Import Crashes When using Network Drive

[robstead]

Lightroom Classic 12. 1, MacBook Air (M1, Ventura 13.1, Memory 8GB)

On import to my network drive (on a QNAP NAS) Lightroom Classic constantly crashes making my MacBook reboot.

Is there a fix please?

Rob

[GoldingD]

Are you locating the catalog on the NAS (bad)

or is this about placing the photos on the NAS (poor)

or both

[robstead]

Hello,

I'm putting the catalog on my Mac and the photos on the NAS.

Yes, it's slow but the space is on the NAS.  I can handle the slow speed but the crashing makings it impossible to use.

Is there a way to fix this?

Rob

[robstead]

Am I right in thinking this isn't recognised as a problem and I can't report it anywhere?

Rob

[GoldingD]

When it crashes, is that only during actions or process requiring access to the original photo:

• Import
• Editing in Develop module without Smart Previews
• Exporting 
• Publishing
• Printing
• Some Sync (could be wrong.)

As opposed to just being in Library.

[robstead]

Thank you for replying.

It's during the importing process and it causes my Mac to first freeze and then reboot. For, say, 500 images it crashes like this perhaps 10 times.

I've been sending error reports via my Mac for months and months but so far it hasn't been fixed.

How do I report this error to Adobe?

Rob

[GoldingD]

Are you presented with a crash report dialog screen, when this happens? If so, describe the issue in the field for that, and include a link to your post here in the community, and make sure the e-mail is correct, then send.

[robstead]

The crash report appears after rebooting, so I suspect an Apple report, which is in hexadecimal and pretty meaningless to me and I suspect here I guess. Is there no way of contacting Adobe directly?

[GoldingD]

Q1

When you import, are you copying those photos to the NAS, or to a hard drive, then moving the photos to the NAS later?

/edit/When you import, is that via Copy or Add? Would Add work better?

As you know, communicating to that NAS is slow. As you mention below, you are connecting that laptop to your LAN over WiFi, also slow. Combination of the two, extremely slow, to the point of possible issues. Speaking to the WiFi, a WiFi Access Point, or a WiFi Hub, etc, do not act like a switch, each and every device connected to it slows it down, so more slow, and at some point collisions, disconnects. Divorcing the import from the NAS could help.

Q2

When working in LrC with photos on the NAS are you using smart previews?

If you were to import first to a hard drive, then, in LrC, move the photos to the NAS, and use smart previews, then you could work with the photos should the NAS foul up, perhaps.

One thing to note, in the link below, notice what Adobe states about "Can I store or share a catalog on a network" specifically :

"No, you can't store catalogs on a network but you can store or share your photos on a network. Smart Previews let you edit your photos in Lightroom Classic even when you are disconnected from the network or when your computer is disconnected from the drive that has your photos."

does that imply smart previews should be used if storing photos on a network?

Also  see "Smart Previews and Lightroom Performance" in:

https://www.phototraces.com/lightroom-tutorials/lightroom-smart-previews/

[Jao vdL]

How are you mounting the drive and how are you networked? You should be mounting using smb and your should use wired ethernet connections. Wifi should work but is generally slow. I use a NAS (synology) to store many terabytes of images and it works perfectly. I never import directly to it but just tried and no issues whatsoever. I usually import to my ssd and over time move older images to the NAS by just dragging folders in Lightroom Classic. Works perfectly. If you have crashes and lockups, I would suspect you are dealing with network instability.

[robstead]

Thanks for your suggestions. They're mounted using SMB (I have two QNAP NAS units). I use WiFi to connect my laptop but the same happens in three other WiFi setups I have. I've been struggling with this for a long time so it has followed me from one house to another. I'm happy with it being slow but it's the freezing followed by a reboot I struggle with. Yes, an external SSD might be the answer and then move them across every so often but it would be good to deal with this issue. To my mind it's a memory issue. Can I raise this with Adobe directly or is it always through this community forum, which I value but in this instance I think it's an Adobe bug.

[Jao vdL]

There is a chatbox somewhere on this site that you can contact adobe on. They're nice people but not super helpful. If you mark a thread as a bug here there is a bigger chance your thread will get noticed by technical adobe people that can investigate. 
that said what you describe should absolutely just work and the program crashing is very strange. Many people use Classic with a NAS here. Do you get any crashes when you just copy stuff to the NAS in finder?

[Lumigraphics]

I would make several tweaks to your setup.

Connect via Ethernet, not wi-fi.

Don't try to import 500 photos at once. Between the slow conection and limited RAM in your computer, this is going to be problematic.

If you are building previews, definitely import to a local drive first. Copy photos inside Lightroom to your NAS later.

Check with QNap to see if they have any suggestions, updated firmware, etc.

