# Slow when opening and showing thumbnails



## yorkiemom (Oct 11, 2021)

Gosh why has LR seemed to be getting slower...when I go to a folder it takes forever to load the photos. Is there something in the catalog settings that must be wrong? It used to be way faster.


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## Replytoken (Oct 11, 2021)

There could be many reasons why LR seems to be running slow or slower, from hardware to software.  Are you experiencing this slowness when viewing images in the Library or when loading images in the Development module?  And where are your images located?  Are they on an internal drive or an external drive?  Are are these solid state drives (SSD's) or traditional platter drives?  And are the discs full or do they have some free space?  Answers to these questions will help to rule out a couple of possible bottlenecks.

--Ken


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## yorkiemom (Oct 12, 2021)

Sorry about the delay...I'm getting the slowness when first starting and my photos are loading into the library...or I should say if I go to a folder and I scroll down to look for a particular photo they take forever to show up and see.  They are on an external...and maybe they should be internal.
Its a Seagate Backup Plus Drive with 2 TB...1.31 Free.


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## Philippe Coudé du Foresto (Oct 12, 2021)

> I'm getting the slowness when first starting and my photos are loading into the library...or I should say if I go to a folder and I scroll down to look for a particular photo they take forever to show up and see


In both cases, only the previews are accessed by LR, not the original photos. Where is your catalog (and therefore the previews) stored?


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## yorkiemom (Oct 12, 2021)

My backups are on  a D drive (internal) but my pictures on on the Seagate (F)...should they both be on the same drive?


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## Philippe Coudé du Foresto (Oct 12, 2021)

No, keep your backups and your pictures on a separate drive. My question was about the location of your catalog (the .lrcat file) not the location of your backups and your pictures.


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## Replytoken (Oct 13, 2021)

Philippe Coudé du Foresto said:


> In both cases, only the previews are accessed by LR, not the original photos. Where is your catalog (and therefore the previews) stored?


I am also wondering if @yorkiemom may need to regenerate previews (1:1 or Smart Previews).  I think selecting the images in a folder and regenerating previews would be a simple check to see if that helps or not.

--Ken


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## yorkiemom (Oct 13, 2021)

Sorry my catalog is under C: users/nkeev/One Drive/Pictures/Lightroom


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## clee01l (Oct 13, 2021)

yorkiemom said:


> Sorry my catalog is under C: users/nkeev/One Drive/Pictures/Lightroom



This may explain your problem. One Drive is a cloud based location. Windows will only keep local copies for a short while and downloads a local copy as needed. If Lightroom requests a preview, then OneDrive will download that file from the cloud. If it is not up to date, then Lightroom will regenerate an new preview from the original and the cataloged adjustments. If you store your Previews folder and your original images locally, then your problem might go away.


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## yorkiemom (Oct 14, 2021)

So can I move all of these to another drive and not have a problem when opening LR next time.  And wonder if it would be better on a hard drive or the external


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## clee01l (Oct 14, 2021)

yorkiemom said:


> So can I move all of these to another drive and not have a problem when opening LR next time. And wonder if it would be better on a hard drive or the external
> 
> View attachment 17251



As long as these are not in your local OneDrive folder, they can be moved to another folder on the same local drive. You can really move the Pictures folder and all its sub folders anywhere outside of the cloud syncing folder “OneDrive” and probably see an improvement. The Previews folder needs to be in the same folder as your catalog file.


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## Replytoken (Oct 14, 2021)

Not to complicate matters, but if you are thinking of buying an external drive, I would recommend a solid state drive (SSD) if your machine has USB-3 or USB-C ports that can handle higher transfer rates.  These drives are more expensive, and a bit smaller in size, than platter drives, but their read/write speed gains can be quite noticeable.  Samsung makes very nice external SSD's that have a good reputation.  Something to consider if you are still experiencing slow performance after moving the files out of OneDrive.

--Ken


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## yorkiemom (Oct 14, 2021)

From the attachment it looks like the files are in the One Drive folder.


