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

[Jao vdL]

That's not surprising. The calculations being done to render a raw file are

FAR more complex than what was needed on the moon landers. Many many orders

of magnitude more complex actually. Do not underestimate what a raw

interpreter such as Lightroom does behind the scenes. This is

state-of-the-art, bleeding-edge science (the new 2012 engine is based on

current MIT research) going on in the image processing pipeline. It will

take one or two seconds even on the most beefy hardware that it will run on

to render a raw file from a modern 24+ MP camera. That's not bad software

design but simply how long it takes to do the math.

Some people here are experiencing slowdowns above and beyond what you would

expect even taking the above into account. This is clearly some sort of bad

interaction between Lightroom and other stuff running on the computer. The

point of this discussion is to find a regression or common thread of where

this is coming from which is why one must eliminate variables. There

doesn't seem to be a common cause which is disconcerting. I don't seem to

experience these issues myself (knock wood) even working with the 100's of

GB files (film scans and very high resolution stitches) I use on modern (a

4-core i7 machine with 8 logical processors - a retina MBP with 16GB of

memory running Mac OS 10.8) nor "ancient" (a Core 2 Duo Mac Book Air with

only 4 GB running 10.6) hardware. Both loaded with software and running AV

and even full disc encryption in the Core 2 Duo case. Perhaps I am lucky

which is not a good feeling as this situation could break down suddenly

apparently if there is no clear root cause to these slowdowns.

[Guest]

Customers don’t expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix things when they go wrong.

Donald Porter, V.P. British Airways

There, he said it all.

[jimfoto_1]

I've never had any problems with Lightroom until just recently. Within the last week or so, LR 4 has gotten so sluggish, freezes, stops responding. Did I miss (or get) an update? I upgraded from 3 after using the trial. I've got a 1 year old intel quad core with 16 gig of ram and 293 gig free on my hard disk. I've never had any problems with LR but now it's actually unusable. Nothing has changed with my system. No new hardware or software.

I did notice that my cache is empty, always. I never had a reason to look before now so I don't know what if anything was in there but it's empty now.

[Todd Shaner]

jimfoto!1 wrote:

I've never had any problems with Lightroom until just recently. Within the last week or so, LR 4 has gotten so sluggish, freezes, stops responding. Did I miss (or get) an update? I upgraded from 3 after using the trial. I've got a 1 year old intel quad core with 16 gig of ram and 293 gig free on my hard disk. I've never had any problems with LR but now it's actually unusable. Nothing has changed with my system. No new hardware or software.

I did notice that my cache is empty, always. I never had a reason to look before now so I don't know what if anything was in there but it's empty now.

Go to Preferences > File Handling and check the path, you may have changed it to a different location. What 'Maximum Size' setting are you using and did you recently imort a large number of new image files?

[jimfoto_1]

It was at the default location and had a 1 gig max size and nothing in it. I did move it to a different sata drive and increased the size to 40 gig. Still nothing in it.

I regularly import about 30 gig of files a week. Have been doing that for a few years. Nothing unusual there.

[areohbee]

DNG w/fast-load does not use ACR cache, nor do RGB files. (fast-load is basically the redesigned and smaller cache-info stored in DNG file as metadata, instead of in the ACR cache).

If you are using proproprietary raw formats and still no cache entries - there's a problem.

[TicTac27]

LR4 has been fine for me, a bit slow but certainly usable, UNTIL TODAY!

Sluggish & keeps shutting down - message from windows stating "Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 64-bit has stopped working", seems to occur when switching from Develop to Library.

Only thing that has changed to my knowledge is a bunch of Windows Updates . . .

Wish I had the time to do a full analysis of when it occurs / what's caused it but I'm backed up by a load of editing that needs doing ;-(

[ssprengel]

I would guess a display-driver update because changing of the LR interface elements touches the GPU even though rendering doesn’t. You might look at your Windows Update history to verify if this happened, and see what else might have changed. If there was a display driver update, you might try to reverse it, or download a video driver from the manufacturer’s website.

If nothing is obvious, you could do a System Restore to a time period just before the Windows Updates and see if things clear up, which would help confirm it was a Windows Update change, then be more selective about what you update.

