P: File handling much slower

[JacksterD]

I'm having an issue with Lightroom CC being very slow at file handling. In Lightroom 5 I could move files from one folder to another on the same drive very quickly (almost instantly, never more than a few seconds), but in Lightroom CC I'm currently moving 400 CR2 files to a different folder and it's taken 10 minutes. This is on a Retina MacBook Pro with an SSD.

Also, the way Lightroom CC converts to DNG seems to be different. Normally when I import files I choose to convert to DNG in the Import dialogue. Normally in Lightroom 5 I ended up with a folder full of DNG files. However, in Lightroom CC I seem to get a folder of CR2 files which are then converted to DNG. I tried moving these files (from within Lightroom) while this process was going on and Lightroom got very confused and around 25% of my files could no longer be found by Lightroom (they were still on the disk, but with "DNG" extensions as opposed to the "CR2" which Lightroom seemed to be expecting, even though it had just converted them!).

Overall, this has slowed my import workflow down hugely. I used to Import as DNG, move my files around and boom, done. Now I need to import as CR2, then move the files into the right folder (which takes at least 100x longer now), and then convert to DNG. Not good!

[amdkt7]

That's good to hear. It would not hurt them to be more up front about the issues and be more involved with the customers. I sure am looking forward to a real fix!

[BobDaamen]

I noticed the slowness especially on my 3 year old laptop (core i5, 8 GB RAM but still a normal harddrive). My desktop seems to run a lot faster. Haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary on this machine.

But on top of the slowness I noticed that on my desktop I can select a bunch of files to convert.... no matter how many times I try, it will only convert the one that is more highlighted.
The laptop however will convert all the files I selected. I vaguely remember seeing this behaviour in one the previous versions.

[EvilBoris]

You have to be viewing multiple files in grid view for it to convert multiple files, if you are selecting them and choosing convert in the film strip/preview view then it will only do one.

this is how it was in the last version too and presumably other versions before it

[BobDaamen]

Hi Adam,

thanks for responding.... but it's not true I believe. On my laptop I just have to be in the Library module. If I select all photos with Ctrl+A and choose convert to DNG it will do that....
But I will give it a try on the other computer to really go to grid view. Will let you know.

[BobDaamen]

It's me again Adam.... 🙂 I hate to give you credits but you were absolutely right.... hihihi. Switched to grid view, selected a couple of hundred files and it went to town with them.
Thanks a lot!!!

[johnrellis]

In a post above, Denni Russell measured LR 6 exports as about 2x slower than LR 5: http://feedback.photoshop.com/photosh...

I discovered a likely culprit -- LR 6 is unnecessarily writing each exported file twice. See my post here: http://feedback.photoshop.com/photosh...

[amdkt7]

Yeah, I'm losing a few when exporting too. I'm not seeing any advantage to this version of LR. Can I roll back and still use my catalog?

[johnrellis]

Unfortunately not. You can save all metadata to your files and then import any recent photos into your LR 5 catalog, but you'll lose stacks, collections, edit history, and probably lots of other stuff I'm forgetting right now.

[Moments in DIgital]

Does Adobe actually get people to test their products before they release them? This is a MAJOR workflow change and now instead of upgrading to something that was supposed to run faster, now I'm stuck with something that actually runs slower. Why do I give you my money Adobe?

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I'm adding my voice to this topic.

I'm using a Retina MacBook, and image import is now disastrously slow. Roughly 20 seconds PER IMAGE... Also, processor utilisation is very high, since the fans are running constantly throughout the process. The application is pretty much unresponsive while an import is taking place, meaning that I can't start working on one batch whilst the next batch imports.

[Moments in DIgital]

I spoke to tech support at Adobe about DNG imports. The person I spoke to confirmed this behaviour (and seemed surprised that it worked like this) and then checked with someone else who confirmed that LR6/CC was designed this way. Apparently there were issues with files being corrupted using the old method so that's why they changed it so it writes the CR2 first, then converts to DNG and then deletes the CR2. Can't say I ever had an issue with files being corrupted on import so I don't understand why they made such a major change that affects so many people to fix something that probably only ever affected a very small % of users.

