# Lightroom is VERY Slow- and not in the usual ways.



## dmschmidt

Hello

I'm ready to pull my hair out.  For more than a year now my Lightroom program/catalog has been slow to the point where it might as well be going in reverse.  I'm honestly at my wit's end.

This problem started over a year ago and it has progressively gotten worse.  I have gone online and done all of the things that are suggested to speed up your processing.  Nothing works.

I used to have a pretty old computer and just assumed that was most of the issue, but recently I got a completely new system and it has not made a difference.

The catalog is kept on a second internal drive.  It is 6TB in size and has free space of 1.35TB.  The C drive (465GB) has 183GB free.
I'm running 32GB RAM, an Intel Core i-5-8400 CPU @ 2.80GHz   64 bit operating system
I don't think any of this is the issue.

I suspect the drive it is running off may be defective somehow so it will be replaced in the next week.

As I said I have done all of the things that I have read online to fix these issues (I will list below).  NOTHING has worked.

Due to Adobe no longer offering RAW updates I have gone from LR Classic to CC.  The problem predated this switch over.

I am shooting with two Sony cameras and am producing 85MB RAW files, uncompressed.  The problem predated these two cameras and was happening when I was shooting 25MB RAW files.

My catalog is roughly 144,000 images with a total size of 3.23TB (on a 6TB drive with 1.35TB free space).

The only suggestion I haven't tried is splitting up the catalog.  I didn't put much thought into this as I have heard there are people out there with catalogs containing more than a million images, with the catalogs not suffering the problems my workflow does.

So, here is what happens.

Editing on slider bars- make an adjustment and sometimes it takes 5-10 seconds to take effect.  Or, make several adjustments and nothing happens for a few seconds and then everything happens at once.  I have moved an exposure slider and seen no apparent effect and thinking my mouse isn't positioned properly have done it again.  Then in frustration moved it wildly back and forth with nothing happening.  Then all of a sudden, 3 or 4 seconds later all of the adjustments happen at once.

I will mark for deletion 75 photos.  Will delete selected photos and I might as well go make a coffee for the amount of time it will take.

But the worst slow down issue is this:  The program will constantly "wig out" on me.  I will select one image in the library module.  Over the next 5 or so seconds I will see the bar on the right side of the panel move up and down a little bit, and then the image will be selected.  If I try to select multiple images, this process may take more than a minute as that bar moves up and down until finally it has selected all of the images I have chosen (and at this time most of the field info says "mixed").
During this time, several things happen.  The program freezes up.  At the top of the program it says (not responding).  Lightroom will even disappear and suddenly I am in whatever program was running in the background (windows mail, Chrome, etc.)  I was just trying to select 9 images to produce an HDR shot and it just kept going back and forth to Lightroom (not responding) (responding Windows Mail, back to Lightroom, not responding, windows mail... I am contsantly getting the blue spinning circle status indicator when trying to do the simplest thing.

It's a problem that seems to be cumulative.  The longer I use Lightroom the worse it gets to the point where I shut it down, reboot the program and it's good again for a little while.

Yesterday I did multiple HDR stackings with NO issues.  Today I try to do one and the program has a meltdown and isn't capable.  I shut it down and reboot it and it selects the 9 images and opens the plugin no problem.

During this HDR assembly my CPU was at 7% and Memory at 47%.

Honestly, I can't take this anymore.  It takes me HOURS to edit images that should take me a lot less time.

Has anyone else had these issues?  Can anyone offer a solution???

If more info is needed from me please let me know what you might need to know to help.

Thank you in advance.

Michael


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## Laura Smith

Here are a few things you might like to try, if you haven't already:

Create a new, temporary test catalog (back up your main one first in case you make any mistakes!). Import perhaps 100 images into it. Play with it, do the things that normally fail and see what happens.
Try that temporary catalog on the big disk. Then try it on the C drive (copy the actual photos to the C drive too, and make sure the temporary catalog is using those versions).
Try disabling any plugins.
Try generating Smart Previews and select edit with Smart Previews in preferences.
Maybe the results of some of those tests might point to the source of the problem. It should hopefully identify if it's something specific to your catalog or general to your Lr/computer set up.


