P: desktop: Spherical panorama creation hangs

[Sybren]

Hello all,

I'm
trying out the new Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, coming from Lightroom 6.
One of the features that is critical for me is the stitching of spherical panoramas. Lightroom 6 is decent, but often creates a visible seam or other smaller mistakes, and I hope that the latest Lightroom is better. Unfortunately, Lightroom CC seems to hang after a while. Creating the preview works fine. When actually rendering the full panorama it uses 100% CPU as expected, but later it reduces to 18% CPU, and a few minutes later it's down to no CPU usage at all. The user interface is still responsive, it's only the merging itself that hangs in limbo.


Has anyone experienced this? Is there a solution? I have unticked "use graphics processor" in the p, but it didn't change anything in the behaviour. The merging process just stops mid-way.

I'm stitching 26 DNG files shot by a DJI Mavic 2 Pro drone. Below you can see where the "Performing Merge" step hangs.

Image is not available

This is my system info:

Lightroom version: 2.3 [ 20190502-0902-47ed471 ] (May  3 2019)Operating system: Windows 10OS Version: 10.0 [17763]Application architecture: x64System architecture: x64Logical processor count: 8Processor speed: 4,0 GHzBuilt-in memory: 32650,5 MBReal memory available to Lightroom: 32650,5 MBReal memory used by Lightroom: 334,5 MB (1,0%)Virtual memory used by Lightroom: 418,2 MBMemory cache size: 189,7 MBInternal Camera Raw version: 11.3 [ 197 ]Maximum thread count used by Camera Raw: 5Camera Raw SIMD optimization: SSE2,AVX,AVX2Camera Raw virtual memory: 22MB / 16325MB (0%)Camera Raw real memory: 22MB / 32650MB (0%)System DPI setting: 120 DPIDesktop composition enabled: YesDisplays: 1) 2560x1440Input types: Multitouch: No, Integrated touch: No, Integrated pen: No, External touch: No, External pen: No, Keyboard: NoGraphics Processor Info: DirectX: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 (26.21.14.3086)Application folder: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Lightroom CCSettings Folder: C:\Users\Sybren\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom CC

[Drarvik]

We can reproduce the problem as you describe it, and we are looking into how to address it. Thanks!

[Sybren]

Can you give any indication of an ETA of the fix?

[Sybren]

Can you give any ETA of being able to give an indication of an ETA of the fix?

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Sybren,

I've had off-forum conversations with Kjetl Drarvik from the Lightroom Desktop team as well as Josh Bury from the Camera Raw team. In our testing, we are not able to verify the issue. On some of our systems (Mac and Windows), the image stitches as expected. On other systems, it appears to hang as if it is failing to stitch but does eventually complete if given enough time. This initially caused Kjetl to believe that he was seeing a failure-but given time the merge completes and completes correctly. 

At this point we are not prepared to designate this as a bug but rather suspect it is simply slow performance in the Projection phase of the Panorama process. 

I'd like to ask you to retest with your files but to allow the Merge process to run for a much longer period of time. It may look like it is hanging but we believe it will eventually complete.  Can you confirm this on your end?

[Sybren]

I cannot confirm on my end. CPU usage of Lightroom drops to 0%, nothing happens. I've let it sit for 5.5 hours and it doesn't progress any further. And this is on quite a beefy machine (see specs in my original post).

If the processor load would be a constant 10-15% I would find it warranted to wait longer. It would just be a badly paralellised algorithm, but in time it would finish. However, with no noticable CPU usage, my only conclusion can be that it hangs.

Update: I didn't cancel the process when I posted the above. I've let Lightroom sit for another 2 hours, but still no progress was made. Will let it run overnight and report tomorrow.

[Sybren]

I've let it run overnight for a total runtime of 13 hours. Lightroom still didn't progress.

[Sybren]

@Deleted User Does my re-test change anything in your perception of this issue?

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

There may be a delay in Rikk replying as Adobe US is on shutdown this week.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Sybren, 

 I have passed on your results to the engineers. 

[Guest]

I got the new Macbook2019 with 16GB RAM and clean installed the latest Lightroom Classic. And I am seeing that, using my Canon 80D raw files, I can create Pano with upto 4 images fine. But when it gets to 8 or more images, it shows the preview but when I click on Merge button it gets to 25% or 50% and then gets stuck. The CPU does not show any activity. Neither does the disk. It is just stuck. 

With my Macbook from 2009 I could do the same files, it took time in hours, but it kept using CPU and disk, and kept chugging. Here with my new macbook there is no signs of life. I have left it for 5 hrs, no movement.

I have disabled the graphic processor. no help.

I have tried the config.lua Features.disableGlobalTaskManager = true but that has not helped either. 

I am sure this merge should not take more than 15 mins on my new Macbook but it never completes. 

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Hi, I can also confirm having the same issue for several months now. I'm on a pretty powerful Intel i7 MBP with 16 GB of RAM, always upgraded to the latest version of Lightroom. I'm merging anywhere between 3 to 25 45 megapixel DNGs, coming off a Nikon D850. I can merge up to 6 or 7 DNGs just fine, but beyond that, it freezes at around 50% and then does not continue, even after waiting for an entire night. macOS' activity monitor shows no CPU activity. Sometimes I try again, or I use only every 2nd image of my sequence to lower the overall DNG count for the merge and it may then work. Mostly it still doesn't work then. It seems tightly related to the total number and size of DNGs merged.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Version 12.3, an update to Camera Raw, went live on June 15, 2020 and contains a fix for this issue. Please install the update and respond back if it does not cure the issue for you. Thank you for your patience!

[Sybren]

No need to thank me for my patience. I'm no longer a user of Lightroom, among other things because of this issue lingering on for so long.