P: (Mac) Memory Leak when syncing files with the cloud

[Matrix_mdt]

Hallo zusammen,

seit der Version 12 (auch 12.01) scheint Lightroom den Programmspeicher immer weiter zu füllen, bis dieser überläuft.

Dabei arbeite ich nicht mal in Lightroom, sondern Lightroom läuft im Hintergrund und lädt lediglich die in der Cloud liegenden Fotos runter.

Technische Daten:

Lightroom: V12.01

Computer: MacBook Pro

Chip: Apple M1

RAM: 16GB

macOS: Ventura (13.0)

[stefank54347556]

Turned off GPU use in settings but no change in behaviour. 

[stefank54347556]

Here some more details on the behaviour - I can observe 2 states in LrC during the Sync:

1. RAW files are being downloaded from LR Cloud (can see 30-50MB/s download throughput) and RAW are being saved to the cloud folder on the hard drive (number of files are increasing) BUT file count in catalog does NOT increase and LrC becomes unresponsive. Increase in Memory use is roughly same as download volume (i.e. 10GB of downloaded pictures equate to roughly 10GB increase in memory use)

2. After force quitting LrC (because computer ran out of RAM during 1 or before) and reopening LrC, the picture count in the catalog is slowly increasing but there is almost ZERO network traffic. Number of pictures on hard drive also stays unchanged. This continues until the number of picture in catalog again match number of pictures on hard drive. RAM use is continously c. 1.5 GB durring this phase. Once the catalog has catched up, it reverts back to 1. (i.e. starts downloading, freezing LrC and memory increasing in uncontrolled way). 

This looks like LrC is downloading the pictures from the cloud, saves them on the hard drive but doesnt free up the RAM after saving and doesnt do the indexing for the catalog. Indexing for catalog only happens after a restart and only for the previously downloaded pictures. 

There seems to be the same bug on Mac as on Windows?

[stefank54347556]

Sorry, what happens under 2 might not be indexing but could also be downloading the "XMP" files from cloud (i.e. all data that is not stored in the RAW file) - it is doing roughly 2 pictures per second during phase 2 (indexing should be much faster than this)

[DdeGannes]

@stefank54347556 , you stated

"I am trying to sync a cloud catalogue from LR into LRC with 50% JPG and 50% RAW files. Total cloud data is 120 GB. After starting LrC and starting the sync, LRC becomes unresponsive within 2-10 minutes and memory use is constantly increasing. After 20-45min, I get a message from MacOS that memory is running low and asking me to force quite apps to free up memory."

Are you referring to Lr (cloud-based) application on the same computer as Lightroom Classic, or from Lr Mobile on a iPad or Smart Phone?

If so original images are being downloaded from the Cloud Storage to your Computer, is there sufficient storage available? In addition in a later post you mention XMP files as far as I am aware Lr Desktop and Lr Mobile do not write metatadata to XMP.

You also indicate 2 images per second, this is very fast for downloading images and edit info from the Cloud Storage.

[fbourdoncle]

If this can be of any help, I observe the very same behaviour on both my Intel and ARM Macs running the latest version of LR on macOS 13.3.1 (22E261). I start fresh and synchronize a 22k+ catalog of RAWs on a NAS using the AFP procotol (I used to use SMB but for some reason the lastest macOS versions seem to have made SMB very unreliable). My NAS (on both setups) is a TerraMaster running TOS 5.1)

[Ian Lyons]

I believe you're experiencing the same issue as described in below linked thread. Therfore, I've asked for your post and any of the others above that describe the same issue be merged into below post. 

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/macbook-programmspeicher-voll/td-p/1330...

[stefank54347556]

Exact same problem here: https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/lr-12-0-memory-leak-on-apple-silicon/td...

Problem is NOT insufficient space on hard disk but RAM overflow when downloading images from Lightroom cloud. 

Would be great to get a fix soon. It took me multiple hours of manually starting and restarting LrC to synchronize pictures from Cloud to LrC.

[fbourdoncle]

Yes indeed, same probleme here, on both a M1 Mac Studio and an Intel iMac. Both of them are connected to a NAS system via the AFP protocol (a TerraMaster NAS) to store the original and both the Macs and the NAS have plenty of storage available. I obervse exactly the same symptoms. Initial sync of a large RAW-based cloud library. Below is another thread describing the problem.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/lr-12-0-memory-leak-on-apple-silicon/m-...

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Added missing bug report supplied by @Ian Lyons 

[Ian Lyons]

Thanks for merging the threads, Rikk. 

[ski_guy]

I'm very sad to see that this problem thread has been running for months with no fix from Adobe. I considered rolling back my Lightroom Classic to v11.5. Since v12 came with a catalog update that would require many hours of work to recreate catalog entries made since the update. 

[fbourdoncle]

Yes, so much so.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Greetings all,

Updates for Adobe Photography products have been released.  The April 2023 updates contain a fix for this issue. 

If you do not see the update in your Creative Cloud Application, you can refresh it by hitting [Ctrl/Cmd]+[Alt/Opt]+[ R ].

Note: It may take up to 24 hours for your update to be available in your Creative Cloud app.

Thank you for your patience.

