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Lightroom taking forever to do a backup - sometimes hours...

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brendatharp

New Member
Joined
Jul 4, 2013
Messages
23
Location
Santa Rosa, CA
Lightroom Experience
Advanced
Lightroom Version
Lightroom Version Number
12.1 (classic)
Operating System
  1. macOS 11 Big Sur
Using lightroom on a late 2015 laptop, catalog is on external drive. A few months ago, Lightroom started acting up on me when doing backups. It would just sit in 'backing up' mode for a very long time. I typically had to force quit the program to get it to stop - as when I said 'cancel', that took just as long and often just didn't cancel. I tried something different - I optimized my catalog while it was open, and then did a backup when quitting. That seemed to work - once. but not any more. I repeatedly can't get my backup to work. I only have about 180,000 images in the catalog, (heavily culled recently), it's just 4.4gb; and no smart previews and my std previews file is just about 846 gb. I don't understand why it won't back up! I do have my backup folder on the same drive (external) as my catalog. (That may be of concern to some of you reading this, but I use super duper to clone the drive, and I use backblaze to back up that image drive regularly, so I have three copies of both the catalog and a backup folder.)

Any ideas why I can't complete a backup in a reason amount of time for such a small file? My friend's is 1.1 Tb and he gets a backup done in about 6 minutes...
 
how full is this external drive?

Also, How full is the drive where the master catalog file resides? Lightroom makes a copy in the Lightroom folder before backup and the other tasks at the end to the program.

Lightroom also uses Temporary files in the ?TEMP folder of the primary drive. If the Primary Drive has no free space, then the system will slow, even stop when the TEMP folder fills up the primary drive.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Using lightroom on a late 2015 laptop,
Breanda......
I don't know how to tell you this without making all the Gurus mad at me....
Oh. never mind.
Anyway, it might just be full drives for this particular problem. But there are probably so many more.
 
Thanks, all. There is about 2 terabytes of free space on that 12T drive. 9+ is images and catalog data folder. But it did occur to me that maybe because there is so much going back and forth on the drive to read the catalog, make a temp workspace, and write the backup that the drive is simply having to work too hard. We are living full time on the road now, so when I get a chance I will move my backup folder to laptop and see if that makes a difference. And, since my laptop is also now backed up to backblaze along with image drive, I have redundant copies so having the backup on the laptop is safe.
 
Thanks, all. There is about 2 terabytes of free space on that 12T drive. 9+ is images and catalog data folder. But it did occur to me that maybe because there is so much going back and forth on the drive to read the catalog, make a temp workspace, and write the backup that the drive is simply having to work too hard. We are living full time on the road now, so when I get a chance I will move my backup folder to laptop and see if that makes a difference. And, since my laptop is also now backed up to backblaze along with image drive, I have redundant copies so having the backup on the laptop is safe.
Have you emptied the Trash for that drive?
 
Oh yes, many times, after I quit Lightroom because I typically am deleting images there.
Can you try
1. emptying the Trash folder outside of Lightroom
2. see how much disk space is still free.
3 check the folder containing LR catalog. How big are the recent catalogs? Can you delete some of those backups?

The next time you run Lightroom, if you are deleting some images, try emptying the Trash before closing LR and running the catalog backup.
 
More possibilities that, I think, have not been mentioned:
1. Are all your drivers up to date particularly for the external drive?
2. If your external drive is a spinning drive, does it need defragmenting?
3. Maybe your external drive is on the way out. Try diagnostics.
4. Check the connection to the external drive.
 
Can you try
1. emptying the Trash folder outside of Lightroom
2. see how much disk space is still free.
3 check the folder containing LR catalog. How big are the recent catalogs? Can you delete some of those backups?

The next time you run Lightroom, if you are deleting some images, try emptying the Trash before closing LR and running the catalog backup.
1. Yes, always empty trash outside of Lightroom.
2. Not able to access my image drive at the moment, living on the road and it's been busy week but I will review in a day or two - free space was over 2 TB after emptying trash the other day, however.
3. Only have two backups in there - that's not an issue.

I appreciate your input - but I am a seasoned user of computers and have used LR for a long time without any issues. I know all the ins/outs of making space available and deleting old backups, and emptying trash, etc. but I do appreciate that you have no clue about my abilities and value your input and effort in trying to help.
 