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## clee01l (Oct 14, 2021)

yorkiemom said:


> From the attachment it looks like the files are in the One Drive folder.



The way Microsoft uses OneDrive is to save space on the local disk by storing the files in the Microsoft Cloud.
“A blue cloud icon next to a OneDrive file or folder indicates that the file is only available online. Online-only files don’t take up space on your computer. You see a cloud icon for each online-only file in File Explorer, but the file doesn’t download to your device until you open it. You can’t open online-only files when your device isn’t connected to the Internet.”


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## yorkiemom (Oct 15, 2021)

Well it is faster now but I moved my catalog and now LR wants me to import...that means import all my photos again?  I don't want to lose anything, all my keywording etc.


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## Johan Elzenga (Oct 15, 2021)

yorkiemom said:


> Well it is faster now but I moved my catalog and now LR wants me to import...that means import all my photos again?  I don't want to lose anything, all my keywording etc.


If Lightroom ‘wants you to import’, then I assume that means you do not see any images in the catalog? That means that Lightroom has not opened your existing catalog, but created a new one. Make Lightroom open the existing catalog by opening the catalog folder and then double-clicking the catalog file. That will launch Lightroom with this catalog and from then onwards Lightroom should remember it.


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## yorkiemom (Oct 16, 2021)

I am so messed up...can't find it. I have one that says July but know that isn't it.. one says October but this is what I get.  Uggg
I don't know if this is right either...might really screw me up.


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## Philippe Coudé du Foresto (Oct 16, 2021)

If you're getting this dialog box, you're closing LR, not opening it. You can't get this message when opening a catalog. 
What steps exactly did you do?


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## yorkiemom (Oct 16, 2021)

I'm going to my C drive where I think this is my latest catalog (according to the Date). My LR is closed at that time. The above is what I get when I double click on the catalog. It keeps telling me to import.


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## yorkiemom (Oct 16, 2021)

When I click on the catalog it still wants me to import. And that is my latest because it's dated october.


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## Jim Wilde (Oct 16, 2021)

With a catalog size of only 1.58 MB it's very likely that it's a newly created empty catalog.

On one of your earlier screenshots, there were TWO catalogs listed with the same 7/9/2021 modification date. The one called simply "Lightroom Catalog.lrcat", which is the one you are trying to use, is probably a new empty catalog. The other, called Lightroom Catalog-v10.lrcat, is an older catalog which was created when you last updated LrC from (presumably) version 9, and is likely the one you should be trying to use.


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## yorkiemom (Oct 16, 2021)

It still isn't working and both folders don't have a big amount in them for size.  Now I'm getting that LR wants to upgrade my catalog but I don't want to do that because then I'm stuck probably with nothing. It'll copy my current catalog and I don't even know what that is anymore.


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## yorkiemom (Oct 17, 2021)

I found this but not sure if this is it...it says the size is 100,000+ while the other two only about 1000 in the size.


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## Philippe Coudé du Foresto (Oct 17, 2021)

The date and the size let think this is your current  active catalog.


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## yorkiemom (Oct 17, 2021)

I guess I have nothing to lose since I'm getting nothing on the others.

Well now that I try it cannot use it because it is not writable and cannot be opened.





Now I'm stuck because I have no clue where my catalog is...have gone thru them and I have lots of keywords I will lose.


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## yorkiemom (Oct 11, 2021)

Gosh why has LR seemed to be getting slower...when I go to a folder it takes forever to load the photos. Is there something in the catalog settings that must be wrong? It used to be way faster.


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## yorkiemom (Oct 17, 2021)

I just noticed that the catalog is backup up when I do a backup but when I look in the folder the catalog is there but it is zipped (see above thread). How do I get the catalog to work.


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## Jim Wilde (Oct 17, 2021)

You need to unzip it. Look at your last but one screenshot, the File Explorer listing showing the zipped catalog backup....on the ribbon toolbar above the entry is a big "Extract All" button. Click on that and it will offer to extract the contents into the same folder. When that's done you should then be able to open the unzipped catalog in LrC.