You could install the LR 4.1 (or LR 4.2 RC) update, again, to see if that fixes things.

You also might try some standard things like delete your preferences file and try a new catalog and even try a new user profile to make sure that something else didn’t coincidentally get corrupted that has nothing to do with a Windows Update.

[Guest]

ssprengel wrote:

I would guess a display-driver update because changing of the LR interface elements touches the GPU even though rendering doesn’t.  You might look at your Windows Update history to verify if this happened, and see what else might have changed.  If there was a display driver update, you might try to reverse it, or download a video driver from the manufacturer’s website.

If nothing is obvious, you could do a System Restore to a time period just before the Windows Updates and see if things clear up, which would help confirm it was a Windows Update change, then be more selective about what you update.

You could install the LR 4.1 (or LR 4.2 RC) update, again, to see if that fixes things.

You also might try some standard things like delete your preferences file and try a new catalog and even try a new user profile to make sure that something else didn’t coincidentally get corrupted that has nothing to do with a Windows Update.

People also report sluggish and poor performance of Lightroom on Mac...

[iceny]

Yes. I ran LR3 and LR4 on Snow Leopard and everything was fine. Upgraded to Lion last week and stupid kernel task took up too much RAM I had to upgrade to 16GB. After that, LR4 crashes randomly too many times (4-5 times already today alone). I'm not sure if it's LR issue or Lion's. CS6 works just fine.

Oh, performance is noticable faster after the RAM upgrade but it gets sluggish after being open for a couple hours. I have to keep closing LR and reopen it again.... that if it didn't crash on me first

[areohbee]

At the risk of state-ing the obvious, try re-installing Lightroom, if you haven't already.

Note: "kernel" should not need massive ram, so it sounds like you may have OS troubles too - did installation go perfectly OK? If not, consider re-installing OS too.

Unfortunately, "Photoshop works OK" doesn't mean too much, except maybe it manages to dodge whatever bullets are hitting Lightroom...

[CSS_Simon]

uphotography wrote:

Customers don’t expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix things when they go wrong.

Donald Porter, V.P. British Airways

There, he said it all.

That's not much of a recommendation!  BA may talk the talk but they don't walk the walk.  They don't have the finest reputation for fixing things when they go wrong.  Certainly not if you're travelling Economy, where you ought to feel grateful they bother to take you anywhere, given you're too mean to pay proper prices. 

[rpavich1234]

CSS Simon wrote:

uphotography wrote:

Customers don’t expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix things when they go wrong.

Donald Porter, V.P. British Airways

There, he said it all.

That's not much of a recommendation!  BA may talk the talk but they don't walk the walk.  They don't have the finest reputation for fixing things when they go wrong.  Certainly not if you're travelling Economy, where you ought to feel grateful they bother to take you anywhere, given you're too mean to pay proper prices. 

Lol...but that just reinforces his point...it's not talk that feeds the bulldog...it's the action that gets repeat customers....and Adobe isn't taking action.

[Guest]

rpavich1234 wrote:

CSS Simon wrote:

uphotography wrote:

Customers don’t expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix things when they go wrong.

Donald Porter, V.P. British Airways

There, he said it all.

That's not much of a recommendation!  BA may talk the talk but they don't walk the walk.  They don't have the finest reputation for fixing things when they go wrong.  Certainly not if you're travelling Economy, where you ought to feel grateful they bother to take you anywhere, given you're too mean to pay proper prices. 

Lol...but that just reinforces his point...it's not talk that feeds the bulldog...it's the action that gets repeat customers....and Adobe isn't taking action.

Exactly!

[Todd Shaner]

....and Chris Columbus discovered America in uncharted waters with nothing more than compass!

The company I worked for from 1968–1993 supplied the computer systems used by NASA ground control in Huston for later Space Shuttle flights:

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19780014197_1978014197.pdf

I helped design the main and cache memory systems for the Interdata Model 7/32 and 8/32. The 1 Megabyte main memory required 16 boards measuring 15" x 15" installed in a 6' foot tall 19" rack, using ~5,000 DRAM chips. A 1 Megabyte memory expansion cost  $10,000 in 1978 dollars. Today 4GB of memory costs less than $30.

