# Lightroom 2015.3 sluggish performance



## dkperez (Dec 18, 2015)

I put this in the Adobe Lightroom forum, but I figure it can't hurt to see if some other knowledgeable folks have a remedy...

I"m NOT saying .3 is worse than  previous versions, as they weren't exactly blindingly fast, but I've  been doing more work recently (MN in winter leaves a lot of time for  playing inside) and I'm noticing more and more that there are areas in  Lightroom where I see sluggish performance.



My  system is an ASUS X99 Deluxe, with a 5820K running at 4.4GHz, 32GB of  2400MHz Ballistix memory, EVGA 970 GTX graphics board, 1TB 840 EVO SSD  for O/S applications, LR catalogs, cache and so on.  Images are on a 2  disk 7200 rpm RAID0 array and a Wacom Intuous 4 tablet.  Windows 10  Professional.


*I've unplugged the tablet.*

ALL  the disks go through weekly optimization (including the SSD) and show  0% fragmentation.  Windows 10 is a new 1511 installation installed from  SCRATCH after the 1511 upgrade totally bollixed the operating system.
I THOUGHT some of the problem MIGHT be the wireless trackball so *I plugged in a wired trackball.*

I re-installed Lightroom 2015.3 with the new Windows installation.
I have a monitor running that provides information on temps in each core and the percentage busy. 

Images are moderately large - Nikon D810 shooting full FX.

A typical folder contains 800-900 images, so there aren't a lot of images in any one folder.


In  Grid, for example, using the mouse wheel induces a lag.  It's SOMETHING  LIKE roll the wheel, wait, roll, images jump, roll and images move  normally, roll, lag, roll, images move part of the distance they  should.  Even using the  right scroll bar to scroll all the way up or down it'll jump, jump,  jump, lag, jump, lag, jump...  Again, not consistent, but there are  periodic points where it'll lag.

Update:  I'm currently using LR, and if I roll the mouse wheel, there's a very definitely pause, then it jumps to where it would have scrolled to, and if I continue rolling the wheel it then scrolls "normally".  If I STOP rolling the wheel for a second or two, then roll it, it AGAIN sits for a very perceptible amount of time, then jumps...  Repeat......


On  imports, it IMPORTS quickly, but generating standard previews is "slow".   On a RE-install of 710 .dng images, using ADD so there no movement  or conversion, and monitoring performance, the CPU ranges between 40 and  55% busy, memory is just over 4GB, and disk activity between 15 and 22  MB/s - virtually all READS on the RAID 0 array, and all writes to the  SSD, which causes barely a blip on the display.  Import time is  approximately a minute, but time to create STANDARD previews is over  ELEVEN MINUTES.  *I think this is slower than creating previews in LR5.  I've thought so since the first time I ran V6 - that there was a significant slowdown in preview creation.*



Pressing ctrl/A to select all the images in the folder results in a very perceptible delay before the images are selected.



Needless to say, operations in develop like adjustment brushes and other local adjustments likewise show lags, but given that's an issue I've seen complained about for a very long time I'm not expecting a solution from Adobe any time soon.



All  the above is anecdotal, but typical of what I'm seeing on a daily  basis.  In another topic I found an entry indicating that *the Wacom  tablet should be unplugged.  Mine IS UNPLUGGED.*

*And to "trash" the preferences.  Mine have been and been recreated. *

And  yet another indicated that the problem MAY be because the work being  done in LR has exceeded the technology's ability to keep up.  Since this  system never gets anywhere near full CPU usage, memory usage, or disk  read or write maximums, I presume LR isn't exceeding the system's  capabilities.  This ISN'T 100% images, or even large previews in  loupe view, it's THUMBNAILS...  If this is a "stressing the hardware"  issue, WHAT are people running that does perform a basic task like  scrolling through a folder of *thumbnails *without lagging?


My  current images, at 36 megapixels are large, but not significantly larger  than the 24 megapixel images commonly created, and are quite a bit  smaller than the 50 megapixel images Canon is currently creating, so I'd  hope performance issues aren't still being blamed on image sizes. 
Does  anyone have ideas for tuning either Lightroom or the system to get rid  of (or at least significantly improve) the sluggishness I'm seeing? 


