Lightroom Classic import not finishing

[James2204500677n0]

Issue: My current import batch into Lightroom Classic (14.2) on MacOS 15.3.1 has been at 100% complete (but still running) for almost a week now, with the CPU monitor showing 100% being used by LR (so it's not doing nothing).

How we got here:

1. I have about 4TB of photos organized in a folder structure on a NAS and only about 1/2 are currently cataloged by LRC
2. I started an import (add, do not copy) of the whole folder structure and after a few days days, LRC had identified all the duplicates and already-imported photos and I was ready to start the import
3. I started the import
4. I checked back a few days later and the import is "stuck" at 100% with no indication in the LRC window as to what it's doing, despite using 100% CPU consistely for the last week

When I try to quit LRC, it tells me that "there is a task in progress: import files in their current location" but when I click on the task, address lookup and face detection are paused and my only other option is to cancel "x" the import line.

I've waited a week with no apparent change to the import and no updates from LRC as to what it's doing.

I need to import a batch of photos from my camera but am unable to do so until this import finishes. Am I safe to force-quit lightroom? what's it doing and when will it be finished?!

I'm happy to go back and re-run these imports folder-by-folder but at this point I'm concerned about corrupting my catalog if I kill whatever it's currently doing

[Moved from ‘Bugs’ to ‘Discussions’ by moderator, according to forum rules.]

[James2204500677n0]

to be clear: I'm marking this as a "bug" because LRC shows 100% complete with nothing left to do, yet won't finalize or release the import process and is clearly still doing "something"

[Reports are marked as ‘Bugs’ when the issue has been confirmed to be a bug and logged in the bug tracking system. Mod.]

[GoldingD]

• Is Face Detection paused?
• Is Address Lookup paused?
• Is any sync to the Cloud paused, or better yet,  not occurring  at all?
• Are any presets being applied?
• Is minimal previews creation selected?

Can you post in a reply your LrC /Preferences/Performance/,? Interested in the previews options

Also, as to using that NAS, just for the photo storage location, is that due to space constraints? Many members run into performance issues doing that, might depend on the NAS, The NAS OS,  NAS services, NAS settings, and OS file management settings. Perhaps a heavy NAS use member can comment. I

[James2204500677n0]

• face detection is paused
• address lookup is paused
• I don't sync this library to the cloud
• I'm pretty sure no presets are being applied - can I check this somehow?
• I don't know how to check for whether minimal previews creation is selected but my "MainCatalog*Previews.lrdata" file has a last modified date of 3 minutes ago.

[James2204500677n0]

I see that this was moved to "discussions". Why is it not a bug that Lightroom is currently performing a task that cannot be cancelled and provides no status or estimate of completion and which blocks the ability to quit the program or perform new imports?

[James2204500677n0]

Please, does anyone have any suggestions for how I can get my computer back without corrupting my catalog?

[Aleke · Accepted solution]

Hi @James2204500677n0! I totally understand how frustrating this can be. It's safer to quit Lightroom through its dialog commands rather than force quitting the app, so I'd recommend avoiding force quitting. It could be possible that the app is stuck writing metadata changes into XMP. If you proceed with quitting the import, does another dialog window pop up?

If it's saving XMP, it should be safe to quit this task. Lightroom will pick up where it left off the next time you start it. Thanks so much for your patience!

Alek

[James2204500677n0]

Thanks Alek,

I canceled the import (terrifying to click) and got a dialog that mentions a few errors duing the import that says:

Failed to find a place for the imported file. (6)
{list of files}

File access was denied. (3)

{list of files}
The files appear to be unsupported or damaged. (11)

{list of files}

I saved the report of impacted files so I can investigate them on my NAS. LRC appeared to be back to normal and so I decided to shut it down & restart... I've asked LRC to quit and after skipping the catalog backup, it's now "unresponsive" so I think I'll walk away for a bit and see if it "wakes up" after a while

[James2204500677n0]

Quitting the task appears to have worked. I'm not sure how long it took to quit but the next morning, it was done and when I restarted LRC, it appears everything is as it should be. I have no idea what it was doing for a week, probably generating previews? It would be great if the preview generation step was displayed separately from the overall import or queued to run in the background instead of blocking the "100% complete" import. Marking this as the correct answer, thank you.

If Adobe would like to reproduce this behavior, I suspect you just need a decently large batch of files stored in a very slow I/O location (you could probably use a 100Mbps or throttled NAS storage array) imported without copying files. I hope this import experience gets improved in a future version of LRC

[James2204500677n0]

(for completeness) I was NOT saving XMP during the import

[EiPiKlein]

Same here with 8TB Photo and Video Library. 3.5Gb Catalog (local). Everytime time I add new files is a pain in the a**. looks like never finish but after some days it finishes.

[birdpixels]

Was this resolved for you? I started having this issue today on my Mac M1 Max based Mac Studio. Thanks a lot in advance...

[EiPiKlein]

use ethernet cable over WIFI, then you have to pause face recognition, address recognition and write metadata. Then maybe will be slow because LRC doesnt support all kind of videos. For me took like 3 days to recreate a 170k files catalog.