# Smugmug plugin taking forever to update a gallery



## dianemiller (Feb 27, 2022)

Don't know if this is the place to ask, but when I update a gallery on my Smugmug websiste, it takes forever.  It used to take a couple of minutes but since I did the update it popped up with a few days ago, it takes 10x what it used to, and often quits in the middle.  It's updating images that were published previously!   It is writing frantically to the Drobo the whole time.  (Drobo 5C, USB connection.)  LR catalog is on the laptop HD.  

It may be related -- when I edit a PS file from the LR filmstrip, reading the metadata takes a long time (longer than it did before the new computer) even after the Drobo is awake.


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## dianemiller (Feb 27, 2022)

I found the answer here:
https://community.adobe.com/t5/ligh...lection-stalls/idi-p/12749232/page/3#comments

It's a bug in Lr 11.2.  Adobe is working on a fix.  In the meantime I'll roll back to 11.1.


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## dianemiller (Feb 28, 2022)

Well, I reverted to 11.1 and now when I go to each Smugmug gallery and look at Grid View, it starts moving ALL the pictures up to Modified Photos to Re-Publish and the Drobo starts writing constantly, just as it did with v 11.2.  Very frustrated!!!


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## Victoria Bampton (Feb 28, 2022)

Eugh that does sound like a pain. If you don't think they need republishing, you should just be able to right-click on them and "Mark as Up to Date"


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## dianemiller (Feb 28, 2022)

On a Mac, Ctrl-click gives a dropdown menu, but no choice to mark as up to date.   I think this started with the latest Smugmug plugin update a few days ago.  Any way to back out of that?  No help so far from their forum.  I'll try resetting the LR pref's.


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## Victoria Bampton (Feb 28, 2022)

It is the photos you're Ctrl-clicking on? Its availability varies depending on the plug-in, and I don't have the SmugMug one to check. There is a known issue with Publish Services in general, as you found in the thread linked above, but it's certainly possible that there's another issue with the plug-in update too. I see you've got some other people troubleshooting on the bug thread too.

So just so I get a feel for the timescales involved here, when did you change to the new computer? And when did you update to 11.2, as that's been out a few weeks now? You mentioned in your bug posts that you've been hitting bugs for 6 weeks, what kind of bugs? Oh and one more... do you have automatically write to xmp enabled in catalog settings? I'm wondering why your Drobo is updating so much.


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## dianemiller (Feb 28, 2022)

No, I was clicking on a "gallery" in Smugmug, down in the Publish Services section on the left.  Every so often when I go to drop a picture from a LR filmstrip into a gallery, Smugmug comes up and says there is a new version of the plugin.  It only takes only a few seconds and it comes right back up ready to use, so I did it and I THINK that's when all the disk writing started.  (The photos are stored on a Drobo.)

History:  My Mac Pro desktop got too old and I got a new 16" MacBook Pro M1 Pro in late December, and it came with Monterey.  I expected speed bumps, and a lot of it was just finding where they had hidden or changed things.   Misc issued noted below.

Updated PS and LR as soon as I got the computer set up, and have done newer updates as they came out.

Updated the OS to 12.2.1 several days ago (after doing a clone) and no immediate difference in issues.  Had updated to the newest Lr a few days before that, but now rolled back to 11.1.   Today I will kill Pref's and redo.  Some people say that fixed the writing issue.  (I kept them when I did the rollback.)

I'm not sure but I think the problem with constant writing in updating published galleries from LR started a few days ago when I downloaded the newest Smugmug plugin.  

I downloaded the new LRTimelapse and they say to do 2 things:
In Pref's > Presets, they said to UNcheck "Store Presets with this Catalog"
In Catalog Settings > Metadata, they said to UN check Automatically Write Changes into XMP."
These may be a problem for general use???  I have UNDONE them but it hasn't changed to constant writing to the Drobo.


Numerous and probably unrelated issues with the new OS, each of which took a LONG time to figure out:

I have a 27" NEC monitor cpnnected with an HTML cable, to save a USB-C port. Configuring it to mirror was a challenge and sometimes it drops off.   Can't calibrate without a display port cable but should be able to do so soon with an OS fix.

