# Lightroom points so old (not existing) path, which slows it down to make it not usable anymore



## McKurt (Aug 13, 2018)

Hi there

I have an odd problem with Lightroom. You may say "ah, another user not satisfied with the LR performance". But hang on, there is a bit more to it:

I have been using LR for many years now, and by and large I am happy with it. I am using LR CC Classic, on a reasonably current Windows 10 PC with 16 GB of RAM. I have my pictures and my LR catalog files on the local HD. At some point I did some tests with the LR sync feature (clould sync), and for that purpose it appears that LR used a folder on my NAS to store it's sync files. I have never really used this sync feature ever since, only synced some 4 or 5 pics at that time.

So far, so good.

Now here comes the trouble: I had to replace my old NAS recently. So from a LR point of view this shouldn't make any difference you would think, as long as I don't use sync. Bugger, it makes a big difference: Now, with the old NAS not accessible anymore, LR seems to search for this path every few seconds or so, actually pausing any UI interaction. So this makes it absolutely impossible to use the software.

So I was able to track this down as follows: When I temporarily add the old NAS to my LAN again, LR works a treat, as it used to. As soon as I take it offline again, the problems come back.

After checking all possibilites (settings) in LR I can say: No, I don't see this path anywhere. And the Collection I used earlier to sync my test files hasn't been existing for a long time. So nothing indicates that any sync activities should take place.

When I open the LR catalog with a text editor, I can find a number of references to my old NAS: (where 'darwin' is the name of the old NAS)

 B078EE69-2908-433E-A7AB-13B7B6E133A5//darwin/multimedia/pictures/Lightroom/Mobile Downloads.lrdata/9d2cbb67c7784dabef61807799aa7b7e05d5c23bc8626c
...
//darwin/multimedia/pictures/Lightroom/Mobile Downloads.lrdata/9d2cbb67c7784dabef61807799aa7b7e
...
  Ž U; ®;786D71C7-3368-4875-BA5A-1D0E281B1245AgLibrary_recentSourcess = {
    {
        {
            type = "folder",
            value = {
                isPath = true,
                name = "9d2cbb67c7784dabef61807799aa7b7e05d5c23bc8626c01467e9b995780f24b",
                path = "\\\\darwin\\multimedia\\pictures\\Lightroom\\Mobile Downloads.lrdata\\9d2cbb67c7784dabef61807799aa7b7e05d5c23bc8626c01467e9b995780f24b",
            ”l) U; ¨a786D71C7-3368-4875-BA5””K) U; ¨786D71C7-3368-4875-BA5A-1D0E281B1245AgLibrary_recentSourcess = {
    {
        {
...
//darwin/multimedia/pictures/Lightroom/Mobile Downloads.lrdata/9d2cbb67c7784dabef61807799aa7b7e05d5c23bc8626c01467e9b995780f24b/ø•MEg31JAgLibraryKeywordCooccurrenceindex_AgLibraryKeywordCooccurrence_tag1Search26 16

Now I can only suspect that LR didn't clean the sync information out properly from the catalog file, which causes problems now. As I don't know how long the old NAS will still be usable (it shows some signs of age...), I am desperatly looking for a way to clean this out soon, because without this old NAS, my catalog will not be usable anymore.

Any ideas anyone?


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## Johan Elzenga (Aug 13, 2018)

You can set the path for the downloads to any folder you want in the preferences - lightroom sync tab, so all you need to do is change that path to an existing folder.


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## McKurt (Aug 14, 2018)

JohanElzenga said:


> You can set the path for the downloads to any folder you want in the preferences - lightroom sync tab, so all you need to do is change that path to an existing folder.



This was my first thought, too. But unfortunately this didn't help.


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## Johan Elzenga (Aug 14, 2018)

One way that may solve this is the following: create a new catalog, then use 'Import from Another Catalog' and import your old catalog. Because that will not change anything in the old catalog, you can safely try it to see if that helps. You can simply go back if it doesn't. And have you already tried to tun off (pause) sync? You say you don't use it anyway...


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## McKurt (Aug 14, 2018)

Hi Johan
That sounded like a perfect solution. Did that right away. Unfortunately it didn't help, still the same problem. That really surprised me, I would have thought that creating a new catalog would be a perfect way to get rid of such a synch dependency.


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## Johan Elzenga (Aug 14, 2018)

Try resetting your preferences: How do I reset Lightroom's Preferences? | The Lightroom Queen


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## McKurt (Aug 14, 2018)

I already resetted all prefs. But tried again now. Nope, doesn't like me.