And folks, much as I love reading replies telling me "I'm not having that problem" - if you don't have a reasonable suggestion or an actual solution, it doesn't help.  I'm sure there are a MILLION people "not having the problem."  I need to know what I need to change in Lightroom (or Windows 10 if it can be demonstrated that the problem is in Windows) *so I don't have the problem.
*


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## Rob_Cullen (Dec 19, 2015)

Some Suggestions summarized-

Update drivers for graphics card from GPU maker.
Update drivers for wacom tablets.
Disconnect mobile phones from usb.
Ensure sufficient space on working drive.
Folder permissions must allow “read & write” on working folders
Turn off face recognition.
Turn off Sync to Mobile.

Preferences options-
Delete the preferences file (or reset when starting lightroom   shft+opt/alt )
Uncheck “use graphic processor”
(Uncheck “show ‘add photos’ screen” LR6.2 only)
Turn off ‘automatically write to .xmp’
Increase cache size.


Un-install all adobe programs and use Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool, then re-install-  in order-  photoshop, lightroom


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## Jimmsp (Dec 19, 2015)

You have a much faster system than I have, and my raw files are smaller, so my observations are relative, and my suggestion is based on other experience.
I see a slowdown in my library when I scroll when I have many photos showing (ie 10 across) and no slowdown when they are larger and fewer; and it is generally just the first time through the folder. I have written that off to LR acquiring the photos off my HDs. 
If I were you, I'd import my new photos onto the SSD and work with them there. When I was done, I'd move them via LR to the HDs.


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## dkperez (Dec 22, 2015)

Jimmsp said:


> You have a much faster system than I have, and my raw files are smaller, so my observations are relative, and my suggestion is based on other experience.
> I see a slowdown in my library when I scroll when I have many photos showing (ie 10 across) and no slowdown when they are larger and fewer; and it is generally just the first time through the folder. I have written that off to LR acquiring the photos off my HDs.  If I were you, I'd import my new photos onto the SSD and work with them there. When I was done, I'd move them via LR to the HDs.



My preview grid is typically 5 - 6 images wide to minimize the poor performance, so even on the 30" monitors I'm not doing a dozen images per line.  As for importing to the SSD, I typically bring all the images I shoot onto the SSD since they often have to be processed in Bridge BEFORE they can be loaded into Lightroom (there's an earlier thread trying to figure out how to make the rename in Lightroom useful).  So, importing is a "problem", but not nearly as big as performance in Lightroom.  Since I've currently got my images on a 2, 2TB, 7200 rpm, RAID0 array, the images aren't going to fit on a partition of the SSD.  And I'm SURE not gonna buy 3 more SSDs to hold the images.  Since I frequently need to view and work on images any time from the past 10-12 years, putting the most recent folder on the SSD isn't gonna be much help either......

BUT, in the Adobe forum they had me do a preview cache test, and the new cache APPEARED to work better.  So, I'm currently rebuilding the preview cache, which is gonna take a WHOLE lot more than the 5 hours it's been running so far.


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## Alan K (Mar 6, 2016)

dkperez-  my machine is not quite as new as yours, but very similar config.  I too have problems with the sluggishness of every aspect of LR 2015.4  It is maddening.  At least I am glad to hear that it is not just me.  I WISH I could find an alternative program to use, since LR is wasting so much of my time these days!?!


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## greazer (Feb 12, 2017)

I'm on LR 2015.8 on a new Microsoft Surface Studio with 16GB RAM, 2TB HD (hybrid SSD/HD actually). I shoot a Nikon D810 at full frame RAWs (7360x4912). The performance of LR has been very similar to what has been described above. But sometimes it's basically unusable. I'm on Grid view and just trying to select multiple files and it lags, and thinks and the cursor "spins". At least one time it didn't come back and trying to stop it in Windows just said that it was unresponsive (yet it kept forcing itself to the foreground). I eventually had to just end it forcibly via Task Manager.

I have the latest drivers.
I have GPU off.
I don't have any tablets attached.
I don't have any mobile phones attached
I have PLENTY of working space on the drive.
Folder permissions are R/W
(I haven't turned off face recognition or sync to mobile. I'll try that soon).

I disabled GPU usage.
I turned off automatically write to XMP
I increased the cache size (though it wasn't maxed out to the 1GB that it was originally set to)

My next step is to export a small subset of the files I want to work with as a separate catalog to see if I still have problems. The main catalog I have is >50,000 pictures. However, on my older I7 machine I didn't have THIS much trouble with the same catalog. My small export will only have about 800 photos.

I don't know if anybody can actually help. I suspect there is a performance problem in LR perhaps dealing with large file sizes, or a problem dealing with 4K displays (which the Surface Studio has). Or maybe it's a driver issue that'll eventually get fixed. In any event I wanted to report it here so that perhaps others will find it and pile on with more complaints.