More possibilities that, I think, have not been mentioned:
1. Are all your drivers up to date particularly for the external drive?
2. If your external drive is a spinning drive, does it need defragmenting?
3. Maybe your external drive is on the way out. Try diagnostics.
4. Check the connection to the external drive.
Hello Bob, thank you for your input as well. As I mentioned to someone else, I have been using computers and Lightroom for a very long time in my business. My drive was brand new just last October; it's a 12T spinning drive, and I have run programs to defragment/optimize it. I have run diagnostics and the drive is healthy. That being said, maybe it's an intermittent 'healthy'. All the connections are very secure and are reestablished regularly as I am living a mobile life style and have to put things away all the time before driving off. :) And the drives are all transported in a very padded compartment so they don't shake around; and it was happening before I left home a few months ago so it's not the movin/shaking in the van. When I can get time this week I will be doing a few more tests and see what happens. I do thank you for your input, however!
 
My suggestion.

1. Write down the name and location of your current catalog.. Send these details as an email to yourself... so you will have a record of this.
2. I suggest you create a new empty catalog on a drive with plenty of space. Give the folder a unique name you will recognise and give this empty catalog a name you wish to use going forward.
3. From within the new catalog, import the existing catalog. Do not move the images, leave them where they are.
4. When the import has finished. check how long it takes to do a backup. Check that you are happy with the new database.

This is not guaranteed to work... but it might.

The logic... Lr is basically a large complex database surrounded by a complex set of actions which update this database. It is a tribute to Adobe that despite the vast number of installations worldwide, on such a variety of hardware's and environments, it has remained fantastically stable and reliable.

However, within the the database, there are lots of different indices, which point to real pieces of data. These are there to make using your database more efficient. Sometimes, these indices become damaged. You may not know when an index suffers damage and it is highly likely that Lr will make an internal attempt to repair any such indices. Sometimes this may be the result of a power outage, unusual activity in memory or a disk drive or a million other possibilities.

Either way, performing a backup may encounter problems with indices, which may result in delays or inability to complete a Lr backup.

Completing the steps 1-4 above provides Lightroom the opportunity to rebuild your Lr database from scratch, in effect removing any old rubbish hiding in the shadows.

This is a non destructive process... if it does not work ... you have a clue that there may be issues with your catalog.... but you still have your original catalog.

For your own info... it is useful to note the size of the old and the new catalog (after import). The first time I did this my catalog reduced significantly in size.

I make a point of doing this on a semi regular basis (18-24 months) .... just as a hygiene / maintenance task.
 
Hello Bob, thank you for your input as well. As I mentioned to someone else, I have been using computers and Lightroom for a very long time in my business. My drive was brand new just last October; it's a 12T spinning drive, and I have run programs to defragment/optimize it. I have run diagnostics and the drive is healthy. That being said, maybe it's an intermittent 'healthy'. All the connections are very secure and are reestablished regularly as I am living a mobile life style and have to put things away all the time before driving off. :) And the drives are all transported in a very padded compartment so they don't shake around; and it was happening before I left home a few months ago so it's not the movin/shaking in the van. When I can get time this week I will be doing a few more tests and see what happens. I do thank you for your input, however!
Wow, 12TB and only 2TB left, that's huge. Way out of my league. My data drive is just a 1TB NVMe with only 250GB used including about 12,000 images. I've got nothing more except a long shot. Check if the laptop is reporting the correct size of the HDD. If not, it could be a formatting issue relating to the laptop being much older than the drive. It would be good to reformat the drive but that would be a huge task if you have so much on it.
 
Probably not your issue but I'll mention it anyway since it happened to me. I was using a SSD that was formatted ExFat instead of one of the Mac formats. Everything worked fine for ages, but then little things started going weird in LR and my Chrono Synch wouldn't synch the catalog properly for live backups. It was all from the ExFat drive AND low memory on my MBP probably didn't help. I've switched that SSD out to one formatted for Mac and everything is good again... even with the low memory. Good luck.
 
Hello everyone - sorry for the slow response. We are living full time on the road and can't always get to working on the image drives and lightroom. But I DID solve the issue! As I suspected, the external drive was having to work way too hard - with the backup folder there, the image files, AND the catalog, it was just writing/reading back and forth way too much. I ran a backup last night and it took 2 plus hours for only 185,000 images. Today, after bringing the catalog folder back onto my laptop, it backed everything up in under 6 minutes! That's my results, so now we all know that having them all on the external drive may not be the best wisest thing. Thank you all sincerely for your input, good things come from sharing helpful ideas and I truly appreciated it!
 
Hello everyone - sorry for the slow response. We are living full time on the road and can't always get to working on the image drives and lightroom. But I DID solve the issue! As I suspected, the external drive was having to work way too hard - with the backup folder there, the image files, AND the catalog, it was just writing/reading back and forth way too much. I ran a backup last night and it took 2 plus hours for only 185,000 images. Today, after bringing the catalog folder back onto my laptop, it backed everything up in under 6 minutes! That's my results, so now we all know that having them all on the external drive may not be the best wisest thing. Thank you all sincerely for your input, good things come from sharing helpful ideas and I truly appreciated it!
Good that you finally solved this problem. Can I assume that the laptop's internal drive is an SSD?

