Lightroom 1.1 stalls (and apparent stalls)

Question

I've been trying to track down a couple of reported stalls with Lightroom 1.1 and I thought I would update people with what I've found.
* Metadata Browser updates. Lightroom updates the metadata browser based on having a list of photos for which the metadata has changed and for which we need to go rework their place in the hierarchy. This list is preseved when you quit the app and the work will pick up again when you relaunch. So long as work is going on here, we're blocking updates to the metadata browser panel so that it doesn't churn. The downside is that this means the only feedback that anything is going on is a pegged CPU meter. Rolling over the metadata browser panel seems to make it more likely to update, but not necessarily and it may not pick up new items this way. Furthermore, this is a first-in-first-out queue so if you have a lot of photos ahead of the ones you just changed, we have to get through all of those before the changes will show up.
I had been thinking that the queue processing itself might be stalling, but I can't seem to make that happen today. What I can get to happen is that I make a set of changes and then have to wait until the CPU finishes working on them before anything shows up. That matches with the analysis given above.
If anyone has a case where the machine goes idle and we still don't get the updates, please say so -- even better if you've got reliable steps to make it happen.
* Import, preview building/loading, etc stalls. I've seen reports and even encountered cases myself where import or preview building or even just loading for the loupe will stall for several seconds or sometimes stall completely and require quitting and relaunching. I've also seen one case where memory usage spiked way up in conjunction with the stall. What that all points to is something blocking us from writing data to the preview cache. If we get enough data queued up for writing, we will stop other work lest we completely run out of memory. All of the symptoms would suggest this is happening, but I haven't found a way to reproduce it today to confirm. So again, a set of steps that reliably recreates the problem would help.
Mark

Answer 1

Hi,
I am not a Mac Tech but have been using Mac's for 20 years, so I know my way around.
I am running a Mac G5 Dual with 2 gigs of RAM and 2-500 gig of hard drives. I have LR 1.1 on my main drive along with all my catalogs.
I posted a long post in this forum about my problem (can't find it to link here) but the gist of it is that I have been having terrible problems with LR 1.1 slowing down and stalling to the point of it being so slow it is virtually non funtional. No crashes or problems importing or exporting, that all seems to work fine. Just slowing to a stall but never locking up. This problem has been going on and growing for a few weeks now.
I have been on the phone with LR Support 3 times, each time trying different settings. I have divided my catalogs in very small separate units. I have optimized and changed all the previews to the least settings and nothing worked.
All the views of pictures (navagator, main and filmstrip) pixelate after loading.The menus slow to the point of not working. Nothing will load and when it does it is unreadable.
I am not having any problems with imports or exports.. just slow to the point of not working. It never froze up and crashed. I optimized, updated all metadata, etc.. everything I could think of. I trashed all catalogs and reloaded them and let it update for hours.. all to no avail. I let the program run by itself and walked away for hours with a catalog of 1700 photos to let it update, nothing worked.
In my 3 calls to Adobe we have tried everything but nothing seemed to work. And then I noticed that even after quitting LR my computer was very sluggish in opening even a simple mail program or Safari.. it seemed to take forever.
If I was in LR and went to "edit in CS3" it worked fine with no slowdown in CS3 but when I edited in CS3 and came back.. I was back to the same problem.
After reading items in this forum I unchecked the "auto write to XMP files" and my LR now runs like a champ. I went in and increased my previews to 2048 and Max preview. I imported all my files to one catalog with about 6000 files, mostly all RAW and everything is again working perfectly.. and fast, even at the max preview settings. I can hop from one folder in my catalog to another with instant access and 1:1 views loading without hesitation.
I am not savy enough to check CPU speeds or any of the real tech stuff.. all I know is that is what was slowing down my program to the point of being unusable. I will leave all the tech stuff to the engineers and real tech guys.
I now make changes and save "to or from" my metadata files and XMP files manually and LR works fast and without a problem. I just have to remember to save my files. I tried going back in and checking the "auto" function and it was right back to slow so I will use my method until the problem gets worked out because the program is unusable any other way. I am not exaggerating my slowdown, as even after the "loading/working" screen disappeared the picture would be so pixelated it was unreadable and it wouldn't clean up without changing the view or picking a different file in the filmstrip and even the filmstrip was all pixels.
So.. there you have my situation. Just thought let you know.
Thanks !!