Lightroom Classic unstable after upgrading to 14.2

[atj777]

I am having a lot of issues with Lightroom Classic after recenty upgrading to 14.2.  It frequently crashes or gives me errors about files not being found or corrupt. The errors are inconsistent and go away after restarting Lightroom only to occur later with a different photo. If I reboot my computer I get few or no errors.

It could be that my catalog is corrupted, however:
* Integrity check reports no errors

* Optimise reports no errors (and optimise bascially rewrites the catalog so corruptions shouldn't get through)

* The upgrade to 14.2 (from 13.x) also rewrote the catalog so corruptions shouldn't get through.

My catalog is quite large (46GB) and I wonder if it is causing some memory issues which might be why it works better after just rebooting the computer.

Could it be bugs in 14.2?

The computer is a Mac mini with Apple M2 Pro, 32GB of memory, 2TB SSD with 450GB of free space (i.e. >20%). The catalog is on the SSD but the photo files are on an external Thunderbolt 4 connected drive.

Most errors or crashes occur when I try to use the Develop module but I have also had errors exporting. Sometimes just going into Develop for a photo it tells me there is something wrong (nothing specific) and the photo can't be edited. If I quite Lightroom and restart I can edit the photo.  In other cases using New Remove Spot causes Lightroom to shut down.  Even switching to a different folder can cause it to shut down.

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

[nikunj.m]

Hi, thanks for reaching out and we're sorry about the trouble! 

You can try to reset the preferences of Lightroom using the steps mentioned here: https://adobe.ly/3Ed284A

If you continue experience the behavior, you can try creating a new catalog and importing a few images to test and check if that makes a difference. 

Thanks,
Nikunj

[dj_paige]

I have had occasional errors regarding the catalog that go away when I restart the computer. For me these pre-dated LrC 14.2, which has never produced this type of error.

Could it be bugs in 14.2?

I doubt it.

My catalog is quite large (46GB) and I wonder if it is causing some memory issues which might be why it works better after just rebooting the computer.

No, that's not a memory issue. In fact, that isn't even the size of the catalog file, it is the size of the previews.

Most errors or crashes occur when I try to use the Develop module but I have also had errors exporting. Sometimes just going into Develop for a photo it tells me there is something wrong (nothing specific) and the photo can't be edited. If I quite Lightroom and restart I can edit the photo. In other cases using New Remove Spot causes Lightroom to shut down. Even switching to a different folder can cause it to shut down.

Typically, I would suggest you examine the GPU driver and make sure it is up to date, but I am told that only applies to Windows computers. However, you could try resetting your preference file and clearing the cache.

[GoldingD]

Can you share a screenshot of LrC /preferences/performance? 

[atj777]

Here are my Performance settings:

Here are the file sizes for my catalog:

My Previews file is huge. Could that be the issue? Is there any value in deleting the file. I realise I will lose all my previews and things will be slow until required ones are rebuilt but I'd rather have it slow than crashing all the time.

Note that the Smart Previews files is small as I deleted it yesterday and I had much more stability, although I still had some issues.

The reason I suggested possible bugs as I found on LrC 13.x that there were some pretty serious memory leaks when running on a Silicon Mac. If I tried any large operations, such as Export as Catalog or Import as Catalog with 1,000s of images, my system would run out of memory and the whole thing would hang.

I haven't reset the preferences yet, but will do that now and report back.

[atj777]

I have reset preferences and so far it seems more stable but I probably won't know until I do more editing and other things.

[atj777]

Spoke to soon.  I wasn't even using Lightroom and just had it open on the computer while I was away doing something else. When I cam back it had crashed.

[GoldingD]

The library previews folder size should not effect LrC performance unless it eats up so much hard drive space that the running of LrC adversely effects hard drive space, not likely until a freehold of 20 %  (some say 25 %) of frees space is broken.

Also, typically this would not effect the develop module performance unless that free space freehold was broke.

You can, carefully, delete the library previews, and LrC will recreate them upon restart, but it will eventually return to that amount of space.

Be aware that if you delete the library previews, then when you reopen LrC, it will slow down as previews are recreated. If you have any Address Lookup, Face Detection, or Sync to/from the cloud going on, consider waiting till that is finished, as the LrC performance initially upon restart will take a hit.

[GoldingD]

As to the Camera RAW CACHE setting (limit) in /preferences/performance/

Nice to see that you have exceeded the default of 5 GB. That is often a key issue in Develop module performance. Adobe admits that 5 GB (the default) is too small, and recommends at least 20 GB. The larger the catalog, or more specifically, the larger the workflow during any one session (think number of photos to edit, how large the photos are, and how much editing is to be done) the larger that CACHE should be. You may want to experiment with that.

Note that the Camera RAW CACHE effects Develop module performance only.

[dj_paige]

My Previews file is huge. Could that be the issue?

No

Is there any value in deleting the file.

Not for this particular issue.

[atj777]

So even after reseting preferences, Lightroom crashed when it was idle and I wasn't even sitting at the computer.

[nikunj.m]

I'm sorry that you continue to experience the same behavior! Have you tried creating a new catalog to see if that makes a difference? If not, try that and let us know how it goes! 

Thanks,
Nikunj

[atj777]

I created a new catalog and imported 161 photos.  That seems to work fine but my main catalog has 359k photos with edits, metadata, etc.  I cannot lose that!

[nikunj.m]

Thanks for the update! Continue to test with the new catalog for a bit, and if everything goes well, you can merge the old catalog into the new one by going to the File menu, then Import from another catalog. 