Just be aware of all the fake 16 TB SSD drives that are on offer. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/202...s-are-posing-as-16tb-portable-ssds-on-amazon/

You can get a legitimate 16 TB external drive, and I have used this company's products for internal SSDs, but it's going to cost you. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B097LVLWW...are-us-1088721257504799400-20&geniuslink=true
 
Good that you finally solved this problem. Can I assume that the laptop's internal drive is an SSD?

Just be aware of all the fake 16 TB SSD drives that are on offer. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/202...s-are-posing-as-16tb-portable-ssds-on-amazon/

You can get a legitimate 16 TB external drive, and I have used this company's products for internal SSDs, but it's going to cost you. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B097LVLWW...are-us-1088721257504799400-20&geniuslink=true
Thanks, It is not an SSD on the laptop. I will be updating my laptop soon, though. And I use G-drive 12TB externals, very happy with them.
 
Brenda, I just found your website and you are a top-end and outstanding professional photographer. You shoot a lot of stuff but also are primarily (like me) a travel photographer shooting on the road). I love your work.

I know a lot of pro photographers and talk to them about their workflow and computers. I was a bit taken aback by some of the things you were saying about your computer, the issue you had and hints about how you do your after-shooting workflow.

I was surprised that you are doing your post processing on the machine you described since you are operating at this professional high-volume (and very fine I must say) production level. Then yesterday you said you were booting off a spinning laptop hard drive.

Anyway, you said you are buying a new laptop which is great because for the work you do, that is essential for you right now. You are going to be amazed at how this positively impacts your workflow (and your photography) in so many ways. You do great road work and I think you said that you won't have a PC and will do everything off that laptop on the road and at home. I'm surprised a photographer of your skill, creativity, production volume and stature would not have a desktop with a big pro screen to operate and do business off of at home and use the laptop on the road, but that is doable. The laptops now are powerful enough to be able to do this at your level and the new ones have amazing display technology that is going to knock your socks off when you see it (go 4K OLED or mini-LED on the new laptop). But if I were you, I would get a laptop with two Thunderbolt 4 ports and while at home, connect that laptop to a nice big 4K screen, keyboard and the big externa HDD. You are using the laptop on the road and at home, but while at home you are instantly connected to a decent big screen (or two), keyboard, mouse and big external spinning hard drive (or two).

You are correct that big external spinning hard drives are the answer for you. When you said you had 7 or 8 TB of image files, I didn't believe it (thought you had the terms mixed up), but now I do (after seeing your work). I think you can easily fit all your work on one big external drive and back it up to a couple more identical big external spinning drives.

Last week at Costco I bought a new Seagate external 12 TB spinning hard drive for 120 bucks. It is the size of a small cigar box and just sits flat on my desk hidden behind my screen. It is remarkably small for a big spinner - about the size of a small cigar box. And the key here is that it is new.

If I were you, and I don't mean to patronize you here, because you are as great photographer (but probably could use some help on the computer end of things), I would take a 2 TB SSD (about the size of 10 credit cards stacked together) and use that on the road. Maybe two of them. They are inexpensive now. When you get your new laptop, it will have fast connectivity ports and you will be able to connect a really fast external SSD to it (like a PCIe Gen 4 SSD that will get you to 20 Gbps on that new laptop, or more likely, you will probably have a laptop with a TB 4 / USB 4 port (or two) that will get you to 40 Gbps, but those SSDs are more expensive.

When you get your new laptop, it is going to change a lot for you. You will see.

Then when you get home, you can easily get everything quickly into your master 10 or 12 TB hard drive on the desk and backed up to at least two more of those babies.

Your new laptop will have a 1 or 2 TB M.2 PCIe Gen 4 SSD as the boot drive. On that boot drive you will put all your programs (LR and PS) and the catalog. While on the road, you can also put your images on that super-fast internal boot SSD, so make it a 2 TB SSD. Then back it up to the 2 TB external SSD. If you are traveling in the US by car, you can of course take one of your big 10 or 12 TB spinners with you also. Then you have everything.

Breanda, I'm like you. I shoot a lot on the road and have a passion for photography. But I'm also a computer guy. I don't know everything, but I know a lot, probably more than most photographers (not all, but I would guess 90% of the ones I know).

I say that because I will help you if you want. PM me, call me or email me. I can help advise you on this part of the equation if you want, because pro photographers like you have to stay abreast of the computer end of things or it can get you in hot water fast. I know a lot, and I still, get scalded by my laptops and PC from time to time.
 
I'm going to close this thread as it's heading off-topic now, but I'll leave Greg's post here as it's a kind offer of assistance if Brenda wants to take Greg up on it.
 
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