Mac Lr AntiVirus

[Gnits]

Lightroom Version Number

12.4

Operating System

1. macOS 13 Ventura

Mac / Lr / AntiVirus

I have come across a Lr Classic install on a fully specified 2017 iMac 5k 27inch. There is a 3TB fusion drive with almost 2TB free system disk space. Images are stored on external OWC Thunderbolt disk enclosure (4 x 6TB Red drives - jbod). There are more than 500,000 raw images on the external drives. 64GB of memory.

The problem. The system now crawls, especially using Lr but even using apps like Safari.

I strongly suspect that Mac o/s is running a virus check or similar on the external image drives. There is no 3rd party antivirus app installed.

In the past, I remember having the option to turn off virus checking on a folder or drive, but cannot find an option now to turn off virus checking. The only option appears to be to turn of the Firewall, which I do not want to do. I have checked on this iMac machine and on my own travel M2 MacAir.

1. Any tips to selectively turning off any anti virus (or similar) checking.

2. Any other obvious causes to explore.

I check the cpu / memory performance monitor regularly and cannot spot an obvious app hogging the system.

Any assistance appreciated.

 

[Hal P Anderson]

I have checked on this iMac machine and on my own travel M2 MacAir.

So the enclosure on your M2 slows it to a crawl? Are there activity lights on the enclosure?

Could one of the disks be failing and the enclosure spends a lot of time re-trying?

Can you run disk diagnostics on those disks?

 

[Gnits]

So the enclosure on your M2 slows it to a crawl? Are there activity lights on the enclosure?

Could one of the disks be failing and the enclosure spends a lot of time re-trying?

Can you run disk diagnostics on those disks?

Thanks for response, but none of the above.
The enclosure is attached to the iMac and all tests indicate it is working perfectly. I have the same issue if I unplug the Thunderbolt enclosure and add a temp Samsung T7 with say 50,000 sample raw images using a Thunderbolt cable and port on the iMac. The Samsung drive performs perfectly using a different Mac.

 

[clee01l]

AFAIK, Apple does not embed any Malware checking like Microsoft might. Thus there is no Antivirus app running between the OS and the filesystem.

FWIW, I do not run a firewall. Apple has always been diligent and quickly issues patches to the OS whenever system vulnerabilities are reported. Periodically, I run MalwareBytes to clean up any files that have been introduced with (usually a Windows) virus. I would suggest that you D/L and run the free copy of MalwareBytes to see if it picks up anything.
If it seems to be just the one enclosure, I suspect more than anything the internal HW/SW is failing. How old is the enclosure. What is the Mfg and model? In the past I have had had RAID controllers fail rendering the enclosure dead in the water. Even though you have configured the drive as JBOD, I then the controller is still in the middle.
Other things I can suggest: Update LrC to v12.5. Update the OS to Sonoma v14.1 and Upgrade to LrC v13.0.1

 

[Gnits]

I am fairly sure I have zoned in on the problem.

S P O T L I G H T

I strongly suspect Spotlight. I have removed the image drives from Spotlight and sense an immediate improvement. I will not have the ability to check for a few days, but will report back.

Considering that most Lr users may have high volumes of images, having Spotlight index these files is potentially cpu intensive.

For people reporting performance issues on Mac, it may be worth checking this out.

 

[clee01l]

I am fairly sure I have zoned in on the problem.

S P O T L I G H T

I strongly suspect Spotlight. I have removed the image drives from Spotlight and sense an immediate improvement. I will not have the ability to check for a few days, but will report back.

Considering that most Lr users may have high volumes of images, having Spotlight index these files is potentially cpu intensive.

For people reporting performance issues on Mac, it may be worth checking this out.

Spotlight has b even the source of problems. I do not use Spotlight.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Gnits]

I am horrified.

The user purchased close to the top of the range product and has suffered for years, due in reality, to Apple crippling their own product.

Naturally, the problem peaks on return from a photo trip, with the need to process relatively large volumes of raw images, while spotlight at the same time, is rendering a highly specified machine close to a useless heap of electronics.

I have experienced myself how aggressive the spotlight background processes operate and cannot believe such invasive processes are not automatically throttled back when the Mac is in use.

It is a lesson to me re Mac. I will revisit my Spotlight settings on my own MacAir in due course and will attempt to limit Spotlight (if I can) to spreadsheets, word docs and pdf's. If that is not possible I will turn off or remove Spotlight.

In terms of Windows machines, I use a product called Everything, which can be found here. https://www.voidtools.com/faq/#what_is_everything .

It is close to the perfect search tool for my needs on Windows. I have configured it to do my most frequent searches on my most used file types and it is so simple, so effective and so brilliant.

Regards.

 

[clee01l]

The user purchased close to the top of the range product and has suffered for years, due in reality, to Apple crippling their own product.