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## dmschmidt

Hi Laura

Thanks for your suggestions.  I will give it a try.  Are you then suggesting that the number of images in the catalog could be the issue?   Is this a proven issue with LR; that catalogs with large numbers of images cause slow downs such as these?


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## davidedric

No, not at all.  Your catalogue isn't even considered big by Lightroom standards.  I think the idea is just to have a safe sandpit.
Dave


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## Jim Wilde

dmschmidt said:


> My catalog is roughly 144,000 images with a total size of 3.23TB (on a 6TB drive with 1.35TB free space).



I'm curious about this line from your posts.  I'm assuming that you mean that your image library has a size of 3.23TB, NOT the catalog? How big is the actual catalog file (just the .lrcat file, not including anything else)?


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## Gnits

dmschmidt said:


> I am shooting with two Sony cameras and am producing 85MB RAW files, uncompressed. The problem predated these two cameras and was happening when I was shooting 25MB RAW files.



I have a custom built PC, optimised for Lr and PS.  It is now quite ancient in computer terms but I have been amazed for several years now that I have been under no pressure to upgrade.  However, I have found that using Sony a7r3 42Mb raw files has tipped the balance. For the first time ever I notice a significant delay in many processes.  This is specific to the A7R3 files.  I am not saving files as uncompressed, so I am processing 40MB rather than 80MB files.

If I was in your situation I would be tempted to:
a. Delete the Lr History
b. Create a new test catalog on a fast disk and import your existing catalog into the new test catalog.  This might have the effect of cleaning out rubbish and orphaned indices within the catalog. I did this a few years ago and saw an improvement. No need to move your images.


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## Laura Smith

davidedric said:


> No, not at all.  Your catalogue isn't even considered big by Lightroom standards.  I think the idea is just to have a safe sandpit.
> Dave


Yep, exactly what I meant but didn't say


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## dmschmidt

Jim Wilde said:


> I'm curious about this line from your posts.  I'm assuming that you mean that your image library has a size of 3.23TB, NOT the catalog? How big is the actual catalog file (just the .lrcat file, not including anything else)?


About 3.5Gig


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## dmschmidt

Hi Guys.  Thanks for the suggestions.  I think I might have figured out the problem.  I will try to explain it, as I still need a little help.

I have two places where I store edited images- my LR Catalog, and then I have a folder that I call Lightroom in Progress where I keep everything I have been working on.
To make a long story short, I haven't really used the first location very much lately, and have been in Lightroom in Progress almost exclusively the past year or so.  
Somehow I ended up making a second catlogue for the Lightroom in progress, thinking it was just part of the first catalog.  It wasn't.

So, I have been spending several hours cleaning up my catalogs) today, moving folders around in Lightroom so everything is nested the way it should be.

In my early days of using Lightroom I had a bit of a clusterf*** one day and it scared me enough that I don't move things around there too much anymore.  So, making catalogs and splitting them, etc is not something I'm horribly versed in.  Most of the time the thought of losing catalogs scares the crap out of me enough that I don't want to play around with it.
But, clearly I've screwed something up somewhere and I need to fix it now.
The slowness issue I am having with the Lightroom in Progress catalog doesn't happen in my old catalog, so I think this is the issue.

So...

I have in Lightroom moved folders from Lightroom in Progress to the old Lightroom folder, and essentially emptied Lightroom in progress.  Now everything is in one parent folder, and I would like to create a new catalog based on the combined images of the two previous catalogs.  does that make sense?

Old Catalog Parent folder and subfolders  + Lightroom in Progress folders=  2018 Catalog Folder

So, am I right in assuming that I just click on the parent folder where all of the images are located (everything seems to be alright in the folders- the images are displayed properly as far as the edits being present), click file: Export as Catalog?? 
And the previous two catalogs- I can delete all of the backups and that point, yes? And the actual catalogs themselves- how do I delete those?

