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It's All gone Horribly Wrong!

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Mike Burroughs

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Apr 30, 2020
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Lightroom Version Number
Lightroom Classic 10.4 Release Camera RAW 13.4
Operating System
  1. macOS 10.14 Mojave
Apologies for this long first post but I need HELP!!

I have been a Photography Plan (20GB) subscriber for nearly 3 years and have approx 59,000 photos in my main catalogue. I use LR Classic on 27" iMAC desktop (late 2014) 8GB RAM running Mojave 10.14.6. I have been using mainly Nikon D610 for the last few years but a few days ago added a D850.

For a while now (i.e. months before I acquired D850) I have had problems with LR going slow or freezing after I have been using it for a while, especially when rating my latest imports. This can often be resolved by force quit which allows me to use other apps and sometime restart LR. At its worst the whole computer freezes and eventually automatically reboots. I have created a new catalogue which has less than 200 photos in it. Photos and catalogues are on a Drobo 5n NAS which is less than half full. Same issues with both catalogues

I am also having problems with Adobe Reader, which I can use ... it just won't shut down without a force quit. I rarely use Photoshop but successfully edited my first image a few weeks ago.

Disaster struck yesterday when I tried to import my first batch of images from my lovely new D850. Only 12 images at 14 Bit RAW lossless compressed. Whether disaster was because of that import, or just coincidental I don't know. All the Adobe apps that I use now crash virtually as soon as I start to use them, usually within the first minute; LR, Reader and PS.

This is hugely annoying as I earn my living with this computer and need to read pdf documents, and insert photos into my reports (usually composed in Word)

As literally everything I need wouldn't work I thought I would try using my Windows PC (which I usually keep for personal use rather than work). I downloaded Creative Cloud and installed Lightroom v11, ... started a brand new catalogue, clicked on import ... and it is "Not Responding" with spinning blue wheel before I have imported a single image

I have done some research (Ok, I just Googled it) and found several threads about crashing on the Adobe forum dating as far back as 2017 but no way of actually contacting Adobe even though I have an account and am paying a subscription

So, my wonderful community of experts ...
  1. What has gone wrong? Is it my fault?
  2. Might it help if I installed Catalina/Big Sur/Monteray? (Note that would mean I also need to pay to upgrade some other apps that I need for work so I would prefer not unless fairly sure it will resolve this problem
    [*]Might it help if I increased the RAM? Currently at 8GB but expandable to 32GB. I might do that anyway
    [*]Why am I also having problems on a separate Windows PC?

Many thanks and Festive Felicitations to One and All

PS. Update ... after over one hour of 'not responding' for several minutes each time I selected an option I have imported 229 photos (217 from D610 and 12 from D850) into new catalogue on Windows 10 PC (LRv11)
 
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Dreadful faux pas on first post, it seems I exceeded maximum words! Any way, here is the rest of it as I desperately need help with this

3. Might it help if I increased the RAM? Currently at 8GB but expandable to 32GB
4. Why am I also having problems on a completely separate Windows PC?
Many thanks and Festive Felicitations to One and All
PS Update, after over an hour of 'not responding' for several minutes very time each time I selected an option I have imported 229 photos (217 from D610 and 12 from D850) into my new catalogue on Windows 10 PC (LR v11)
 
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Mike Burroughs said:
I have created a new catalogue which has less than 200 photos in it. Photos and catalogues are on a Drobo 5n NAS which is less than half full
Click to expand...
Lightroom is not designed to run with a catalog on a network volume. I am even surprised that you managed to do this at all.
 
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Totally agree with Johan, and also surprised it ran at all. Move the catalog (photos are fine on a NAS) to a local disk (ideally system) and try.

RAM - 8GB really is tight, I appreciate it's quoted as minimum, but have never heard of someone happy with performance on such a tight spec.
 
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On the 8GB of RAM . It is the minimum which only means that you can run with that RAM level. It does not mean that performance will be satisfactory. If you are a heavy user, 16GB of RAM would be a more practical Minimum. If you have Large image (D850 NEFs) don’t have high expectations for an 8GB machine.