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## Johan Elzenga (Aug 14, 2018)

Have you checked for missing images? If Lightroom still has a connection to the now missing downloads.lrdata, then importing those images into a new catalog will include the missing links.


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## McKurt (Aug 14, 2018)

Yes, I did. There are no missing ones.
But what is this dowloads.lrdata? Can you explain me how this works?


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## Johan Elzenga (Aug 14, 2018)

That is the location for any images that are added through Lightroom CC and downloaded from the cloud to Lightroom Classic, so for example photos you take with your iPhone. By default they are stored in this file, which acts as a 'device' (a separate drive). You can change that to a normal folder.


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## McKurt (Aug 15, 2018)

Thanks for the explanation. I checked on an older NAS backup, and there used to be indeed a Mobile Downloads.lrdata folder, containing 4 pictures. But these pictures appear not to be in my catalog anymore.

I also double-checked, LR tells me there are no missing files.

Do you have any other leads I could follow?


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## Johan Elzenga (Aug 15, 2018)

The thing is that we don't know for sure if that Mobile Downloads.lrdata reference in the catalog is the culprint. Maybe it's just a coincidence and has nothing to do with the real problem.


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## McKurt (Aug 18, 2018)

That is a fair point. 
What I did meanwhile: Instead of the 'import from catalog', I now tried 'export as catalog', which also copies all pictures. took a while (no surprise for some 20000 pictures).
The interesting thing is: In now newly created catalog I can't find any reference to my old NAS server anymore. This gave me good hope - but unfortunately the problem didn't go away.
So maybe to come back to your point, it may have a completely different reason than the mobile sync. But which one?...


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## McKurt (Aug 18, 2018)

Having another thought on this:
I have created a completely new catalog and only imported some 5 pictures. Same problem. Conclusion: It is not catalog related.

I then have uninstalled Lightroom CC, manually deleted (renamed) 
- C:\Users\Kurt\AppData\Local\Adobe\Lightroom
- C:\Users\Kurt\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom

Re-installed Lightroom. Same problem.

I then logged-in on the PC with a different profile (my wife's, who doesn't use Lightroom), started Lightroom and my test catalog there. Aha, this works fine.

So my conclusion is: There must be something in my Windows profile regarding Lightroom that makes it trying to access this old NAS. But neither a file search nor a search in the registry could give me some clues where this could be.


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## Johan Elzenga (Aug 18, 2018)

There are a few more paths that Lightroom uses, for example C:\Users\Kurt\AppData\Local\Adobe\CameraRaw and C:\Users\Kurt\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\CameraRaw. That is where your camera profiles and lens profiles are. Maybe there is something in there that causes the delay? You blame it on the (old) NAS, but from what I read that is just a hunch. You don't have any solid evidence that the (old) NAS is causing this, so it could still be a coincidence.


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## McKurt (Aug 18, 2018)

Thanks for that - I wouldn't have thought about CameraRaw folders. But deleting those didn't help either.

The reason why I am kind of fixed to this old NAS is: I can easily reproduce the following:
- when the old NAS is shut down, I have the problems
- when I start the NAS, the problems do not exist anymore
- when I shut down the NAS again, the problems come back

That's why I am pretty sure it has something to do with Lightroom trying to access this NAS very frequently - and getting stuck for a few seconds (every few seconds) when the NAS is not reachable.


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## Johan Elzenga (Aug 18, 2018)

Ah, OK. Then it does make sense to 'blame it on the NAS'. I have no idea how this works on Windows, but I could imagine that Lightroom somehow checks the status of the external drives, and that somehow the old NAS is still on that list of drives to check.


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## LRList001 (Aug 18, 2018)

McKurt said:


> Having another thought on this:
> I have created a completely new catalog and only imported some 5 pictures. Same problem. Conclusion: It is not catalog related.
> 
> I then have uninstalled Lightroom CC, manually deleted (renamed)
> ...




Just checking, have you confirmed that "Darwin" does not appear in the new catalogue?  (Text editor check).  I assume you have rebooted Windows without the old NAS connected.  I store presets with my Catalogue (Preferences>Presets), where do you keep your presets?


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## LRList001 (Aug 18, 2018)

You might have to use a network monitor to try to intercept the packet and see what is in it.  That might give you a clue.  In W10 there is a resource monitor, maybe that can give you a pointer.  (From task manager>Performance, it is at the bottom, it will demand an admin password)


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## McKurt (Aug 19, 2018)

Thanks. Good idea. I had a look. I can see that lightroom.exe has a 'NO RESPONSE' status after every few edits I do in the DEVELOP module in LR (which is when it freezes). 

