Images are slow to preview

[KarlKrueger54]

LrClassic on my Windows 10 computer worked fine for years. This week it shows slow behavior, when it opens up it only shows the first few pictures in the gallery it opens in, but then moving to a different folder of pictures it cannot preview them. It won't respond when I try to select an item from the menu. Eventually I get the message from Windows that LrC is not responding.  

So what happened? The last I remember when it functioned is it wanted to backup the library file? and since then it has not worked.

[Aleke]

Hi @KarlKrueger54!

I'm sorry to hear the app isn't working correctly for you.

Could you let me know what version of Lightroom Classic you're using? It would also be helpful if you could share your System Info. You can find it in the app under Help > System Info. Just copy the info to a text file and attach it to your response, or share it with us through Google Drive, WeTransfer, or another file-sharing platform.

Thanks a lot!

Alek

[KarlKrueger54]

Thank you for your concern. LrC won't respond when I go to the menu so I can't give you the version. It should be the latest since Adobe always updates them. The program worked last week. BTW Photoshop is working fine.

I seem to think this problem may have hit me before a number of years ago. The problem then was a corrupted catalog. Remember I said the last thing I remember when shuting down LrC when it worked was it wanted to update the catalog. Since then it has not worked. Now how can I get it use the previously saved catalog? This might fix it. When it opens it goes to the last folder I was working on and shows one page worth of previews. Beyond that I can tryt going to another folder of pictures but it can't show anything and the program literally does nothing except Windows warning me it is not responding.

My system info is below but that is not the problem:

Operating System: Windows 10 Home 64-bit (10.0, Build 19045) (19041.vb_release.191206-1406)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Dell Inc.
System Model: XPS 15 9570
BIOS: 1.27.0 (type: UEFI)
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8750H CPU @ 2.20GHz (12 CPUs), ~2.2GHz
Memory: 32768MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 32502MB RAM
Page File: 15045MB used, 22576MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX Version: DirectX 12

[johnrellis]

You may have a corrupt previews database, which stores all the thumbnails and larger previews of your cataloged photos. In such cases, deleting it and letting LR rebuild it solves the problem:

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/lightroom-gives-error-preview-cache.html

[KarlKrueger54]

Well those instructions aren't helping me. The suggested folder only has catalogs going up to 10/28/2021. LR has been saving my backups somewhere else so where is that? I'm currently using Lightroom Catalog 2-v13-3 but when I search for that using the Windows search bar it doesn't show where that is.

[johnrellis]

To find where your current catalog is: Do Catalog Settings > General and click Show, which will open Windows File Explorer with the catalog folder selected.

[KarlKrueger54]

Can you be more specific?  Do Catalog Settings > General

Where or how do I do this? Please remember I can do nothing in Lightroom right now. This instruction doesn't look like I do within Windows.

[KarlKrueger54 · Accepted solution]

OK I found the problem and this is something Adobe needs to be aware of and fix. I keep all my photos on external drives (I don't believe in using the Cloud) where I have 2 drives hooked into a hub. Occasionally one drive loses a proper connection and does not show up in Woindows Explorer. I happened to notice that was happening now. When I replugged that E: drive back in Windows recognized it so I tried starting up Lightroom. Now it works normally!

Adobe needs to know this and find a way around this glitch. I can't believe I'm the only one who has been stumped by this - at least now I know what to check if Lightroom does not respond to me. There could be any number of reasons someone does not have a drive connected to the computer that LrC relies on. To be totally dead in the water is not the way the program should respond. It didn't even show ?s to say it could not find that drive or its associated folders. Instead it just brought up my last work session with the last previews when I had shut it down properly last time a few days ago. But that was all I could do.

So now that I can use LrC I understand the instructions you gave me. Thank you as now I know where my backup catalogs are getting saved.

Please pass this on to Adobe. I think I found a glitch they need to work on.

[dj_paige]

Well, some people from Adobe do read this forum, but this is not something that Adobe software can address. This is an operating system problem or a hardware problem where a drive loses its connection, and there's no imaginable way that Adobe can solve this.

[KarlKrueger54]

I'm not suggesting Adobe fix the connection problem. That is something on my end. What Adobe can fix is the way their software responds when a drive is not found when it expects it - in this case maybe the location it started up on the preview. I should have seen ?s showing this but they weren't there. I only realized that drive was not being recognized by Windows after trying to transfer a file to a USB stick and I realized that stick should be F: not E: 

[johnrellis]

[This post contains formatting and embedded images that don't appear in email. View the post in your Web browser.]

When a drive containing photos is disconnected, LR indicates that by greying out the drive name, marking the contained folders with a "?", and putting "!" on the thumbnails of the contained photos:

This has been standard behavior since the early days of LR, since it's a common use case to have disconnected drives. I did the test above just now to verify there isn't anything obviously broken in LR 14.2. If there were a general problem with this, there would have been gazillions of bug reports here, since many people regularly start LR with their "archive" and network drives not connected.

I suspect there was something unusual about your hardware and/or Windows 11 that was confusing LR. For example, it may be that Windows was reporting to LR that the drive was present, but when LR did a system call to access the drive, Windows stalled and never returned (or was returning a result very, very slowly).

[KarlKrueger54]

Yes I know this. But LR did not give me those indicators on this issue. That's what threw me off until I realized what was happening when inserting a USB stick in on a different matter.

[KR Seals]

Adobe and many users are aware of that issue. The solution is to make "Smart Previews"

[GoldingD]

• That hub, does it receive power via a "brick" that is a AC/DC adapter plugged into the wall outlet, or via the USB to the computer?
• Those external hard drives, do they receive power from a wall outlet, or via the USB to the hub?
• If the hard drives only receive power via USB, but the hub does receive power via the wall outlet, what is the power raiting of the hub to ports, what is the total power requirement if the hard drives and any additional attached device.
• If the hard drives only receive power via USB, and the hub only receives power from the computer (USB port) consider a new hub.
• If the hard drives are currently only receiving power via USB, but can be connected via power outlets included with them, and the hub only receives power via USB, then why not connect the hard drives properly?

[KarlKrueger54]

Good questions. The hub has its own power cord plugged into a wall outlet/power strip.

The external drives rely on their USB connection for power. 

Intermittently I might see a drive fall off. Now I know to pay particular attention to that when using Lightroom.