Experiencing performance related issues in Lightroom 4.x

[BCormier]

Anyone else notice that lightroom 4 is slow? Ligtroom 3 always ran fast on my system but Lightroom 4 seemlingly lags quite a bit.

My system is:

2.10 ghz Intel Core i3 Sandy Bridge

8 GB Ram

640 GB Hard Drive

Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit

Message title was edited by: Brett N

[Eaglerapids]

I'm running a quad-core AMD 965BE at 3.4ghz with 8gigs of memory with a GTX 560TI video card and Win 7 Pro 64-bit. LR 3.6 ran flawlessly but I'm having the same problems as everyone else. I uninstalled LR Beta before installing LR 4. Aross4242 has described my problems perfectly in post 46.

The only thing that has helped me after trying most of the suggestions so far (I'm not going to create a new user) is by not using both of my monitors, when I disable the second monitor LR4 is much improved but I didn't upgrade to LR4 just to downgrade to a single monitor.

It does disappoint me that we haven't heard anything from Adobe concerning these issues, maybe they are to hard at work correcting them to reply?

Why would they release this without releasing camera raw 7 so we could edit LR4 edited dng files in Photoshop?

[aross4242]

After a bit more playing I have noticed that performance is usable in develop with two displays as long as the second display isn't in Loupe view. In Loupe, there is a full screen preview to render on the fly with slider adjustments.  Still, in LR3 there was no sluggishness at all.  Eaglerapids seems to have the same problems as I do - do you notice an improvement when the second display is set, for instance, on Grid?

[kkelln@sasktel.net]

If I develop a photo then immediately go to close Lr4, it always gives me an error: "Adobe Lightroom is not finished writing metadata changes into XMP..." If I wait 5 seconds or so before attempting to close Lr4, I dont get the error. This error is 100% reproducible in every situation I have tried including in a brand new Lr4 made catalog with just one image in it.

I can not get this error to occur on Lr3 even with my catalogue of over 30,000 pictures.

Can you generate this error? If so, I suspect this error is related to the performance problem of Lr4. It suggests that Lr4 is indeed occupied doing something that Lr3 was not busy doing.

Regards

Kirk

[kkelln@sasktel.net]

I am not interested in creating a new user account either so have not tried this 'fix'. Removing the second monitor certainly improves performance a lot but, this too, is not an option. I do find that once I develop a photo in Lr4, move to another photo and develop it, then return to the first photo, Lr4 is much more responsive even with second display turned on. This must be related to cache.

One other observation. If I develop a photo then immediately go to close Lr4, it always gives me an error: "Adobe Lightroom is not finished writing metadata changes into XMP..." If I wait 5 seconds or so before attempting to close Lr4, I dont get the error. This error is 100% reproducible in every situation I have tried including in a brand new Lr4 made catalog with just one image in it! I cant get this error to occur on Lr3 even with my catalogue of over 30,000 pictures.

It really seems like Lr4 is working very hard at doing something, but what the heck it is working at I cant say.

Add my voice to the group of people that think it is time for Adobe to jump into this thread even if for no other reason than to let us know they have heard our complaints/concerns and are looking into the issues.

[Andreas_2]

Kirk Kelln wrote:

Add my voice to the group of people that think it is time for Adobe to jump into this thread even if for no other reason than to let us know they have heard our complaints/concerns and are looking into the issues.

I think people who have the same problem should post to the problem corner in adobe community to get attention:

http://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/lr4_0_reacts_extremely_slow

It's frustrating that you have no other chance to give a bug report to adobe and we don't know if they already know about it...

[CHDA80]

The redraw rate needs to get fixed.  Hopefully soon.

[Eaglerapids]

Yes I do aross, there is an improvement when set to Grid.

Kirk, I can reproduce your error. Automatically writing changes into XMP is always going to use some cycles, but I never noticed it in LR 3.6, I'll turn it off in LR4 and see if it makes any difference.

