downside to just upgrading LR2.7 catalogue to LR3 which is exactly what i did rather than new catalogue and import.

I am not sure what i may loose? by creating a new catalogue rather than using the existing upgraded one but as long as it retains ratings, keywords, develop history etc etc then i am willing to trade most things just to get a workable solution again...  Just about every routine in LR3 has been slower compared to 2.7, even the backup option takes for ever which used to be a couple minutes tops.

Thanks for your guidance, as soon as my pc eventually completes the saving of metadata to files, now in its 18th hour at 80% i will give this a try

any advice on how to create the new catalogue etc would be appreciated

alan

[bob frost]

alanranger5 wrote:

@ Bob, thanks Bob, this must be the first constructive suggestion I have seen in this thread on how to possibly solve the speed issues.  I hadnt read anywhere that there was a downside to just upgrading LR2.7 catalogue to LR3 which is exactly what i did rather than new catalogue and import.

I am not sure what i may loose? by creating a new catalogue rather than using the existing upgraded one but as long as it retains ratings, keywords, develop history etc etc then i am willing to trade most things just to get a workable solution again...  Just about every routine in LR3 has been slower compared to 2.7, even the backup option takes for ever which used to be a couple minutes tops.

Thanks for your guidance, as soon as my pc eventually completes the saving of metadata to files, now in its 18th hour at 80% i will give this a try

any advice on how to create the new catalogue etc would be appreciated

alan

Unfortunately, creating a new catalog and importing your old files anew, does have a downside. You would need to read the metadata (that your are currently saving out) into the new catalog, and that would reinstate most of your details, but not all. Keywords, ratings, should be fine, as are snapshots, because they are all stored in the xmp files (or in jpgs and psds if you have set that in prefs). But individual history steps are not stored in xmp, so you lose the ability to see them.

However, we are jumping the gun a bit, and there are other ways of keeping all your metadata but getting rid of rubbish in the catalog, if that does prove to be the cause of your problems. So do the comparison of the new LR3 catalog, and the upgraded LR2/3 catalog, and see what you find.

In my case after finding that a new catalog and reimport cured some problems, I exported my upgraded LR2/3 catalog to a new catalog WITHOUT any previews etc, so I just had an exported catalog with all my images and metadata in it. That seemed to leave a lot of the LR2 catalog 'rubbish' behind, and when I then rerendered all my previews, most of the problems had gone, and I still had all my metadata, including history.

Why rerender the previews? Because LR3 has a totally different preview system to LR2, and I think that a lot of the problems are in the upgrading of the LR2 catalog/previews to the new LR3 catalog/previews.

The main problem with LR3, as I see it, is that there are so many basic changes in it - to the preview system, to the raw rendering system, plus the new stuff such as lens profiles, web transfers, etc - that it is as though we are working with LR1 again! LR2.7 had got rid of most of the bugs in the 'old LR', now with the 'new LR3' we are starting all over again to get the bugs out of the new systems. By LR4.7 we should be back where we were with 2.7 in terms of bugs

Bob Frost

[Guest]

I second what Bob said. I started with a new freshly build catalog too, by importing the existing images, and since then I have a nice running, fast Lightroom instance. By reimporting I took the chance to clean up some mess , which inevitably tends to build up, using a different folder organisation and filename scheme, and have now a much better environment. So starting clean can give sometimes even some more advantages than just trying to solve some technical problems.

Thomas

[JayS_In_CT]

tgutgu wrote:

I second what Bob said. I started with a new freshly build catalog too, by importing the existing images, and since then I have a nice running, fast Lightroom instance. By reimporting I took the chance to clean up some mess , which inevitably tends to build up, using a different folder organisation and filename scheme, and have now a much better environment. So starting clean can give sometimes even some more advantages than just trying to solve some technical problems.

Thomas

Agree with Thomas.. there were a number of posts early on, unfortunately scattered in all the threads, that converted catalogs from 2.7 didn't fair anywhere near as well as starting fresh as best you can.  I noticed this on back up system.  I know it sounds tedious, but what I've found works is to export smaller groupings into a new catalog, then import that catalog into 3.2.  I've suspended all that though until 3.2 goes final.

Regardless, not a bad thing to write a bug report up on Alan.

Jay S.

[JayS_In_CT]

DanTull wrote:

I must admit, I've glossed over posts lately. Part of that is due to signal to noise ratio and part of it is due to the simple fact that I am monitoring this forum not as a designated moderator (I'm not) so much as a means to end. Where the end is for 3.2 (RC and final) to address as many of the issues raised as possible and to get things on my radar I might not even realize otherwise.

I watched this thread via an RSS reader and occasionally browsed other threads, but I have to admit I just pulled this one out because it has tapered off below the S/N ratio threshold. When 3.2 final is released, I'll probably start watching some threads again but will  be only watching passively.

DT

Dan,

So an interesting point for discussion for a minute.  Given what you are saying, is it better for multiple(s) of people to report the same issue via the bug report so that Adobe sees the scale of the problem, or is a sense for the scale a function of what you and Melissa (and others) happen to pull from here?  I realize some combination of both, but until we hear "O.K. we've been able to reproduce that one", shouldn't folks use the bug form to report it and include their machine specifics?  Thoughts?

Jay S.

[Guest]

Make that 1940, not 1938.  Although I do hate to add to the off topic nature of this thread.

[Guest]

sherlocc wrote:

Make that 1940, not 1938.  Although I do hate to add to the off topic nature of this thread.

I think we could start sharing cake recipes and no one would notice...Makes the whole point of the thread pointless, and I really don't expect Adobe to show up here anymore - I think Dan and Melissa have given up on us as well...

[MikeLeone]

I think we could start sharing cake recipes and no one would notice...Makes the whole point of the thread pointless, and I really don't expect Adobe to show up here anymore - I think Dan and Melissa have given up on us as well...

Well, I doubt they'd just respond to "Me, too" posts, or "How long until

..." or "Why doesn't LR do .." posts. Not after all they've already

answered. I'd expect them to answer something with something technical

in it, tho - like maybe that new other thread about memory leaks in

LR3.2RC, that has memory usage statistics in it.

This thread is nothing more than griping and grumbling, at this point ...

[imajez]

MikeLeone wrote:

This thread is nothing more than griping and grumbling, at this point ...

And some useful workflow hints.