In 1978 the cost of 4GB memory (if even possible) would have been 4GB/1MB x $10,000 = $40,000,000 and that's using 1978 dollars!

Today's computer systems, OS, and applications are several orders of magnitude more complex than what was used for the Apollo 11 launch.  I was there first-hand, worked with the technology available, and still working with computer technology today.

That we're having such difficulties with LR4 is a testament to how far Adobe has "pushed the envelope" with today's technology. The fact that the LR team has gotten us this far before "hitting a wall" is pretty amazing, especially when you consider that LR has to work cross-platform.

[Guest]

Oh Praise the Lord Adobe!

trshaner wrote:

....and Chris Columbus discovered America in uncharted waters with nothing more than compass!

The company I worked for from 1968–1993 supplied the computer systems used by NASA ground control in Huston for later Space Shuttle flights:

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19780014197_19780 14197.pdf

I helped design the main and cache memory systems for the Interdata Model 7/32 and 8/32. The 1 Megabyte main memory required 16 boards measuring 15" x 15" installed in a 6' foot tall 19" rack, using ~5,000 DRAM chips. A 1 Megabyte memory expansion cost  $10,000 in 1978 dollars. Today 4GB of memory costs less than $30.

In 1978 the cost of 4GB memory (if even possible) would have been 4GB/1MB x $10,000 = $40,000,000 and that's using 1978 dollars!

Today's computer systems, OS, and applications are several orders of magnitude more complex than what was used for the Apollo 11 launch.  I was there first-hand, worked with the technology available, and still working with computer technology today.

That we're having such difficulties with LR4 is a testament to how far Adobe has "pushed the envelope" with today's technology. The fact that the LR team has gotten us this far before "hitting a wall" is pretty amazing, especially when you consider that LR has to work cross-platform.

I do not believe that they pushed the envelope... So, LR4, groundbreaking technology that is so powerful that the most powerful computers cannot run it properly but a 4 year old laptop can?

Sorry... Something there doesn't seem to fit.

LR4 is where Adobe dropped the ball. That simple. (And the ball is still on the ground)

The rest of the "Oh Almighty" raw converters (including ACR process version 2012) do not have any of these problems. It is just Lightroom 4.x

You wouldn't think this is a difficult concept to grasp but apparently we keep trying to find what we did wrong that Lightroom doesn't run properly. How did it go? " Occam's razor I think: " The simplest explanation is usually the right one"

The simplest explanation is that Adobe messed up and haven't cleaned the mess yet.

[areohbee]

I really don't think anybody is trying to claim Lightroom's problems are the fault of users or their computers (although in some cases it is).

Lr4 is working mostly great for some (yes: it takes more CPU for the better quality), and others: not so much (e.g. abnormal performance problems).

Even though Lr4 works mostly normally on my machine, I too encounter severe performance problems sometimes. I just exported 12000 photos and it took like 2-3 days because Lr4 was taking too long after a while (should have only taken a half day). Resources were "over-consumed", disk was churning too much and CPU too little... (I can run lengthy video or audio re-encoding processes that do not slow down and choke out the machine no matter how long they run - CPU 100% utilized). I regularly talk with clients about customers having similar performance problems, sometimes to the point of freezing completely.

Although it is true that Lightroom, not ACR, is the problem in some cases, it is also true that plenty of people are having abnormal performance problems with ACR too. So both software's are having their ailments...

I've had a love/hate relationship with Lightroom since day 1, and Lr4 is no exception.

But if you are missing out on the love part, then the hate part takes over - don't be pigheaded: at least get Lr4 running normally on at least one machine, while Adobe is sorting things out... Or, use some other software... Insisting on taking no action whatsoever (because you shouldn't have to, because it's not your fault...), despite your woes, is being pigheaded!

My biggest problem with Lr4 has been crashing when using plugins that overlap built-in ftp with rendering tasks (Lr3&2 had same problem). Now that I've offloaded FTP to an external application, Lr4 rarely crashes. So, as long as I stay away from large batch operations that tend to choke Lr4 after a while, it performs like a fairly well-oiled machine. &PV2012 rocks!