[fbourdoncle]

Indeed, I can confirm it fixes the issue! 😉

[LISACTV22]

I am currently having this issue also. Sync with LR Classic and LR Mobile and LR Cloud is horrendously slow. Also, LR Classic keeps hanging up with application memory issues, when it is the only program running. I have a new laptop and updated LR app. LR mobile is updated to LR cloud, but it is taking forever to upload to LR classic, because it keeps locking up. 

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

@LISACTV22 please check you're updated to 12.3 that was released yesterday. Help menu > System Info will tell you the installed version number.

[LISACTV22]

Yes! Thank you Victoria! Thanks to your email yesterday, I learned that this was a bug. I had Adobe support in my machine twice and neither of them knew that. They did a bunch of crap and it didn't fix it. 
But now, I am so excited! My LR catalog is syncing, I’m seeing LR mobile pics coming thru, and it’s not locking up! Woohoo!

[ASKproduKtion]

I recently switched from an intel based iMac to new Mac Silicon chips, and have been experiencing an issue where Lightroom eventually crashes Mac OS application memory. As far as I can tell, this occurs when syncing thru a large batch of digital assets from my iPhone after I have been away for a couple weeks shooting, and particularly when the sync involves large 4K/60fps video.

1/ I had been using a 2017 vintage iMac 27" w/ 32 GB of memory for years, and never experienced this issue

2/ I upgraded to a new M1 iMac w/16 GB and started experiencing this issue. The application memory would crash out ~40 GB (16 GB physical + swap + cache etc). I figured the memory was insufficient, and did a return on the M1 iMac because LR is my main use case

3/ I am now running on Mac mini M2 Pro // 32 GB ram // macOS Ventura 13.3.1 LR Classic + CC desktop app have both been updated. I am still getting the same application memory crash as on the M1 iMac when syncing a large batch of assets including heavy video, except it is now crashing at ~90 GB // per attached screenshot

This is disappointing to me because I did not experience this isssue on my old intel iMac that was more than half a decade old, despite syncing similar large batches of assets quite regularly. So I'm guessing this must be a glitch with LR's adaptation to the Silicon architecture. Look forward to seeing this issue addressed. Thank you in advance.

[TheDigitalDog]

Try logging into another Mac user account (you should make a new one); still crashing? 
Try starting up in Safe mode (hold down Shift Key when booting*), still crashing? 
You might want to try running a free utility like Onyx: still crashing? 
https://www.titanium-software.fr/en/onyx.html
Also view:
https://www.macworld.com/article/352902/onyx-review-macos.html
https://www.macworld.com/article/224955/how-to-reset-a-macs-nvram-pram-and-smc.html
From Adobe:
https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/basic-troubleshooting.html

* How to start your M1/M2 Mac in Safe Mode
On your Mac, choose Apple menu () > Shut Down.
After your Mac shuts down, wait 10 seconds.
Press and hold the power button until the startup disks and Options appear.
Press and hold the Shift key, then click Continue in Safe Mode.

Try fixing permissions by running Disk Utility (Disk First Aid) or, again, using Onyx.

Also see: https://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/global/troubleshoot-unexpected-behavior-user-account.html

[Ian Lyons]

I believe you're experiencing the issue/bug discussed in https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-mac-memory-leak-when-syncing-files-with-the-...

It was reported as being fixed in Lrc 12.3, which was relased on 18 April. If you haven't already updated to 12.3, then I recommned you do so.

Note that your post will likely be merged into above thread.

@Rikk Flohr: Photography this thread should be merged with the above linked thread.

[ASKproduKtion]

Thanks, not fluent in German but anyways I did just now update and it now hasn't crashed the memory yet while syncing so fingers crossed 🤞 

[Amaury Descours]

Hello, I'm still experiencing massive memory leak with LRC 12.3 when syncing my +100K photos from Creative Cloud.

When Lightroom Classic consumes 25 GB of memory, my MacBook is very sluggish and a macOS popup asks me to kill apps to save memory.

My config:

• Lightroom 12.3
• Apple MacBook Air M2 8GB RAM / 256GB SSD
• macOS Ventura 13.4

Happy to give more details or running some diags/tests if needed.

Thank you.

[DdeGannes]

@Amaury Descours , 
From the info you have provided your system has the minimum requirements for LrC to function. 
For one the recommended RAM is 16GB.

Your SSD disk 256GB will struggle if you have your Lightroom Catalog and the Previews on that disk.

You should aim to have 20% free disk space available at all times i.e. 50GB for efficient operating.

Better to have your original image files and the LrC Catalog files on an external SSD disk.

[Amaury Descours]

Hi @DdeGannes, thanks for taking time to follow up.

I have more than 90 GB available on my MacBook Air, so no issue of free SSD space here I believe.

I was about to give more details about why I do think I was impacted by a memory leak bug, but the bug has mysteriously disappeared!

And I've done nothing in particular! I've just rebooted my Mac, as I was about to do some additional tests/monitoring, but the syncing has no issue this time. All my 100K photo library in now synced. Very weird.

Anyway, so far, so good.

For info, my typical LRC's memory consumption is around 4 to 5 GB with macOS Activity Monitor. But when I noticed the syncing issue, LRC's memory consumption have gone to 25 GB, and then macOS asks me to kill some apps.

Thanks