Lightroom 9.3 constantly hanging, running slow

[alohadna]

I'd like to get some advice about my current situation. I'm not the savviest computer person, but literate enough, I hope, to have this conversation... I am a non-professional photographer with over 60k photos/videos in my LR catalog. My computer:

Apple desktop Mac (2019, retina 5K) running MacOS Catalina 10.15.6

3.7 GHz  6-core Intel Core i5

64GB memory

Radeon Pro 580X 8GB graphics card

Lightroom Classic version 9.3 (60k+ photos all stored locally)

There is nothing currently plugged into the Mac except a eero router

Apple bluetooth keyboard and mouse

**Graphics processor accelerator option in LR settings is turned off (made a HUGE difference for a day or so)

I tried to contact Adobe support via live chat but after a very long hour the support rep told me I need to update my GPU because of my large library/catalog. I understand that GPUs come built in to the Mac and can't be upgraded without returning it to Apple. Is this what is normal for such a new Mac to need such an upgrade for basic Lightroom use? I hardly do any work in the Development module. These days I'm mostly organizing, renaming, mapping and keywording. I didn't think my library was that large comepared to a professional's catalog. I've also had a couple of random LR crashes recently (sent reports to Adobe) but I'm not sure they're related. 

Does anyone have any advice or a suggestion to try? Am I just trying to do too much with too little? I'd hate to give up and have to find a LR replacement as its only been a few years that I've had it and its taken a long time to learn and get used to it. But I can't keep going like this- its horribly inefficient sitting and waiting for LR to catch up after every action, even with just 1 or 2 photos at a time. I can't get anything done! I timed it the other day and switching between Maps and Library module took 2minutes. That's just not acceptable but I don't know where to go to find answers.

I appreciate any light you can shead on any of this.

{Moved from Lightroom Cloud to Lightroom Classic Forum by Moderator}

[jennifers33218031]

Join the club. I spent 4 hours online with adobe having remote access and they still can't shed light on the issue or resolve it

[alohadna]

Glad I'm not the only one...makes me feel a little better. 

[dj_paige]

You don't say what actions cause this problem in Lightroom. Please tell us.

[alohadna]

Anything and everything: deleting files, renaming, key wording, drag & drop on locations in Map, switching between modules, switching loop to grid views. Until now, I found it useful to turn LR off and back on if loading times got too frequent/long especially if it had been left on for over a day. Doing this would make things snappy again. But now turning it off doesn't help. If I have an hour to spend working on my photos, probably 20min (cumulatively) is spent waiting for files to load. 

[dj_paige · Accepted solution]

A couple of things to try

1. Reset the preference file: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/how-do-i-reset-lightrooms-preferences/
2. Optimize the catalog: File->Optimize Catalog
3. Delete the preview cache, Lightroom will rebuild it http://www.lightroomfanatic.com/tutorials/advanced/why-and-how-to-clear-your-lightroom-cache/
4. Make sure your anti-virus is not scanning/checking the photos and preview cache

[alohadna]

I made the changes suggested and I do see major and sustained improvement over several days. Its still not as responsive as I would like but its back to baseline. I had high expectations of Adobe & Lightroom when I moved to it 3+ years ago. I believed it to be the gold standard of digital photo management and editing but I think I need to manage my expectations.

I still don't understand why deleting Preview files helps with this, though. I thought their purpose is to help the program run and load images faster. If anyone can explain this or point to a reference article, I am interested.

Thank you very much for the speedy and smart solutions!