Rob

[Guest]

Rob... When I say that I won't "unplug my Spyder3Pro" I mean that I had enough trying all the possible variants including a ritual every morning and a glass of water under the desk. I am not going to try anymore. It is a Lightroom problem, and Adobe needs to fix it.

I have actually tried many other Lightroom alternatives and that is one of the reasons I stopped converting to DNG. Some of them didn't handle DNG very well and I realised that all of the sudden I was tied to Adobe (even when it is an open format). So, no more DNG conversion for me.

I am seriously wondering how to make the jump to any of the other alternatives (I found a couple I was happy about), The only thing stopping me at the moment is my catalogues (since I cannot import them on the other softwares, and lack time (thanks LR for that!)

Even if I need to go to a Bridge/ACR solution,  I will do it. It is half a year later and Adobe hasn't solved the problem. By the way, Rob, did you watch the video of an editing session on LR? Let me know if you would be "happy/ok/p... off" if you would have the same happening to you.

[areohbee]

I understand. - fed up... - I would be unhappy too if I'd efforted much and still crappy performance. Good luck. ~R.

[Todd Shaner]

uphotography wrote:

LR4 is where Adobe dropped the ball. That simple. (And the ball is still on the ground)

The rest of the "Oh Almighty" raw converters (including ACR process version 2012) do not have any of these problems. It is just Lightroom 4.x

You wouldn't think this is a difficult concept to grasp but apparently wekeep trying to find what we did wrong that Lightroom doesn't run properly. How did it go? " Occam's razor I think: " The simplest explanation is usually the right one"

The simplest explanation is that Adobe messed up and haven't cleaned the mess yet.

I would phrase it a little less harsh, but I understand your frustration. I mentioned that I was not surprised the LR Team "hit a wall" with LR4 and that was a testament to how far they have "pushed the envelope." Whether you agree that's the case or not pretty it's clear many people are having "unexplained" performance issues with LR4, some with very high-end systems.

We have identified one issue when using high resolution monitors greater than 1920 x 1080 and dual displays. I don't see any way for Adobe to correct this with the current system processor technology unless they add Open GL/CL support for offloading screen image building to the graphics card GPU cores. Open GL support for display acceleration was added in PS CS4 almost four years ago. I'm not an internals programmer and don't know what would be required to add Open GL support to LR. My guess is it will only happen if/when Adobe decides to do a major rewrite of LR, since we know there are other issues that adding Open GL will not fully correct.

[Guest]

trshaner wrote:

uphotography wrote:

LR4 is where Adobe dropped the ball. That simple. (And the ball is still on the ground)

The rest of the "Oh Almighty" raw converters (including ACR process version 2012) do not have any of these problems. It is just Lightroom 4.x

You wouldn't think this is a difficult concept to grasp but apparently wekeep trying to find what we did wrong that Lightroom doesn't run properly. How did it go? " Occam's razor I think: " The simplest explanation is usually the right one"

The simplest explanation is that Adobe messed up and haven't cleaned the mess yet.

I would phrase it a little less harsh, but I understand your frustration. I mentioned that I was not surprised the LR Team "hit a wall" with LR4 and that was a testament to how far they have "pushed the envelope." Whether you agree that's the case or not pretty it's clear many people are having "unexplained" performance issues with LR4, some with very high-end systems.

We have identified one issue when using high resolution monitors greater than 1920 x 1080 and dual displays. I don't see any way for Adobe to correct this with the current system processor technology unless they add Open GL/CL support for offloading screen image building to the graphics card GPU cores. Open GL support for display acceleration was added in PS CS4 almost four years ago. I'm not an internals programmer and don't know what would be required to add Open GL support to LR. My guess is it will only happen if/when Adobe decides to do a major rewrite of LR, since we know there are other issues that adding Open GL will not fully correct.

Yes, maybe I should have phrased it a little bit less harsh... or more: "politically correct" but when you have something that doesn't work for 6 months it is hard to stay "polite".

