Extremely Slow on New M3 Mac (macOS Sequoia 15.5) – Unusable for Workflow

[aude.au]

Subject: URGENT: Lightroom Extremely Slow on New M3 Mac (macOS Sequoia 15.5) – Unusable for Workflow.

Lightroom is performing extremely slow on new Apple M3 (macOS Sequoia 15.5). Images take far too long to load in Develop view, causing major disruptions to the workflow. This is a critical issue that makes the software nearly unusable.

This is a machine with plenty of available storage and no performance issues elsewhere. Apple Support confirmed there's nothing wrong on their end.

Three Adobe technicians have already accessed the system remotely and still haven’t resolved the issue.
This level of performance and support is unacceptable, very disappointing from Adobe. A real solution is immediately needed. 
Please escalate this and respond ASAP.

[johnrellis]

"Images take far too long to load in Develop view, causing major disruptions to the workflow."

One cause of this: Have you enabled Catalog Settings > Metadata > Automatically Write Changes Into XMP?

[aude.au]

Hi, thank you for the reply.
1. Write Changes Into XMP’ has been turned on, given that the catalog has been corrupted in the past, resulting in lost edits.
2. However, the main issue is the slowness in loading images when sorting through them - when going back and forth through unedited images during the selection process.
Therefore, should "Write Changes Into XMP" have an impact during the sorting process, especially causing a lag of several seconds to load an image. Also, the issue is intermittent.

[dj_paige]

Hi, thank you for the reply.
1. Write Changes Into XMP’ has been turned on, given that the catalog has been corrupted in the past, resulting in lost edits.
2. However, the main issue is the slowness in loading images when sorting through them - when going back and forth through unedited images during the selection process.
Therefore, should "Write Changes Into XMP" have an impact during the sorting process, especially causing a lag of several seconds to load an image. Also, the issue is intermittent.

By @aude.au

It's easy enough to try turning off the write XMP option, and see if it makes a difference. We don't know your computer and this will give you an answer taking into account all of the unique characteristics of your computer.

[johnrellis]

"However, the main issue is the slowness in loading images when sorting through them - when going back and forth through unedited images during the selection process."

Definitely try disabling Automatically Write Changes Into XMP, as dj_paige indicated. If you use Denoise in conjunction with that option, a bug acknowledged by Adobe causes these symptoms:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-automatically-write-changes-to-xmp-can-t-be-...

But even if you don't use Denoise, there are some reports here of Automatically Write Changes causing similar symptoms. Adobe recommends turning it off:

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/optimize-performance-lightroom.html#LeaveautowriteXMPtu...

I prefer having that option enabled, and it worked well for me for 15 years, but with this recent bug (and a couple others), I've disabled it.

[aude.au]

Thank you all for the replies. The issue appears to be with "Write Changes into XMP." However, a few more days of testing will be needed to confirm. Denoise and Super Resolution are not being used.

Adobe will have to fix this bug, won't they? It's extremely risky to have "Write Changes into XMP" turned off in a professional setting. I've had a couple of corrupted catalogs over the years.

[johnrellis]

"Adobe will have to fix this bug, won't they?"

Their support for Automatically Write Changes Into XMP has been getting poorer over the last couple of years, which is why Adobe themselves recommend turning it off.  The particular bug with Denoise was reported in LR 14.4, and 14.5 didn't fix it. If LR 15.0 doesn't fix it, then I think it becomes less likely they'll fix it any time soon.

"It's extremely risky to have "Write Changes into XMP" turned off"

I've got Mac Time Machine doing backups every hour, so if I get a corrupted catalog, I should lose at most an hour of work. But I'd greatly prefer Automatically Write Changes to work properly.

[Ian Lyons]

What size are files in mega pixels?

Have you used Denoise or Super Resolution on the files?

[YOURpageMaker]

genau so finde ich es auch. Lightroom kann leider nicht mehr gebraucht dafür., wenn

es nicht mehr schneller geht.