[Guest]

So after 2 days of testing now here are my final conclusions:

I did the workaround told here. i uninstalled and deleted everything, reboot and deleted the rest of lr3 and 4. reboot again. i even cleaned the whole registry in windows, in mac os i did that not. i reinstalled lr4.0 and made a new catalogue and imported some pictures and BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM wohoooooowww. lr4 is now as fast as hell. even faster than lr 3.6 unbelievable!

but WATCH OUT! i have a XMP workflow, which means that all my raw files do have XMP files and in dng files, the xmp metadata are written IN the dng file. i have this workflow, cause i have checked in lightroom catalogue preferences (under metadata): "automatically save changes into xmp files (or however this is written in the english lr4 surface). so if you have this kind of workflow it is absolutely no problem when you make the catalogue completele new. i made my whole catalogue new and made all 1:1 previews and lightroom is now still as fast as hell even with my 45000 picture´s catalogue. IF YOU HAVE A DATABASE WORKFLOW, which means that you do not write all your adjustemnts in a picture into a xmp file or inside of the dng file.........all your adjustments will be gone when you remove the catalogue!!! E V E R Y T H I N G!

As far as i can see there is the following problem. People like me, who have a xmp workflow have performance problems, cause there is some behaviour of the import from the old catalogue. it looks like that the file searches where to write, searches, searches...and HEY here it is, lets write something! i do know some people that have a database workflow and all of them have no performance issues. even the XMP error, which a guy described some posts above are now gone for me so i really think lightoom might have here some xmp issues. i am no expert - but at the moment everything points on a xmp bug!

The workaround does nothing else to completely renew everything and now lr knows where the files are and does a really good job.

So my sliders and my adjusments are pretty fast at the monent, even with turned on lens correction and turned an sharpness. when i zoom in the sliders become lagy und sluggish again. when i zoom out everything is fine again - please adobe fix this!

My last realy big problem is the second monitor. when i turn it on, lr becomes very slow again. when i turn the second monitor off, lightroom becomes faster again BUT not so fast as it was in the beginning. i have to shut down lr4 and restart it (without 2nd monitor) and BAM it is fast like hell again!

So for now i hope i could help some guys with my testings!

King regards Frank!

[A_C_G]

"i even cleaned the whole registry in windows"

I'm one of the guys who, two days ago, suggested that loading LR4 without removing the beta may be a cause of the problems.

I did not clean my registry and when I removed the beta and re-installed the paid version I was not asked for my LR4 serial number. Clearly Adobe are storing information in (presumably) the registry and maybe this also contributes to the lethargy the program sometimes shows.

Like the previous poster I have probably around 45,000 images on disk. However, my experience is that software like LR is moving on so much that an adjustment I might have made three or four years ago can be much improved now, especially things like shadow noise and detail. I'm tempted to go back on what I did on Thursday and remove LR3 as well as LR4 and also do that registry clean if CCleaner can spot the LR entries.

I think we are making progress. Hello Adobe! Is anyone out there listening.

Tony

[Robbie2006]

I don't see why we need to do a registry clean etc., etc.,Adobe are supplying a product that doesn't work properly, it runs slow on a Mac and a PC and it looks like the problem lies in the software that Adobe supplies.

I did manage to try out the new features like selective noise reduction but each adjustment took about 4 seconds, the results were good but the time delay is unworkable.

Does anyone out there know if Adobe are working on a fix and if so when will we know if it is fixed, will we get notification of LR4.1 or something so we can download something that works this time.

[Guest]

Well Robbie - LR is a very powerfull tool. very complex algorythm take place here and they get more and more and each one must interact with each other. It must fit to all computers out there and it shall work properly. also i am sure adobe has certain release dates and must hold them. software TODAY and being one of the first persons, working on it meens ALWAYS being a kind of a beta tester - always the same and belive me rhino and CAD world is much much much worse than this product. i am happy that there IS a workaround that worked for me, cause most of the time we do not even have this oportunity! i am sure adobe listens and is working hard on these fixtures like it happened on lr3. be patient and wait and they´ll do their job, i am sure. till then everybode can work on lr 3.6 and have some fun doing testing lr4.

frank

[A_C_G]

"I don't see why we need to do a registry clean etc., etc."

Neither do I Robbie......

But the value of a forum like this is sharing ideas about work arounds to enable us to use the product whilst Adobe is fixing it.

I don't believe Adobe are not aware of the problem. It would be grown up PR to have a token presence on this thread to admit it - but I don't run Adobe.

In the meantime lets concentrate on helping each other reach the goal of a useable LR4.

Tony

[Califdan]

I presume everyone who's having this problem has submitted a "bug report".  I don't know how Adobe assigns priority to thier issues and problems but I can't imagine that the number of people reporting the same issue is not a factor.    Here's the link to the "Feature request and bug reporting" web page

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform

[kkelln@sasktel.net]

P L E A S E   R E A D  

If I develop a photo then immediately close Lr4, it always gives me an error: "Adobe Lightroom is not finished writing metadata changes into XMP..."