Going back to the car analogy. Imagine you get a new car, a fast one with all the bells and whistles (and some things you actually don't really need). Suddenly you realize your car cannot even reach the speed limit in the city! They promised you 300 km/hr and it cannot reach 50 km/hr. Aren't you suppose to underpromise and overdeliver? Then 6 months later your car company keeps "upgrading" your car. Now you can refill the tank in every gas station in the world! You can also open your glove compartment using your toaster in the kitchen. It can show you precisely where you are on a map and update your facebook status all by itself. Still, all I want is my car to go at least 120 km/hr...

Trshaner: Those are very good points. Now, making it simple to the layman, this is what I wonder: Monitors with resolution greater than 1920 x 1080 were not made after Lightroom 4 was made. I suspect Adobe should have at least one decent photographer-workstation to try LR. I find it hard to believe that they (including the beta testers) didn't have a monitor with a resolution greater than that. I even stopped using dual monitors because it becomes a nightmare to deal with it!

I realise that my comments don't directly help in any way to solve the problem many of us have. All I hope is that Adobe and Adobe blind supporters realise some people are not happy and that some people are actually very very unhappy, not with the problem itself but with Adobe's response (or lack of) to it. I hope that others that show up here and see what's going on, think it twice before wasting their money in a product like this. It doesn't matter if LR 4.0 has features no other software has, it doesn't matter if you get a process version 2012 that is awesome and if you can tag your photos in a map or soft-proofing or... If you cannot use it, it's like it doesn't have any of those features.

I feel like I have released most of my stress here so I guess I should go back and forget about LR for a while.

The best I got of this was to find that vulnerability in my website (again, thanks trshaner) and get it solved.

[Todd Shaner]

We try to help! I guess I'm fortunate that LR4.1 is running fine on my Win 7 "middle of the road" HP desktop system with a single 1920 x 1080 display. I was going to add a higher resolution display, but won't with the current LR performance issues. So I guess you can add me to the list of LR users who aren't totally happy.

[bob frost]

I use two 21" 1600x1200 displays with LR4 without any problems, so dual displays can work fine! But I expect getting a 30" display would be pushing my luck!

Bob Frost

[Todd Shaner]

Correct, it's dependent on the actual Loupe view window size (Mp) and the performance of your system processor (MIPS).

I tested this using my single 1920x1080 display by opening a 'Second Window' using the '2' button in lower left-hand corner with the 2nd window as large as possible (1500 x 1000). This is only about 36% larger than my normal Loupe size (1100 x 733). Develop slider response went from virtually instantaneous to about a 1.0 sec. delay for the 2nd window Loupe (1000x1500).

Going from a 1500 x1000 Loupe (~1.5Mp) display to a 30" 2560 x 1600 (~4Mp) display is going to produce at least a 2.7X slower Develop module slider response, or about 2.7 sec. on my system. It could be even worse!

[Guest]

trshaner wrote:

Correct, it's dependent on the actual Loupe view window size (Mp) and the performance of your system processor (MIPS).

I tested this using my single 1920x1080 display by opening a 'Second Window' using the '2' button in lower left-hand corner with the 2nd window as large as possible (1500 x 1000). This is only about 36% larger than my normal Loupe size (1100 x 733). Develop slider response went from virtually instantaneous to about a 1.0 sec. delay for the 2nd window Loupe (1000x1500).

Going from a 1500 x1000 Loupe (~1.5Mp) display to a 30" 2560 x 1600 (~4Mp) display is going to produce at least a 2.7X slower Develop module slider response, or about 2.7 sec. on my system. It could be even worse!

You know, when things are logic, that's it... it is simple to understand and you can adapt your behaviour and use depending on logic observations. What keeps troubling me is that I have previews made at the same resolution (it doesn't really matter if it is 640x420 or 14000000x3934858) they are the same resolution for very similar images. I start working with LR and loading one of them takes around 10-11 secs, 20 minutes later, loading the other preview, that is practically the same as the previous one, takes 40 secs...

Is there any logic related to monitor size and resolution, etc...? I don't think so... By the way I have two monitors but currently I am using only one because using two is just impossible. I use my NEC 26" that happens to be 1920x1200.

I have tried what Adobe recommends on his Lightroom optimization page, I have tried better quality, lower quality... It doesn't matter what I try. It just doesn't work.