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## greazer (Feb 12, 2017)

FWIW, using a catalog with 800 images (from a completely different folder from the original set) doesn't seem to improve performance. Something I can reproduce EVERY time.

1) Grid mode.
2) click a file to select it.
3) Ctrl-click a second file to also select it.
temporary hang -- about 5 or 6 seconds!
4) Finally the second photo selects.
After that, more ctrl-clicking works as expected.

This has to be a bug in LR.

THIS JUST IN! In Task Manager when I had to kill it again, I noticed that LR was using 4GB of RAM. That's way too much for what I was doing with a catalog of a measily 800 pictures. I'm just selecting them and deleting some from a collection. No editing, no viewing. Just managing from thumbnails in grid mode after restarting LR.

Furthermore, I disabled the GPU on the Surface Studio itself. Exact same problem. Therefore, this must be a Lightroom bug. Guess it would be better to report it to Adobe.


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## clee01l (Feb 12, 2017)

greazer said:


> This has to be a bug in LR.
> THIS JUST IN! In Task Manager when I had to kill it again, I noticed that LR was using 4GB of RAM....


Not a LR bug.   

You need a quad core CPU or better.  With a large 5K or better display you need the GPU benefits . Disabling the GPU is the wrong choice   If your GPU is supported in LR then it will give you an additional processor for some Develop computations. And it should be enabled to improve develop performance.

I have a D810. Earlier this year I upgraded my 2.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 w/16GB of RAM to the latest 5K 3.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 with 32GB of RAM  I noticed a considerable improvement.  So depending upon your CPU speed and number of cores, you may  benefit for more RAM.   It really makes little sense to thing that LR is consuming too much memory at 4GB.  After all the more memory you have available, the less time your app spends swapping out memory.  

Somethings to consider. Your virus scanner may be the culprit.   The LR catalog, LR previews folder, Smart Previews folder and (after import) your master image files should be excluded from the antivirus operations.   Anytime there is a processes (virus scanner) sitting between the LR app and the files that LR needs, performance will take a hit.  LR is a multi tasking app and can benefit from having up to 6 CPU cores.  Also LR likes lots of free space for working storage.   Are you running LRCC2015.8 or LR6.8?  It should not make a difference in performance but it does help to know when formulating replies to your post.


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## greazer (Feb 12, 2017)

Thanks Cletus, helpful! It's definitely LR 2015.8.

However, the Surface Studio has an quad core CPU and I've tried turning GPU support on and off with no difference in the behavior I'm seeing. I was also actually incorrect in my assertion that I had 16GB of RAM. This machine actually has 32GB. More details: it's a Core i7 skylake processor (6th generation). I have 800GB of free space on my drive. Basically it's a monster and should easily be able to handle my images and catalog. 

As I hinted at, I'm not even doing any editing right now. I'm staying in Library mode and only selecting images to delete from a collection. Very simple.

However, your comments about turning off anti-virus for LR folders is really good. I will give that a shot and keep my fingers crossed.


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## clee01l (Feb 12, 2017)

Your specs are similar to my 5K iMac.  Your performance should be similar if the only differences is attributed to the OS.  I don't run any 3rd party antivirus.  What is built into Apple is sufficient.  Infrequently, I run MalwareBytes and nothing has ever been detected.  Microsoft has worked very hard at reducing their vulnerabilities to malware. Windows 10 has built-in real-time antivirus that may be as adequate as that found on MacOS.  If you are running both Windows Defender and some third party antivirus, you may be doubly impacting performance of other apps like LR.  I would continue to monitor Task Manager to see what processes are consuming your CPU cycles when LR starts to slow down.  You should look for the top consumers of process threads and file handles. I find that my most egregious offenders are 3rd party backup software (CrashPlan) and Dropbox.


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## greazer (Feb 12, 2017)

Well, after adding an exclusion for my photos folder, the catalog folder, NEF, TIFF and lightroom.exe, I have to say that performance is much improved. Thanks Cleetus!

I'm still not convinced there's no bug here. I once again ran into an unresponsive LR after simply ctrl-clicking several thumbnails in LR in grid mode and selecting the keyword edit box, but it's not consistent. I'll have to keep playing with it.


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## greazer (Feb 12, 2017)

Ah, I just saw your response too. I am indeed only running Windows Defender for anti-virus. I also have an online backup service (SOS), so I'll check that too. Thanks again for the hints!!


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