Thanks,
Nikunj

[atj777]

My latest update on the issues.  While the new catalog is stable I am still having issues with it which will make importing from the old catalog impractical!

I have also done some other testing using the old catalog (and some older backups).

If I run Lightroom on its own with no other apps running it is more stable.  I still have some issues but they are much less frequent.

I copied my old catalog to my MacBook Pro (Intel I7, 16GB, 1TB) and shared the RAW files over the LAN and it was more stable, even when running other others.  In fact, I saw very few crashes or quitting.  Note that sometimes LR just quits and shuts down gracefully (no lock file etc.).

Rolling back to LR 13.5.1 (on the MBP) with the back up of my catalog from just before the upgrade to 14.2 is also very stable with no crashes or shutdowns.

To me it seems like there is a memory issue and my catalog (or perhaps the lrcat-data file) are getting too big and the LR code (especially on Apple Silcon ARM-based chip).  In the past I have found memory leaks with the silicon code which I reported to support but got no interest.

I am also having serious problems with the lrcat-data file (which I believe stores the AI based remove/heal transactions).

With my catalog on LR 14.2, if I Export as Catalaog..., the lrcat-data file either doesn't get created or it is zero bytes. This means that none of the AI based remove/heal transactions are exported. The same images exported as a catalog on LR 13.51 the lrcat-data files intact and if I open the exported catalog, all the remove/heal transactions I have done are honoured.

But it gets much worse with LR 14.2.  Import as Catalog does not bring in the AI based remove/heal transactions at all and the images appear as if they have not been cleaned up at all.

For example, I exported some photos from my old catalog on LR13.51.  If I open that catalog on 14.2 (after it gets upgraded) the photo looks fine:

If I import the catalog into my brand new catalog, the edits are not applied:
Now, as you can see there's a message that says "Some Remove settings need to be updated" and I can click Update All. If I do that, it takes 5 to 20 minutes but they do not get updated correctly and so I have to do more cleanup. 

This is clearly a bug with Import from Catalog.  Note that I occassionally saw this with LR 13 and raised it with support but no one was interested. 

It now happens ALL THE TIME, which makes Import from Catalog unusable and I have no way to migrate my old catalog.  I am basically stuck.

[atj777]

Here are another couple of images which show it more obviously.

The image in the catalog that was opened directly:

The same image after being imported into my new catalog:

[atj777]

It gets worse!

I am now working on my new catalog.  I just did edits to 3 photos, quit LR and when I restarted I got this error on all of them:

So even my new catalog is unusable.

Please fix this!

[GoldingD]

I am also having serious problems with the lrcat-data file

hmm, a few other members issues, and typicaly on MACOS, and post v14, point to that being the problem. Perhaps a corrupt .lrcat-data file, or an issue with access rights. Now you need to be very careful should you decide to try seeing if deleting that file will fix the issue (careful about selecting the correct file) and be aware that after doing that, when you restart LrC and go to recreate that file, it may take a lot of time. 

• https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/ai-masks-healing-constantly-undo-and-ne...
• https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/error-in-the-subject-mask/m-p/15043498

[atj777]

hmm, a few other members issues, and typicaly on MACOS, and post v14, point to that being the problem.

I wonder how many of them are on Apple Silicon rather than Intel. I've had far more problems with Lightroom since I "upgraded" to a Silicon based Mac.

Perhaps a corrupt .lrcat-data file, or an issue with access rights.

I have considered a corrupt .lrcat-data file.  Neither Integrity Check nor Optimize Catalog appear to touch that file at all. Catalog upgrades with new Lightroom versions also appear to leave this file alone.  It is quite possible that the file could be corrupted although I am now having issues with a new catalog that was ony created a few weeks ago and I can't believe it is corrupted already. If it is corrupted, it is the Lightroom code that has corrupted it.

Now you need to be very careful should you decide to try seeing if deleting that file will fix the issue (careful about selecting the correct file) and be aware that after doing that, when you restart LrC and go to recreate that file, it may take a lot of time.

I have no plans at all to delete the file.  I have seen what happens with Export as Catalog with just a few files and the file is not created. Not only will it take a lot of time to rebuild (weeks if not months on my system), it doesn't actually apply the edits correctly and so every image will have to be edited again.

Clearly there is a problem here that Adobe need to address.

[danospv]

Noticed the same issue on a smaller catalog (~2.5 G lrcat file). Something I noticed helps is to search for missing photos (Library->Find All missing photos) and removing them.

Although a new catalog works significantly faster. Definitely an issue starting with 14.2

[atj777]

I'm still experiening issues, even with a brand new catalog with only 12k photos. In fact, I had issues on 14.2 with an even newer catalog with less than 100 photos. It just shutdown while switching between modules.

14.3 is even worse.  It is not possible to do Photo->Develop Settings-Update AI Settings:

I have a lot more troubleshooting to do but it is looking very much like some kind of memory leak.

If I try to open my original large catalog with any other applications running, I get some weird and inconsistent errors, like 

In some cases the icons on the menus don't load properly (still trying to get a screen shot of that).

[KR Seals]

Do you have an Apple store nearby where you can have it checked for issues with the RAM?

[atj777]

I'm seeing the issues on two different Macs:

* Mac mini M2 Pro 32GB

* MacBook Pro Intel I7 16GB

I doubt both compters have issues with RAM.

[KR Seals]

That's hard to know for sure. Over the years, every one of my MacBook Pros (3) have had hardware issues.