Pictures files are on a Drobo 5C and it has always been hard to start. Have just ordered another PSU, in hopes to fix that issue.  It won't mount when the computer reboots -- I don't even know if it should!  So it is a continuous hassle.  Sometimes the Drobo unmounts for no obvious reason -- that's new with the new computer.

Had to completely redo 2 8T ChronoSync backup disks of image files, due to the new OS.  Each took over 2 days, then 2 4T drives of data files.  (They are on iCloud but I want a physical backup. also.)

Had to figure out how to boot in safe mode with the new OS, to do a clone (SuperDuper!) then found out safe mode wasn't needed if it worked without it.

PS palettes won't stay put.  Finally found to "lock" them but they came unlocked again somehow.  Difference in res between laptop and NEC monitor may be an issue??

Nik and Topaz filters were buggy.  Or maybe just Nik?  Too busy to keep track of it -- seem to be working now.

WiFi won't stay on the preferred network -- the one the printer is on.

But all this isn't related to the current problem.  Thanks for any information on the LR issue!


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## dianemiller (Mar 1, 2022)

I deleted the Presets file, com.adobe.LightroomClassicCC7.plist, and put it in a folder on the desktop, just in case.  Restarted the computer and still had the same constant Drobo activity.  But maybe I should have put it in the trash and emptied it?  Will do that today and try using LR again.  If the same problem, I'll try booting in safe mode and see what happens.


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## dianemiller (Mar 3, 2022)

Nothing has fixed the problem for me.  In Safe Mode (Mac OS 12.2.1) the computer can't properly access the Drobo -- it is mounted but shows as a generic yellow drive.  I started LR and there was no activity on the Drobo, but I'm not sure if that means much.  Bacl to normal mode and the constant writing starts again immediately, and stops when I quit LR.

Is there any clue when the LR bug fix will be released?  As it is, I can't use LR.  Rolling back to 11.1 didn't help!


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## Victoria Bampton (Mar 9, 2022)

Sorry I missed your replies Diane. 



dianemiller said:


> In Catalog Settings > Metadata, they said to UN check Automatically Write Changes into XMP."


Hmmmm, that kills my theory then. If it was on, that could explain the writing.



dianemiller said:


> Is there any clue when the LR bug fix will be released?


Releases are usually every 2 months (ish) and the last one was 7 Feb. 

Drobo seems to figure in this a lot. How's Lightroom performance when the Drobo isn't connected?

You may have already answered this, but is the catalog on the internal drive or on the Drobo?


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## dianemiller (Mar 9, 2022)

Thanks, Victoria!  With the Drobo disconnected, I imported a shoot to the Mac HD (by then I had stepped back to 11.1) and things worked well, but all the pictures that I had published were on the Drobo and I didn't want to hassle with trying  to make a new gallery and seeing if I could publish from the HD, but I assume I would have been able to do so.

The catalog is on the MacHD.  If I were using that SSD for all the published images I wouldn't have seen the constant activity except in a slowdown.  But it was so obvious with the Drobo's clunking and flashing activity light.

I *thought* (incorrectly, it seems) that everything was finally working, though, thanks to your advice to set the images to Mark as up to date.  I could go to each gallery (60!) and select all the ones in the top section in Grid view that were waiting to be published and mark them.  After I got all that done there was a little more access activity but it stopped in a few minutes and all seemed OK for a few days.   But today I went to a gallery and saw about 20 out of 90 marked as Modified to be published.  I hit "Publish" and that started the Drobo activity and the Updating progress bar started moving -- very slowly but it did finish in a few minutes.  Then I went to another gallery and it showed one as modified and waiting to be published -- THEN others started moving up into that section.  It took several seconds for each to move.  That is a gallery where I had marked those pictures as up-to-date.  But not all moved -- it was 30 out of 49.     I hit Publish and some meved to the Published section but it stopped with 10 remaining to be published.  I hit Publish again and it did the rest.  SO -- PROBLEM NOT FIXED!   I'll re-publish several galleries and see if it sticks.  I've heard complaints about publishing stalling, but not sure what versions of LR.