Naturally, the problem peaks on return from a photo trip, with the need to process relatively large volumes of raw images, while spotlight at the same time, is rendering a highly specified machine close to a useless heap of electronics.

I have experienced myself how aggressive the spotlight background processes operate and cannot believe such invasive processes are not automatically throttled back when the Mac is in use.

It is a lesson to me re Mac. I will revisit my Spotlight settings on my own MacAir in due course and will attempt to limit Spotlight (if I can) to spreadsheets, word docs and pdf's. If that is not possible I will turn off or remove Spotlight.

Open Mac Preferences. Select Siri & Spotlight from the left panel Uncheck those items that you wish Spotlight to ignore.
For most low volume people Spotlight is not a problem. Large additions of image files can temporarily create a problem. So can mounting a new EHD with lots of files to be indexed . Adding the OWC Thunderbolt drive with 500K plus files is going to take some time for Spotlight to digest. Trying to import those files also causes Spotlight to have to digest a lot of changes

If you have Lightroom Classic, you do not really need another image Data Asset Manager (DAM). Turning Spotlight off for at least images should help .

 

[Gnits]

I am not sure if Spotlight reindexes a drive if it is disconnected and reconnected…. If so, it would explain extreme Spotlight impact.

It would be convenient if Spotlight could be set to focus on the main drive and ask permission for scenarios where Spotlight tries to extend its scope to other drives.

I will try to do more research on Spotlight behaviour.

 

[Conrad Chavez]

A starting point for research might be the Spotlight articles on Howard Oakley’s technical Mac blog, including these:
Spotlight problems: mds_stores and mdworker in trouble

He also made a free utility called Mints that, among other things, can help diagnose Spotlight:
How to test Spotlight out in 30 seconds with Mints 1.0b11

 

[Gnits]

Thanks. I had a quick glance. The links look really useful.

 

[michaelp]

Are you 100% sure the problem is not the Mac's HDD spin-up time?

I have struck the same appalling performance issue with 3 Fusion Drive 2017 4K iMacs. Everything tests OK ... except HDD spin-up time (revealed by DriveDX app).

The solution was to purchase a 1TB SSD, connect it to one of the USB-C ports, clone the HDD to it, then use that as the boot disk. The performance improvement was instant and sustained.

 

[Gnits]

The Fusion Drive only holds o/s and apps. The images are stored on an OWC Thunderbolt enclosure with Thunderbolt cables or on Samsung T7 ssd drives, using the supplied cable.

Removing Spotlight from the drives has made a difference, but I have not been back yet to see for myself.

I have vague recollection of removing Spotlight from the drives previously, but either o/s upgrades or disk unmount / remount may be causing the Spotlight settings to reset…. so needs to be monitored.

The drives used had 100’s of 1000’s of images, so Spotlight had lot of indexing to do.

 

[michaelp]

Presumably Lightroom app and its catalog(s) are on the Fusion Drive ... where they should be ... but if spin-up time of the Fusion HDD has increased due to HDD ageing, that may well be the problem.

In the cases I mentioned, performance degraded after the iMacs were about 2 years old, and eventually became unbearable for the users. It was puzzling, as all the usual tests revealed nothing.

If you remove spotlight from the external drives you will lose image metadata (other than basic stuff) in Finder previews.

I once had a 2013 iMac with Fusion Drive ... that was back in the day when the associated SSD was 128GB. Was still snappy in 2018. But the tiny SSDs they use now don't seem to compensate for the ever-slowing HDDs.

 

[Gnits]

Fusion Drive replaced about a year ago. I asked the owner to check if it could be replaced by an SSD at the time…. but not sure if the techie had the parts or skills to do the job. Limited options in Dublin Ireland for such services.

I will know myself on my next visit if the situation has improved. Also, image metadata not needed in Finder. Easier and better tools within Lr.

I agree…. I never liked the Fusion drives.

While I like what Apple have done with their M series laptops and desktops, for high end performance work station rigs I personally prefer the option to be able to plug the latest M2 drives into the latest Pcie bus tech and store my own first layer of backup on spinning drives within the case.
I buy MacAir for travel….

There is no perfect solution, just choices.

 

[michaelp]

Indeed. I'm only trying to help!
It's a shame an SSD wasn't installed when the opportunity arose. Those HDD in the iMacs I've dealt were only 5,800 RPM - incredible they didn't even use 7,200 RPM disks in such supposedly "high end" products.
Spotlight will be very busy indexing a new drive or when it's reset, but once the first indexing is done, thereafter it really shouldn't be using much resources.

 

[Gnits]

The photographer is a specialist wildlife shooter, returns from trips with 4tb ssd's filled with images. No advantage to index , as Ssds and their backup are stored offline after hero images extracted.