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