The network part doesn't give me any clues. It permanently only contains an entry to amazon - I guess this is where Adobe has the synched data hosted.


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## LRList001 (Aug 19, 2018)

Nailing this is going to be tricky.  I am surprised there is no link to the old NAS (when it is on line) showing in the Resource Monitor.  That is unexpected.  maybe it is too brief.  Also, only one connection?  I have several eg MS update (svchost), printers, a bunch of "stuff", pretty typical MS noise.

The Presets is an odd one and on the face of it not exactly where you are at.  However, as has happened to me:
I haven't changed the settings of LR in a very long time.  Then I opened a new catalogue briefly (making a new one) and then swapped back to my regular catalogue (and then deleted the new one).  LR now lost access all my Develop and Import presets (the User ones).  Since I had long ago clicked to keep settings with the catalogue (and had long forgotten that I had done this) I was caught out, since I have launched LR dozens of times with that setting.  I had to copy all the settings across to the folder with the catalogue, the work of a moment.

All this is fair enough, it is what the setting demands, but how come it worked all the way until I  created a new catalogue?  Clearly LR stored a link to those folders somewhere unexpected.  However, you have created a new catalogue, so that should have cleared out any those links if my experience is anything to go by.

Have you switched off IP v6?  If not, give it a go.  Switch it back on (if it is on) once you have tried it out.
Here is another try.  Create a new catalogue with images etc all stored on a local HDD.  It is only temporary.  Now, unplug the network cable.  Does the stutter go away?


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## McKurt (Aug 19, 2018)

Hi
For the time being I found a workaround that helps me: I have added an entry to the C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts file, which tells windows that the old NAS name (darwin) points to the IP address of my new NAS (the replacement, that actually has a different name).
This works, LR runs smoothly again. Looks like LR is looking for the pictures path on the NAS, and if it finds it, it is happy.

This does not really address the root cause, but works.

As to LRList001's suggestion: Switching of IP v6 doesn't sound like a good idea to me, but maybe I could try this out temporarily. Do you know how I can do this?

As for the other suggestion: I have made tests with a new temporary catalog, but this didn't help, unfortunately.


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## LRList001 (Aug 19, 2018)

McKurt said:


> Hi
> 
> As to LRList001's suggestion: Switching of IP v6 doesn't sound like a good idea to me, but maybe I could try this out temporarily. Do you know how I can do this?



Right-click on the network icon in the tray, "open network and internet settings", "change adapter options", right-click on the relevant network connection and select properties, as an admin, deselect "Internet Protocol Version 6 (TCP/IP v6)".

Can you also confirm that a new catalogue with images on your local HDD and the network connection unplugged still stutters.  Normally when Windows has no network connections it skips the networking timeouts, ie you won't see a stutter.  If you still see a stutter with NO networking at all, then the problem hints that it might not be a networking one (as the root cause).  Instead of unplugging the cable, you could just disable all the network connections in the control panel (right-click>disable).  Make sure you note which are enabled and disabled before you start and set it back to the same ones enabled when you finish (right-click>enable)!


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## McKurt (Aug 20, 2018)

When I unplug the cable, it works fine as you suggested. As soon as I plug it in again, the problem is back.

I also disabled IPv6 now (thanks for the instruction how to do it). This didn't help, same problem (even after a reboot, to be sure the disabling is active).


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## LRList001 (Aug 20, 2018)

Good.

The probability of it not being a network problem is now vanishingly small.

Running network tools is not basic stuff.

What would you think about wading through the registry, looking for darwin entries?  See if you can spot one linked to LR in some way?  You don't need to make any changes, just search for darwin (and separately, its ip address).

Before you do this, have a read of Windows Registry - Wikipedia and look especially at HKCU (Hive Key Current User), roughly a third of the way down the page.  We know that the problem is linked to the current user profile (almost certainly).

If you haven't ever done this, make sure you are not an administrator and click the windows logo and type regedit.  This will launch the registry editor.  Just make sure you don't save any changes.  Don't even make any changes!  Reading the registry won't do any harm.

Find is Ctrl-F and find again is F3.

What you are looking for is an entry (or more than one), that is in a hierarchy under an obvious LR heading, or possibly, CameraRaw.  An Adobe one for sure.  Just maybe LR has stored something in the registry and failed to clear it out.


