Smart Previews .lrdata shows incorrect size.

[Earth Oliver]

I noticed that on my M1 Max with MacOS 12.2, the .lrdata file for my Smart Previews is totally wrong. No matter what i do, the reported file size does not change from 33.8 MB.
Here's what shows at the Finder level vs what the contents of that file are. 

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

I am not able to replicate this. Adding Smart Previews increases size and discarding decreases size.  The amounts are what I would expect based on individual file size. 

[Earth Oliver]

Thanks, Rikk. I have no idea how to troubleshoot this one and i don't want to trash the previews. Permissions look fine, so i'm not sure what the issue might be. I'll try renaming and start up a new file to see if the same problem occurs. 

[Ian Lyons]

I see similar and have done for a few years, particularly with macOS packages, and since LrC uses packages for previews and smart previews that's where I most often experience the issue. For example, a few weeks back whilst building smart previews for my masters catalog on my Mac mini M1, the package size rose to just over 17GB and stayed at that value until a few days later when I rebooted the computer. On rechecking the size of the smart previews package I could see that the OS was now reporting 154.84GB. So, in this instance, the reboot resulted in more realistic package size, but that's not always the case.

If you do a Google search you'll find dozens, if not hundreds of similar reports dating back 2-3 years. The worst (most dangerous) examples are folders that indicate that they're empty when they actually do contain files. I've linked one example below. 

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2019/02/22/finder-shows-incorrect-folder-sizes/

[Earth Oliver]

Thanks, Ian. It's wild how long some of these issues persist at the OS level. My current fave is that the OS is constantly spinning down the external drive i'm working from after 10 seconds of it not being used. Doesn't matter what the power settings are either. Especially annoying while working from it in Classic as all my folders/images are constantly disappearing unless i keep the xmp writing active. It's been a known bug/feature for years already.

[Ian Lyons]

The latest version of the G-Raid Thunderbolt 3 drives are a real pita since WD &^%&*(% them.  Until I switched over to SSD storage for my photos, I used an app called Amphetamine that writes a small data packet to the disk at user configurable intevals. Below is the link to the Apple App store where you can download a free copy

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/amphetamine/id937984704?mt=12