A side thought....  I drag pictures directly from the LR filmstrip to the various galleries, and they are a mix of a few raw files and mostly  .psd, and the latter are often big files with many layers.   *Is LR having to make JPEGs in the publish step?*  I never though about that but it could explain some of the time it takes to publish!


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## johnrellis (Mar 9, 2022)

dianemiller said:


> today I went to a gallery and saw about 20 out of 90 marked as Modified to be published. I hit "Publish" and that started the Drobo activity and the Updating progress bar started moving -- very slowly but it did finish in a few minutes. Then I went to another gallery and it showed one as modified and waiting to be published -- THEN others started moving up into that section. It took several seconds for each to move. That is a gallery where I had marked those pictures as up-to-date. But not all moved -- it was 30 out of 49. I hit Publish and some meved to the Published section but it stopped with 10 remaining to be published. I hit Publish again and it did the rest.


 There's a long thread about this with many people experiencing these symptoms:
https://community.adobe.com/t5/ligh...otos-to-re-publish-for-no-reason/m-p/12690169 

I'm very skeptical that Adobe will address the underlying issue, and the only workaround is to republish (in 11.1, not 11.2).

At least some of the issue is demonstrably caused by the change in masking tools between LR 10 and 11. Even though the process version didn't change, and LR 10-edited photos maintain their exact appearance in LR 11, the internal representation of the masking settings did change, and Adobe believes it is thus  correct to trigger a republish. I disagree, since the very definition of "process version" is a promise to the user that the appearance of their photos will always render the same, but I don't think they'll change their mind. (As a practical matter it may be difficult for the programmer to implement the proper triggering condition, but that's a separate issue.)

A related problem is that Mark Up-To-Date doesn't work, as it did in the past with similar upgrade issues.  Unfortunately, I haven't found a way to reproduce easily the problem with Mark Up-To-Date, and without that, Adobe is reluctant to take a look.  They could take a copy of any of our catalogs to reproduce the problem, but apparently it's not high enough priority.


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## dianemiller (Mar 9, 2022)

Thanks, John -- sounds like I just have to let each gallery thrash through the re-publish procedure.  (A good time to weed some out.)


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## Woodbutcher (Mar 9, 2022)

I've had the republish issue for several releases.  The issue with going to a published gallery (smugmug for me) and it just will start moving images from the published state to modified and needing republishing.  These are galleries where I don't edit old images.  I just figured it was related to them being on an external drive that isn't always connected.  I have smart previews for the all the external images and just wonder if it sees them as changed because of the drive sometimes being there and others not.  I also sync them to a NAS drive with the unix rsync command, but that shouldn't be changing the file unless there is an archive bit in there getting flipped.  I'll dig into that, but most people wouldn't be doing that and I'm not the only one with the issue so unlikely to be the problem.

And as far as on of the original questions in here about the smugmug plugin being slow.  I have noticed that after it publishes (verified on SM site), but is still grinding in LR, it says something that implies to me it is looking at all my galleries?  Anyway, I've noticed that if I click into an already published gallery, the currently running publish will suddenly finish, like it was hung waiting for something.  So that has been my solution, I hit publish and wait until it looks like it hung up, then I click another gallery and hear the ding and the publish completes.  So I'm functional with Lr 11.2 with this workaround.

Still have the first issue though, with the spurious "modified" publish photos.  And I select and Mark as published, but it will sometimes show more after I do that.


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## johnrellis (Mar 9, 2022)

Woodbutcher said:


> I just figured it was related to them being on an external drive that isn't always connected. I have smart previews for the all the external images and just wonder if it sees them as changed because of the drive sometimes being there and others not.


I think that's unlikely. I've dug into similar issues over the years with catalog upgrades, and they all appear to be caused by a change or addition to the internal representation of Develop settings.  When you do a catalog upgrade, LR doesn't convert the settings all at once -- it has a background process that seems to be initiated when a photo is displayed in grid view, and that in turn triggers the change notification for the publish service.  

A previous time this happened, an Adobe employee stated explicitly they wouldn't fix the issue:


> Due to it’s obscure nature and that a solid workaround has been discovered we will not be expending any time or resources to fix it. It will only affect those users who are planning to migrate from a version <6.6 to a version >= 6.6 so that number is extremely small.