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## McKurt (Aug 13, 2018)

Hi there

I have an odd problem with Lightroom. You may say "ah, another user not satisfied with the LR performance". But hang on, there is a bit more to it:

I have been using LR for many years now, and by and large I am happy with it. I am using LR CC Classic, on a reasonably current Windows 10 PC with 16 GB of RAM. I have my pictures and my LR catalog files on the local HD. At some point I did some tests with the LR sync feature (clould sync), and for that purpose it appears that LR used a folder on my NAS to store it's sync files. I have never really used this sync feature ever since, only synced some 4 or 5 pics at that time.

So far, so good.

Now here comes the trouble: I had to replace my old NAS recently. So from a LR point of view this shouldn't make any difference you would think, as long as I don't use sync. Bugger, it makes a big difference: Now, with the old NAS not accessible anymore, LR seems to search for this path every few seconds or so, actually pausing any UI interaction. So this makes it absolutely impossible to use the software.

So I was able to track this down as follows: When I temporarily add the old NAS to my LAN again, LR works a treat, as it used to. As soon as I take it offline again, the problems come back.

After checking all possibilites (settings) in LR I can say: No, I don't see this path anywhere. And the Collection I used earlier to sync my test files hasn't been existing for a long time. So nothing indicates that any sync activities should take place.

When I open the LR catalog with a text editor, I can find a number of references to my old NAS: (where 'darwin' is the name of the old NAS)

 B078EE69-2908-433E-A7AB-13B7B6E133A5//darwin/multimedia/pictures/Lightroom/Mobile Downloads.lrdata/9d2cbb67c7784dabef61807799aa7b7e05d5c23bc8626c
...
//darwin/multimedia/pictures/Lightroom/Mobile Downloads.lrdata/9d2cbb67c7784dabef61807799aa7b7e
...
  Ž U; ®;786D71C7-3368-4875-BA5A-1D0E281B1245AgLibrary_recentSourcess = {
    {
        {
            type = "folder",
            value = {
                isPath = true,
                name = "9d2cbb67c7784dabef61807799aa7b7e05d5c23bc8626c01467e9b995780f24b",
                path = "\\\\darwin\\multimedia\\pictures\\Lightroom\\Mobile Downloads.lrdata\\9d2cbb67c7784dabef61807799aa7b7e05d5c23bc8626c01467e9b995780f24b",
            ”l) U; ¨a786D71C7-3368-4875-BA5””K) U; ¨786D71C7-3368-4875-BA5A-1D0E281B1245AgLibrary_recentSourcess = {
    {
        {
...
//darwin/multimedia/pictures/Lightroom/Mobile Downloads.lrdata/9d2cbb67c7784dabef61807799aa7b7e05d5c23bc8626c01467e9b995780f24b/ø•MEg31JAgLibraryKeywordCooccurrenceindex_AgLibraryKeywordCooccurrence_tag1Search26 16

Now I can only suspect that LR didn't clean the sync information out properly from the catalog file, which causes problems now. As I don't know how long the old NAS will still be usable (it shows some signs of age...), I am desperatly looking for a way to clean this out soon, because without this old NAS, my catalog will not be usable anymore.

Any ideas anyone?


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## LouieSherwin (Aug 21, 2018)

This is sounding like a problem with some information about the old NAS that is  imbedded in the catalog that is not being removed.

I wonder if you had Victoria send a copy of the catalog to her catalog guru if perhaps they might be able to detect and fix the problem. 

-louie


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## McKurt (Aug 21, 2018)

I know the registry very well. And this was also the prime suspect for me. Just to be sure I went through it again now.

It is cluttered with references to this old NAS, but nothing that seems to be remotely related to LR/CameraRaw/Adobe. It's all recently used files from Word/Excel/etc., and Windows Explorer.

But, unless you have a good idea where the problem could come from, I suggest you're not investing any more time in it (your help so far is much appreciated!). I have this workaround (hosts file) that works for me, I have the feeling we could invest many more hours to really pin this down, if at all.


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## RikkFlohr (Aug 21, 2018)

I am going to run this by our engineering staff for an opinion.


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## LRList001 (Aug 22, 2018)

McKurt said:


> I know the registry very well. And this was also the prime suspect for me. Just to be sure I went through it again now.
> 
> It is cluttered with references to this old NAS, but nothing that seems to be remotely related to LR/CameraRaw/Adobe. It's all recently used files from Word/Excel/etc., and Windows Explorer.
> 
> But, unless you have a good idea where the problem could come from, I suggest you're not investing any more time in it (your help so far is much appreciated!). I have this workaround (hosts file) that works for me, I have the feeling we could invest many more hours to really pin this down, if at all.



OK


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## LRList001 (Aug 22, 2018)

RikkFlohr said:


> I am going to run this by our engineering staff for an opinion.



Most interested to find if they can spot it.


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