# Lightroom slow down woes . . . again.



## Bob Israel (Jan 11, 2018)

Operating System: OS X (latest)
Exact Lightroom Version (Help menu > System Info):  Lightroom Classic CC (latest update)

I remember recently when LR Classic CC came out, it was all about speed improvements which were very noticeable.  Well, lately on my iMac (i7, late 2015, maxed out on ram), LR Classic has been slow to load/start.  The splash screen remains visible for much longer (30 seconds).  Once lightroom loads, it slowly adds the panels, loads the file folders and the image count in the file structure, blank thumbnails slowly give way to the images.  Once it all loads, using the program seems OK  . . . not great but usable.

I have taken steps to unsynch all images from LR sync, rebooted my iMac.  Short of deleting and resinstalling LR Classic CC, are there any suggestions to get the software to load quickly?  I recently put my second LR Classic CC install on a new 2:1 Windows 10 machine and it loads up so much faster but the iMac has so much more horsepower.

Suggestions welcomed!


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## RikkFlohr (Jan 11, 2018)

Sounds like a bad install (likely from an update).  Have you attempted to uninstall Lightroom Classic CC, reboot and then reinstall via the Creative Cloud App?


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## Bob Israel (Jan 11, 2018)

No, not yet.  I always get nervous doing that.  Probably needless anxiety as every thing is backed up at least twice!  Also, I have so many plugins (Lens Tagger, Luminar, LR Mogrify, LR Instagram, etc.) and also export presets, Photoshop droplets, etc.  Will I have to manually set these up again or will they be recognized by the reinstall?  If the former, that's why I avoid uninstall/reinstall.


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## GES (Jan 11, 2018)

I too have a iMac and all the up to date OS and LR.... 
Though I can't say for sure LR Classic is loading slow... I have noticed slowdowns of various types. I posted in this forum a few weeks ago about slow adjustments in the Develop module ... A total reboot took care of it for sometime but occasionally the slow downs come back... My real headache right now is importing... The other night I started to import just nine images and it took close to 10 min??  I was importing with the sidecar option checked.  When I first started using the new improved Classic on same machine imports were speedy.... I just can't figure out whats changed except updates to both Lightroom and the Mac OS..
I don't really see anyone else complaining about my issue so I'm really perplexed......
I know this does not help you but I have this feel a slowdown has taken place and drives me crazy.. Wanted you to know your not totally alone...


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## GES (Jan 12, 2018)

So I had a little time after my last post and decided to run a few  un-scientific tests… trying to determine if my slow import was Lightroom, Mac, CF card, Lexar Cardreader…etc
I had 29 RAW only images on the two cards in my Canon 5D MarkIV… each file between 65 and 71MB
First I had no imports that were as slow as last night some 9 mins for 9 images…I have no clue about that issue.
My card reader is Lexar SD/CF USB 3.0 and is connected directly into the iMac.
1st Card a 32gb UDMA7 Lexar Professional 1000x CF……… Took 1min 10secs for 29 images
2nd Card….. 32gb Sandisk 45mbs SD …… took 45secs for the same 29 images? This time seems more logical to me.
During import into lightroom library it would draw the first 7 images real fast… then it would pause or hang for sometime before being able to draw all the thumbs…. especially with the 1st CF card..the slowest.. then after the long hang it drew the remainder real fast… So again it would draw the 1st 8 prevues real fast….. hang forever (if felt like) then draw the remainder of previews real fast.
Anyway it tends to show I may have issues with the reader or the cards with such a erratic times?
Does anyone know what an average time might be to load a card as I’ve described? I don’t really have a baseline….. I just know that when I first started with this new Classic version the thumbs were drawing a whole lot faster…I think Im just more confused now… Lightroom or equipment?


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## Jim Wilde (Jan 12, 2018)

GES said:


> During import into lightroom library it would draw the first 7 images real fast… then it would pause or hang for sometime before being able to draw all the thumbs…. especially with the 1st CF card..the slowest.. then after the long hang it drew the remainder real fast… So again it would draw the 1st 8 prevues real fast….. hang forever (if felt like) then draw the remainder of previews real fast.
> Anyway it tends to show I may have issues with the reader or the cards with such a erratic times?
> Does anyone know what an average time might be to load a card as I’ve described? I don’t really have a baseline….. I just know that when I first started with this new Classic version the thumbs were drawing a whole lot faster…I think Im just more confused now… Lightroom or equipment?



Part of that is certainly Lightroom (assuming you are running 7.1). A change was made in that release which causes imports to be done in larger "batches", the progression usually starts at 3, then goes +5,+20,+50,+100,+100,+200. The result of this is the appearance of the import "stalling", when in fact it isn't. We've pointed this out to Adobe, who are reviewing the new process to see if it can be made more user-friendly. Just to be clear, though, it shouldn't make much difference to the overall import time....it just seems longer!

There's also a bug of sorts which DOES make imports longer, but is more noticeable under win10 than OSX (though I've only tested this on 10.11.6), and applies when doing a copy import and the destination drive is non-SSD....in those circumstances the import times are much slower than Classic 7.0.1 and LR6.x. Hopefully that'll be fixed soon, in the meantime I'm making sure that I import to SSD.


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## Bob Israel (Jan 19, 2018)

RikkFlohr said:


> Sounds like a bad install (likely from an update).  Have you attempted to uninstall Lightroom Classic CC, reboot and then reinstall via the Creative Cloud App?



So if I uninstall and resinstall, do I need to reinstall my plugins, export presets, etc., or will lightroom recognize they are there?  LR is getting slower and slower and keeps crashing.  The situation is getting critical.


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