[amdkt7]

Well, they really broke it this time. I dread processing my photos now. It helps to use the Adobe Raw to DNG converter as it is much faster, but it is one more step.

I never had corrupt files before, nor files that failed to export. Now, I do have files that failed to export. I used to run three exports at one time, just start them and go do something else while I waited. Now I need to run each separately so that I can redo the ones that failed to export. It is other wise too difficult to determine which file in which export job failed.

I keep hoping for a new patch every time I open LR, but it is not happening.

[M_Delman]

Adding another voice to the conversation. Import was always slow at times for reasons I was never able to diagnose, but this is ridiculous. I'm waiting one minute or more for *each file* to load, before the conversion to DNG and preview building even begins. It's unfathomably, intolerably slow. (Back in LR 4, a 16GB card with hundreds of images would import in a couple of minutes.)

Does Adobe have anything to say about this? They really should be embarrassed by this level of mis-performance.

[jgcrowder123]

I was really hoping that Adobe would address these concerns with the latest Lightroom update, but they didn't. Their claim for changing the way "Copy as DNG" works is that in some circumstances, the files were getting corrupt. I've imported and converted thousands of .CR2 files to .DNG and have NEVER had a corrupted file in previous versions of Lightroom.

It wouldn't be too difficult for them to create an option in the Preferences dialog in the "Import Options" section to "Copy as DNG without Intermediary File" or something like that. That way the people who were having trouble with corrupted files could keep the current/slow import functionality and the rest of us could switch back the old/faster way.

[amdkt7]

Last night when I fired up LR I got the opportunity to fill out a short survey, which I was excited to do. I said that there was no chance that I could recommend LR to a friend and then listed in the comments all of my complaints.

I also requested the option to install only the modules that I need (dream on, but sometimes dreams come true).

I am using Adobe Raw Converter to save time on the import, however building 1:1 previews still takes a really, really long time. At least I can go ahead and start working.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Does the Adobe company expect to survive with this poor engineering team it seems they have? This new Lightroom CC handling of the CR2 files, hard drive twice, DNG copy system must never have been beta tested or quality controlled. At my company someone on this engineering team would have been fired. We, your customers, deserve better.

[amdkt7]

I got some improvement when I uninstalled my old DataColor Spyder product. Installing the newest version did not make it bad again. This improved the transition time between images in both develop and library.

I wish the cache was bigger, ie I can now rock back and forth between two images without delay, once both are loaded. However, if I view a third one of the others drops out. I have set my cache size to crazy figures without fixing this issues. Perhaps this data is cached somewhere else? Perhaps main memory? I have 16gig of ram...

[xinaesth]

With Time Machine and similar, there will not only be the issue of redundant writes to the main storage mentioned by others, but also a very significant bloating of backup storage if it makes a habit of not getting 'round to doing the conversion before a backup kicks in.

I'm trying to refrain from ranting too much here... hope the team manage to shape up a bit better; the software is barely functional for me in its current state (problems far beyond somewhat sluggish file handling). Most things I try to do (e.g., export one photo) seem to stand a significant risk of bringing up a progress bar that either doesn't move at all, or goes a certain way before stopping dead...

[Mike123454321]

Adobe...please fix this. It is killing my efficiency.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

This behavior has almost made Lightroom CC 1015 unusable on my iMac.

The previous version of LR did not have this problem.

My workflow has almost ground to a halt.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I had a problem with moving files within Lightroom CC very slow. Thanks to Denni's post on this thread, I got an idea to disable Face detection. Boom! 600 files moved on the same time it had moved 20 before.
So there is something really wrong going on with face recognition while moving, but this is my workaround. Disable, move, re-enable it.

[Venkatesh Penjuri]

Hi Tyron,

Thank you for reporting. We will look into this. 

- Venkatesh

[sportshots]

I just started experiencing this yesterday after updating to 2015.6. I'm moving old files within LR and it is taking way too long. I went to bed last night and it took all night to move 250 photos from my main drive to an USB 3.0 ext. And it has taken over 3 hours to move 113 files from the main to an internal drive. Why.