The D850 has ~46mp images. These are huge and when the NEF is expanded to RGB Lightroom creates a huge number of temporary files in Working storage. If you don’t have at least 100GB of freespace for working storage, you are going to see performance issues. Possibly even crashes.

Apple has made significant improvements in performance since Mojave. All apps should be running in 64 bit OS. You do need to upgrade those and upgrade to Monterrey. If you are not able to upgrade to Monterrey due to hardware constraints, the you won’t be able to upgrade Lightroom to v11.x.

The reason Adobe comes out with new versions is to keep up with hardware improvements and improve performance of now obsolete versions.
 
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clee01l said:
If you are not able to upgrade to Monterrey due to hardware constraints, the you won’t be able to upgrade Lightroom to v11.x.
Click to expand...
Monterey isn't essential for v11.x, it can be run on both Catalina and Big Sur.
 
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Jim Wilde said:
Monterey isn't essential for v11.x, it can be run on both Catalina and Big Sur.
Click to expand...
Yes, that wasn't quite worded correctly. What I meant to say was if your machine won't support full 64 bit app, you won't be able to upgrade to the latest LrC version.
 
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Johan Elzenga said:
Lightroom is not designed to run with a catalog on a network volume. I am even surprised that you managed to do this at all.
Click to expand...
Lightroom will work, but you run a high risk of catalog corruption. The database that contains the catalog was not designed for network operation.

As an observation, since you use your system to earn a living, maybe it's time to get a new system? You don't indicate your country of residence. If you live in the US, you can write off (on Form 1040 Schedule C) the cost of that new system. If you paid someone to transfer all your data, that's is also a business expense.
 
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PhilBurton said:
Lightroom will work
Click to expand...
Actually, it shouldn't...instead it should produce an explicit error message advising the user that catalogs cannot be used on network volumes. That's why both Johan and Paul (and myself) are surprised that the OP could get LrC to work with the catalog on a NAS.
 
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Jim Wilde said:
Actually, it shouldn't...instead it should produce an explicit error message advising the user that catalogs cannot be used on network volumes. That's why both Johan and Paul (and myself) are surprised that the OP could get LrC to work with the catalog on a NAS.
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@Jim Wilde

Sorry for spreading misinformation. I don't have a NAS, but I seem to recall that others in this forum have put their catalog on a NAS. If Lightroom can detect a NAS or any network drive, so much the better.
 
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WOW, thanks everyone. Much expertise and experience on show, as well as the willingness to share.

Quick update,
  1. My catalogues are (and always have been) in the pictures folder of the local iMAC drive not on the NAS. Photos are on NAS. Apologies for not making that clear in original post. Still puzzled as to root cause, hoping it is just lack of RAM and old 32 bit OS
  2. I have just ordered 32GB RAM ... hopefully coming in a couple of days
  3. According to Apple my iMAC (late 2014) should run Big Sur, but not Monterey. I will upgrade and also upgrade the other apps that only run 32 bit
I will post an update after I have tried the above upgrades as it may help others. I will wait for extra RAM before adding Big Sur so could be a few days

And finally ... any thoughts as to why I had problems with a brand new install and catalogue (local drive) on my Windows 10?
 
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Mike Burroughs said:
My catalogues are (and always have been) in the pictures folder of the local iMAC drive not on the NAS. Photos are on NAS. Apologies for not making that clear in original post
Click to expand...

You actually said the exact opposite very clearly in your original post ;) !

"Photos and catalogues are on a Drobo 5n NAS which is less than half full"
 
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So I did!! whoops (and apologies again). But when I actually checked the catalogues are definitely in the internal drive. I did read HRH Bampton's book but it is a few years since I set it up!!
 
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As promised a quick update for you.

I had a helpful reply from Adobe (on another forum) and rset my Creative Cloud apps.

In my view the main improvement was afer upgrading my RAM from 8 to 32GB (the max my machine can hold), no problems since.

I have yet to upgrade to 64 bit OS but will probably give that a go when (if!!) I have nothing pressing in the following days. Thanks to Jim Wilde and Cletus D Lee for their advice re Catalina, Big Sur and Monterey. I should be able to manage one of the first two but not Monterey on my 2014 iMAC
 
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