White UI as Lightroom 3 loads

[Rose Weir]

The past few days when Lightroom 3 loads the screen area is white with borders and then slowly fills in the various colours to present the last used module. When exporting the export dialog box is also white with box borders that slowly fill in with the text areas for doing an export.

This phenomena wasn't there from the beginning but I have been using it daily through January and this past week this 'look' has become consistent. Nothing else in the computer has this colourless moment.
Perhaps its connected to the adjustment brush which if the auto mask is on a distinct black box shows up in the top left corner where the image info would be. It will flash on for a moment and then go away.

I ran out of search words to identify if this is connected to video or if its just software specific.
My video card is ATI Radeon 38'' .
System is Windows 7 Professional 64 bit 4core 8 gb ram
Rose

 

[Brad Snyder]

Hmmm, kinda sounds performance related, but that shouldn't be given your system specs.

I'd say to make sure all your drivers, particularly video are up to date.
Also, have a try with a new empty catalog, to help isolate the problems.
Perhaps try defaulting the program preferences. Some standard steps are detailed here: http://www.lightroomqueen.com/community/index.php?topic=1645.'

Let us know if how you make out, or if you've tried all this before, what happened.

 

[Rose Weir]

I followed the instructions per the standard steps link http://www.lightroomqueen.com/community/index.php?topic=1645.'
So with new preferences set up and imported a month's worth of images into a new catalog the amount of white screen has been reduced to approx. 1-2 seconds..short time at any rate and then the whole screen fills in.
The ATI drivers were the latest until two days ago and a new version 1' has been published. Reports on the ATI forum are inconsistent so I'm not updating that just yet.
I think this delay in full appearance is connected with the software loading, starting with the shortcut on the desktop. I click the shortcut created by LR3 install and there is substantial pause with no action. Its enough time that I wonder if I clicked and then Lr begins to display the edge of its window.
So that's the update todate.
Rose

 

[Brad Snyder]

Another thought, any USB harddrives, or perhaps power saving mode on internal drives? My system gets a bit hung, and LR (among others) goes 'not responding' for a few seconds when those external harddrive 'autosleep'. If so, Denis Page' suggested a quick script to keep those drives awake.

 

[Rose Weir]

I turned off ' the sleep' routine at the outset of Windows 7 install on both machines. The second computer wouldn't wake up in the first days after install . I wasn't having that nonsense on this main computer so my 'power saving' is to shut the whole thing off.
The only time I note a 'not responding' is copying a group of images off the memory card while using Faststone Image Viewer. Its as though there is a pause intermittently while the card is read. The dialoque box will go white and then suddenly report that all images are copied. I can move/copy images from the card with Explorer and no issue.
I'll just continue to be observant of Lr3 behaviour and anticpate that there will be 'fine tuning' completed by the time spring rolls around with the final edition available for overall Lr3 has a much bettter performance with the adjustment brushes.
Thanks for the input since I was expecting that something not terrific was looming on the horizon with these initial white out situations <grin>
Rose

 

[Rose Weir]

Just a follow up to the white screen with a black border on start up of Lightroom
Windows 7 had 5 updates last night -who knows what they included BUT today Lightroom loaded with NO WHITE SCREEN.

I have become so accustomed to that moment of 'white out' that a full presentation almost knocked me off the chair <LOL!>

Rose

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Well that's nice to hear Rose! Probably a graphics driver update or something like that then.