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## yorkiemom (Oct 17, 2021)

It worked and thanks.   But, there are a lot of question marks so I guess I need to find those folders which I did. When I tell it to go find the folder and I find it on my drive, they then show up...but not in the folder where they should be and I have no clue where they are. The folder seems to disappear when I get the pictures back.


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## yorkiemom (Oct 17, 2021)

yorkiemom said:


> It worked and thanks.   But, there are a lot of question marks so I guess I need to find those folders which I did. When I tell it to go find the folder and I find it on my drive, they then show up...but not in the folder where they should be and I have no clue where they are. The folder seems to disappear when I get the pictures back.


Actually now I see something...it's showing all my folders on D (but they are actually on F.  So when I go to find the folder in F it's bringing them back down below under the F drive. How do I get them all on F...some are on D it seems and the ones I have to find are showing in a new folder F.


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## yorkiemom (Oct 18, 2021)

How do I change the location of where it looks for my photos...I thought there was a path in preferences but don't see it. I did something and all my photos are now under one folder and they all come up with question marks. I don't want that but I can't find where to tell it the right path which is on my F drive under My Pictures.


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## Johan Elzenga (Oct 18, 2021)

Lightroom thinks my photos are missing—how do I fix it? | The Lightroom Queen


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## yorkiemom (Oct 18, 2021)

That helped thanks...I had to go and reconnect to the proper drive. But they still aren't all in under F.

The 2020 folder is up under D when it should be under F (as shown in my explorer).
My 2021 folders are the ones listed under 2019 but it won't let me make a new folder called 2021 so I can maybe move them. Is there a way to do this easily because I didn't see it in the instructions.

If I go to import a photo from my desktop, on the left when it opens 2021 is showing. I can't figure out what. That's probably why I can't make a new folder.


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## yorkiemom (Oct 18, 2021)

I think I fixed the 2021 problem...now I need to figure out how to get the 2020 photos where they are supposed to be.


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## Johan Elzenga (Oct 18, 2021)

yorkiemom said:


> I think I fixed the 2021 problem...now I need to figure out how to get the 2020 photos where they are supposed to be.


In the Lightroom folder panel, drag and drop those folders were they are supposed to be.


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## yorkiemom (Oct 19, 2021)

Well all okay but my 2021 folder is weird...I had to reconnect all my folders and after I did all the folders under 2021 aren't really under that date. They are there below but I can't move to the 2021 folder for some reason.  I tried but can't copy them into that year or move.


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## Johan Elzenga (Oct 19, 2021)

So where are they in reality on your hard drive? Same as this?


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## yorkiemom (Oct 20, 2021)

The are on  F Drive (seagate). They were previously on the D drive. I deleted them because they were moved to F. That is probably why I'm having the problem. Do I have to import all those photos into LR again?


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## Johan Elzenga (Oct 20, 2021)

yorkiemom said:


> The are on  F Drive (seagate). They were previously on the D drive. I deleted them because they were moved to F. That is probably why I'm having the problem. Do I have to import all those photos into LR again?


No, *do not import again*!!! What I meant is: are these folders really outside of the 2021 folder, or are you saying that Lightroom shows you something that does not correspond with what you see on the drive when you look at the drive in Explorer? If what Lightroom shows you matches with what Explorer shows you, then all you need to do is drag and drop the folders into the '2021' folder in the Lightroom folder panel. If you can't do that for some reason, then describe what happens when you try.


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## yorkiemom (Oct 20, 2021)

I got it to work!! Not sure why it wasn't but I got them all moved into 2021.  You don't know how much I appreciate all the help. Not sure what went wrong...might have started at the beginning of the thread when I tried to do what someone suggested...and it just got worse from there. I don't usually have any problems. But again, thanks so much for the help and the information.


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## Johan Elzenga (Oct 20, 2021)

Good to hear!


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## yorkiemom (Oct 21, 2021)

And again, thank you so much!


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