Thank you

Michael


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## dmschmidt

Crap.  Urgh...  I'm not 100% sure what's going on.  I think what I've written above is accurate, but I've just noticed something.

Last fall I tried updating to a newer version of Lightroom, and essentially my computer crashed.  Hard.  The end result was me being on the phone for 10 hours with Adobe trying to install a newer version of Lightroom but in the end not being able because of my computer issues.  
Whether it happened then, or whether it happened after I had the new computer built and called Adobe again and finally installed the program, on Oct. 17 a new catalog was created.  
When I go to where my catalogs are stored, I see 2 catalogs:  

MSPixcatalog.lrcat  (size 2.86 gig)  Created Oct20/2017   Mod. Feb 19
and 
MSPixcatalog-2  (size 1.48 gig) created Feb 19  mod. today

I think the above denotes when I was forced to start using Lightroom CC vesrus stand alone.

But as my slowness problem has been going on since before my new computer was built I'm not sure that having two different catalogs is the issue.  All I know if that based on what I said above (the old master folder) it doesn't have the slowness issues that the Lightroom in Progress folder seems to have.,


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## dmschmidt

I needed to adjust the above post, but I guess there's a time limit and I can't find a way to delete the above post.  Sorry for the double post.

Crap.  Urgh...  I'm not 100% sure what's going on.  I think what I've written above is accurate, but I've just noticed something.

Last fall I tried updating to a newer version of Lightroom, and essentially my computer crashed.  Hard.  The end result was me being on the phone for 10 hours with Adobe trying to install a newer version of Lightroom but in the end not being able because of my computer issues. 
Whether it happened then, or whether it happened after I had the new computer built and called Adobe again and finally installed the program, on Oct. 17 a new catalog was created. 
When I go to where my catalogs are stored, I see 2 catalogs: 

MSPixcatalog.lrcat  (size 2.86 gig)  Created Oct20/2017   Mod. Feb 19
and
MSPixcatalog-2  (size 1.48 gig) created Feb 19  mod. today

I think the above denotes when I was forced to start using Lightroom CC vesrus stand alone.

But as my slowness problem has been going on since before my new computer was built I'm not sure that having two different catalogs is the issue.  All I know if that based on what I said above (the old master folder) it doesn't have the slowness issues that the Lightroom in Progress folder seems to have.,

So currently I am operating out of Lightroom Catalog MSPix-2.  Even if combining this two folders doesn't solve my slowness issue (crossing fingers) I still thought they were in the same parent folder.  They weren't.  Now they are.

When I open lightroom, I just open it.  I don't change catalogs.  
So, why is my MSPix catalog 2x the size of the MSPix-2 catalog?  Is it based on the number of backups I'm keeping?
That can't be it though, as the backups are all being kept in the same folder, and aren't part of the lrcat file, correct?
The pre CC catalog (MSPix)  is 2x the size of the MSPix-2 (CC) catalog.
Should that be??

Assuming the change to CC happened properly (I haven't looked at all 100k of the photos, but the ones I have randomly checked seem to be fine) and the catalog I am using now is MSPix-2, after moving images from the LR in Progress folder to a master folder with the other images (all part of catalog MSPix 2) I don't have to create anything, right?  Just back it up?  And after that, can I delete the catalog MSPix?

God this is confusing....


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## Victoria Bampton

The MSPixcatalog-2 is the Lightroom Classic catalog you're currently using. The one without the -2 is probably a Lightroom 6 catalog. 

The smaller size is fine, that's just because they're compressing some data in LR Classic now, which they weren't in Lightroom 6.  

Personally I'd zip up the one without the -2 and move it to your backups, rather than deleting it outright. 

You mentioned another catalog for Lightroom In Progress - is that actually another catalog, or just another folder of photos? Can you see all of the photos in Lightroom in one go, or do you have to open a different Lightroom catalog?


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