Lightroom Classic 13.3.1 never completes Photo Merge HDR process

[JacobSurland]

Hi 

I have since upgrading to Lightroom Classic 13.3 (and today 13.3.1) had serious problems working with my Lightroom. 

I do have a large catalog. I have 422.767 photos in my catalog, but it has been no problem so far.

Symptoms

When I start an Photo Merge HDR it does not complete. It stays like this without completing:

The new HDR.dng file is added to the catalog.

If I start another HDR merge, it will be queued.

Other side-effects (more in-consistantly - I haven't spotted the pattern yet)

Contextual Menu (right mouse click) can be minutes to appear.

Import files can be several minutes to complete.

Things I have tried

• I have tried to do a backup of the Lightroom Catalog, and used that backup instead. This apparently solved the problem for a couple of days, but now it is back and I can't make that "magic work again" (do a backup and use that instead).
• I have tried to reset settings, with no difference.
• I updated my Nvidia drivers last week to latest studio drivers, with no difference.
• I have optimized my catalog, with no difference.

About my setup and system

The Lightroom Catalog itself is on an SSD drive with 191 Gb free storage.

My RAW files are on spin harddrives.

I have got no external drives.

This is my system:

Windows 11 Pro, 23H2.

NVidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super, driver version 555.85, driver type: DCH

Hope there is help to get 🙂

Kind regards

Jacob

[Ian Lyons]

I've not been able to reproduce on my Mac computers. Therefore, the issue is either computer specific or Windows only.

Have you tried optimising your catalog? If that doesn't help, then try resetting the LrC preference file as described in Method 1 at https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/help/reset-preferences.html

[JacobSurland]

Thank you for your suggestions. Both I have tried before posting here.

Kind regards

Jacob

[GoldingD]

First up, you have the default of 5GB for the Camera RAW CACHE. Adobe even states 5GB is too low, and to try at least 20GB. THis WILL effect Develop Module performance.

Now, the CACHE and/or temp files Photo Merge use is not all that well documented, but it probably uses at least the Camera RAW CACHE, and then the Windows paging file, and the Windows Temp files.

But, apparently this worked before???

Second,  I not that you have 8 additional Merges running, perhaps cancel All of them, then try just one. Yes multiple mergers can work, but at some point (Computer resources dependant) that crawls LrC performance down. This is a case by case situation.

Third, and I am not so clear on this, apparently you have some Metadata Saving going on or paused? Perhaps finish that before attempting to merge, get those odds and ends out of the way.

Fourth "The Lightroom Catalog itself is on an SSD drive with 191 Gb free storage". What is that in percent (%) looking for at least 20%, some say 25% free.

[JacobSurland]

Hi GoldingD

Thank you so much for your reply 🙂

One:

Good tip on the Raw Cache - That has been increased. Improved performance is always appreciated 🙂

Everything has been running smoothly until Lr 13.3.

Two:

About the second point on 8 merges. It is only 1 HDR Photo merge job - it is the merge of 9 bracketed photos, which Lr describes that way. 

Three

It was a fresh started Lr. The metadata saving is part of the newly created HDR Photo and my guess is for putting it into the catalog. When working properly, two progress gauges show up after the merge, just before completing. My interpretation is adding the file to the Catalog.

Four

That is about 10% (2Tb disk).

Kind regards 

Jacob

[GoldingD]

Four

That is about 10% (2Tb disk).

That is a bad situation and needs to be fixed.

When thinking about where to place the Lightroom catalog, Camera RAW CACHE, and Photos, remember the following

• The Catalog can take advantage of being on the fastest hard drive, think SSD, be that internal or external
• The Catalog should not be located on any server share, be that an actual server, a NAS, or the Cloud. Adobe does not support this. The catalog will eventually fail if on such a location. Some make this work. Just Don't.
• IF your fastest hard drive is external, and as such, not so fast due to perhaps the USB connection (Think internal SSD vs External SSD) And you cannot place the catalog on an internal drive (out of free space) or add a new internal drive, then perhaps accept the somewhat slower external drive.
• The Camera RAW CACHE can take advantage of being on a fast hard drive like an SSD
• The Camera RAW CACHE does not have to be on the same hard drive as the Catalog
• On Windows computers the CAMERA RAW CACHE and the Windows Paging file (by default on drive C) can compete for read/wrights, this can cause a small performance degradation in LrC.
• The Photos can be on any connected hard drive, internal or external, THeir is no advantage of being on a fast hard drive
• The Photos do not have to be on the same hard drive as the Catalog or the Camera RAW CACHE.
• In theory, and per Adobe, the Photos can be on a server share, including actual servers, a NAS, or the Cloud. In practice many members find that eventually fails. Simply Don't

[JacobSurland]

Hi GoldingD,

Thanks for taking time to try to help out and it is much appreciated, however I think it is the wrong track the suggestions to solutions are following.

About the 10% disk space left ... That may be a sort of bad situation, but it is an SSD (the fastest available - not just the cheapest around) and there are 200 Gb available space. I firmly believe that this is not a disc-space situation. My problem came at the same time, that I upgraded my catalog to Lr 13.3 (and now 13.3.1).

As an old IT-professional I have come to learn over a couple of decades, that if something stops working normally after a change, it is most likely the change that is the cause of the problem. With a few exceptions, just to keep IT-professionals at their toes 🙂

I have no external drives. I have my System (Windows) on a seperate SSD from my Lightroom Catalog. I have my RAW files on a different drive, than the Catalog. I have done a lot to optimize performance and avoid a lot of trafic from different pieces of software to the same drive. This I have done way before my new problems.

New observations are:

Sometimes Lr works as expected in performance terms and sometimes it is literally minutes to popup a contextual menu, adding photos to target collection. The EXIF info underneath the histogram are either gone, or just '-', still, while navigating the catalog is super fast. The histogram updates instantly as I navigate my library. But some functions are just blocked by some other internal process in Lightroom. And suddenly everything catches up and everything works perfect for a while. Until it doesn't and I am again doing minuttes (5-15 minutes literally!) waiting for a contextual popup, adding to a collection...

[JacobSurland · Accepted solution]

Just to followup on my progress.

It seems that I have solved the problems. What I did, was to un-synchronize all my collections that I had syncronized. I had 50k-ish photos in collections that was synchronized.

That took a while super duper long while for Lightroom to digest. 

Having turned my focus on synchronized photos I noticed that LR Mobile had 150.000+ photos synchronized. I am not entirely sure how it adds up to that level, but I think this "All Synchronized Photos" is the sum of:

* All photos shot on my iPhone. They are automatically imported into Lr.

* All collections that I have synchronized from my Lightroom Desktop.

* All all photos that at some point in time has been synchronized remains in "All photos Synchronized". (This I am not 100% sure of - but it would make sense, because I had photos in that collection, that I had removed from any synchronized collections).

I then removed (from Lr Classic) all photos in the "All Synced Photographs" and waited a super mega duper really long time for Lightroom to process that request. After that I had to wait for my iPhone and iPad to also process that request. 

Now I have zero synced collections and it seems that Lr Classic is very responsive in all aspects. Not just some.