I'm guessing that the internal LR architecture doesn't have a mechanism for suppressing publish-service change notifications when the internal representations of Develop settings change. Or if it's there, the current engineering team doesn't know how to use it.


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## johnrellis (Mar 9, 2022)

If you're using one of Friedl's publish-service plugins, he just posted the following:

http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/issues


> Suddenly, some plugins sometimes start to hang after processing one image. This affects only Lr11.2. The workaround is to view a different collection (even momentarily), and things become unstuck. Versions of my plugins released on 2022-03-09 or later have that workaround built in (if the plugin notices that things are stuck, it will switch to the Quick Collection for 0.1 seconds, then back to whatever collection had been stuck).


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## dianemiller (Mar 9, 2022)

Publishing has seemed much slower than it should for a long time now, but I can't say when it changed or if I just got more impatient, but it certainly makes sense that this is a complex issue that isn't new.  

My brain is fried with this -- can someone tell me that if I just put up with re-publishing everything that this issue will not recur, at least until the next catalog update?   I'm staying on 11.1 for now but will 11.3 fix anything?  Will anything EVER fix it?

I don't understand the reference above to affecting only a few users with v6...  Surely that isn't the case now.


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## johnrellis (Mar 9, 2022)

dianemiller said:


> if I just put up with re-publishing everything that this issue will not recur, at least until the next catalog update?


That's been my experience and that of some others who have posted in the Adobe forum.  You could republish, say, a few dozen photos, and if that goes well after a few days, republish the rest.



dianemiller said:


> but will 11.3 fix anything? Will anything EVER fix it?


11.3 will fix the problem of publish services hanging after the first photo (as does today's updates to Friedl's plugins).  But most likely it won't fix the problem with Mark Up-To-Date not working -- Adobe hasn't acknowledged that as a bug (at least in the official bug-report forum).  So if you want your published collections to have no Modified photos, you'll have to republish.



dianemiller said:


> I don't understand the reference above to affecting only a few users with v6... Surely that isn't the case now.


Right -- that was a reference to a similar problem in 2017.


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## JoanRobins (May 5, 2022)

johnrellis said:


> If you're using one of Friedl's publish-service plugins, he just posted the following:
> 
> http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/issues


Going briefly to a different gallery fixed this issue for me. I see one photo go up just fine, then stall. I switch to a different gallery and then switch back. I press publish again and all are uploaded in quick succession. Thanks!!!


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## johnrellis (May 5, 2022)

@JoanRobins, have you updated to LR 11.3.1?  The bug with publishing was fixed (at least for most people) in LR 11.3.


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## Woodbutcher (May 5, 2022)

Yep, I should have commented that it appears to work normally for me now as far as speed.


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## SLMaggie (May 11, 2022)

Chiming in here to both express gratitude for the always-reliable information shared here, and also to say I'm on 11.3.1 on Windows 10 and I still have the Publish bug. Using the official Smugmug publish plugin, no updates available. Switching focus away from the collection briefly does the trick for me. If Adobe is claiming this issue is resolved in 11.3, there may be more exploration needed.


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## johnrellis (May 11, 2022)

Double-check you're actually on LR 11.3.1 by doing Help > System Info (the Creative Cloud app sometimes fools people into thinking they're on "the latest"). If you are, and you're seeing the publish-stalling issue, I suggest you post a new bug report in the Adobe community forum:
https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/how-do-i-write-a-bug-report/idi-p/12386373


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## Woodbutcher (May 11, 2022)

SLMaggie said:


> Chiming in here to both express gratitude for the always-reliable information shared here, and also to say I'm on 11.3.1 on Windows 10 and I still have the Publish bug. Using the official Smugmug publish plugin, no updates available. Switching focus away from the collection briefly does the trick for me. If Adobe is claiming this issue is resolved in 11.3, there may be more exploration needed.



You might try removing the smugmug plugin and stopping LrC.  Then download the plugin again from Smugmug and install it.  About a year ago I had to go through that to get the plugin working again for a different issue.


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