If I wait 5 seconds or so before attempting to close Lr4, I dont get the error. This error is 100% reproducible in every situation I have tried including in a brand new Lr4 made catalog with just one image in it.

I can not get this error to occur on Lr3 even with my catalogue of over 30,000 pictures.

Can you generate this error?

If so, I suspect this error is related to the performance problem of Lr4. It suggests that Lr4 is indeed occupied doing something that Lr3 was not busy doing.

Regards

Kirk

[Jao vdL]

If I develop a photo then immediately close Lr4, it always gives me an error: "Adobe Lightroom is not finished writing metadata changes into XMP..."

If I wait 5 seconds or so before attempting to close Lr4, I dont get the error. This error is 100% reproducible in every situation I have tried including in a brand new Lr4 made catalog with just one image in it.

Do you have "Automatically write changes into xmp" checked in catalog settings->metadata ? If so, that is a well-known performance hog. Most people do not need to have this setting checked as it is only useful if you want to load the images in Photoshop without simply telling Lightroom to open the image but by using Bridge or by opening the image directly in Photoshop. My guess is that you somehow have this setting checked in your LR 4 catalog and not in your LR 3 catalog.

[kkelln@sasktel.net]

I have WRITE CHANGES checked. However, this is not my point. I have it checked for BOTH Lr3.6 and 4. When I open 3.6 using any catalog - from a brand new one with ojnly 1 photo to my 30k catalog, if pic an image, go into DEVLOP and change just about anything, then immediately click the CLOSE button, Lightroom closes without issue. However, in Lr4, regardless of which catalog I use (when I have WRITE CHANGES turned on), if I perform the exact same experiment, I get the error 100%^ of the time. If I wait a few seconds then attempt to close Lr4, I do not get the error. This strongly suggests that Lr3.6 and Lr4 are behaving very differently behjjind the scenes. Lr3 deals with my changes and writes them into the XMP faster than I can move my mouse up and click the close button. Lr4 takes about 3 seconds to write exactyl the same data. On my machine, which is a rocket ship, that is very telling.

Can you try this experiment and see if you have the same finding.

Regards,

Kirk

[Jao vdL]

It probably realizes it needs to rewrite the xmp for every single image in

your catalog when you do your change. Try explicitly saving metadata for

all files in your catalog (command-S with all selected) and wait until

that's finished and then do your test.

[kkelln@sasktel.net]

I will try that. But can you please try your rig. Just open lr4, go into develop, make a change, then immediately exit lr4 by clicking the X in the corner. Do you get the error?

Thanks

[abischnell01]

UNSUBSCRIBE ME PLEASE!!

[DdeGannes]

If you need to adjust e-mails you get on threads you may have posted in, you need to make the changes to your "preferences" in your account.

[Jao vdL]

No I don't get that error. Catalog with >20 k images on a core 2 duo Mac

book air (so pretty slow machine) LR4 is not noticeably slower than LR 3.

Sent from my iPad

[kkelln@sasktel.net]

I find it interesting that you dont get the error ...and that is consistent with your experience that Lr4 is responsive.

Anyone that finds Lr4 slugish, can you please try the following experiment: Just open lr4, go into develop, make a change to your photo then immediately exit lr4 by clicking the X in the corner. Do you get an error?

I think we will find that there is a 1 to 1 correlation between situations where Lr4 is slufgish and the error being generated, which is good news. It gives Adobe a great place to start to look at what is going on under the hood that is causing the error. Solving that problem is very likely the same as solving the responsiveness issue generally.

Thanks

Kirk

[Jao vdL]

Sounds like there is a bug that is triggered by some specific

circumstances. I also find the observations of others that just touching a

single image (converting it to dng) fixes it for them. That is very strange.

[sparksdjs]

After further testing, I can say that converting a single image to DNG has greatly improved performance.  Though it still lags LR3.6, it is now at least usable.  I do run into the out-of-memory error when LR4 memory usage gets up over 1GB (on 32-bit Win7) though memory is still available.  LR4 definitely chews up more resources than 3.6.

As another user notes, people do need to submit a bug report to get Adobe's attention.  I have a problem with another Adobe product and though the bug report on it has over 30 additional inputs, Adobe has said there are no current plans to address it because there have not been enough users reporting impacts.

Dave

[A_C_G]

Dave,

Unless I was looking in the wrong place not many of the participants of this thread have filed a bug report. It ought to be 'compulsary' from now !!!

Tony