[robstead]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I would really like to just import the images from my SD card to my large NAS drive.

Is there a way of reporting this to Adobe as a bug?

Rob

[Jao vdL]

When you enter the item on this site, mark it as a bug (there is a little list where you can choose bug). Some folks on this site can change the type of the entry to a bug report instead of a discussion item. I don't have that privilege unfortunately. Bug reports get checked out by Adobe engineers. Discussion items are easily missed by them. 

That said, I just tried it again on my MBP M1 Max, 32 GB memory running Ventura 13.2 and Classic 12.1 importing directly to my Synology NAS mounted over smb from a XQD card in a card reader and it worked perfectly without crashes or lockups.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

I routinely import via SD Card to SMB NAS (Synology) hooked either Ethernet or WiFi and do not have any crash issues regardless of connection type.  

Ventura 13.2
Lightroom Classic 12.1

I suspect you have a system-specific issue and not a bug. 

[robstead]

Thanks Rikk,

If it crashes and forced my Mac to reboot then it must be a bug.

Is there a way to raise this with Adobe support?

Rob

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

If it is rebooting a computer - it is very likely not Lightroom's bug but a system-level issue (OS or Hardware).

Without reproducible instructions to recreate the failure or a customer or two who also has the problem the dev team would kick it back as "Cannot Reproduce".

If a couple of other people can reproduce or if you can come up with Step-by-Step instructions that allows others to reproduce a bug would be possible to file. 

[Jao vdL]

I agree this is highly unlikely a Lightroom issue but an issue with the local install. There is no good reason for a crash and forced reboot. That points to a hardware issue or some software conflict such as antivirus software blocking stuff.

[robstead]

Thank you. I don't have any antivirus installed and I can't think of what else it could be.

Personally I think it's a memory management issue but how do I resolve that.

I still think it's a bug, or an uncaptured error.

Rob

[GoldingD]

P.S. curiosity

Are you storing the photos on a NAS because of:

• Local or external hard drive space limitations
• Security concerns, a hard drive out in the open that might get pilfered vs hidden away in some closet or cabinet
• Desire to keep the important photos within a RAID environment
• Desire to access the photos from another computer

For the first two can be improved via the combination of an new external hard for photos in work, NAS for backup.

The third can be accomplished with a drive enclosure array with RAID,  connect via USB

The last one is problematic, but methods exist.

[robstead]

Thanks for the suggestion but I would like to use these NAS drives.

Is there a way to report this problem to Adobe?

Rob

[GoldingD]

"Is there a way to report this problem to Adobe?"

Please see the reply by Rikk Flohr above, he is an actual Adobe Employee. An extremely helpful one. Consider his recommendation to provide step by step instructions that lead to your problem.

I would recommend being wordy, while still clear, that is, do not leave out steps. And screen captures could be a large help to describe what is occurring. You might want to use numbers or bullets (Numbered List, or Bullet List) in your description, as opposed to long paragraphs, long sentences. (like a few of mine that have gotten a bit long, perhaps unstructured, my bad)

The word editing capability of this community is a bit limited, and sometimes (perhaps it is just me) stepping away from editing in it to say looking at something in LrC, or a Internet Source, causes loss of the edits (probably just me) so you might want to create these steps, those description's outside of the community page, this discussion, perhaps in a word editor, then copy paste the resultant text, followed by applying numeric or bullet listing, and inputting your screen captures. (just saying)

You could post under Bug's, but Adobe prefers to have repeatable problems under Bugs, so the administrators might just relocate your bug to description. For now, probably better to just add to your discussion. If Rikk Flohr can see your issue as a repeatable bug, he then can move this posting to bugs, and better yet, assign it to a team, assign a bug number.

Also, pray for some additional members having the issue, perhaps they will weigh in, perhaps they will provide additional info. If you reply as Rikk Flohr recommends, more members might notice it and get involved. Some might look at it and have a Oh that's whats wrong moment, and reply. More people stirring the pot, the better.

Oh, I should add one point, this for any posting in these community pages. Several members absolutely detest attachments. And using the Insert Photo  button is more efficient for those reading the postings anyway, so please use the insert photo button when including screen captures. Yes I know, picky picky. And actual screen captures are way better than photos from a smart phone.

Rikk, I hope I have not step's onto your toes's

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Not at all.

I will be posting an article on the Community Forums later this month that goes into more detail about this topic: "Do I post in Discussions or Bugs?"

Stand by!

[robstead]

Thanks everyone.

I'm not entirely sure what or where to post. All I do is import from my SD card to a shared NAS drive. After a while I notice the mouse stops responding and I then wait for my Mac to reboot and I start all over again.

I'm happy to send an error log but where is it and where do I send it?

I can't believe my setup is unique but I've been putting up with this for a long time; years.

Rob