Annoying LR3 glitch

divamum

Ever since I formatted/reinstalled my OS - and thus reinstalled all my software, including LR3 - I have a weird problem: while working on a photo, the image fully reloads (ie clears itself then redisplays) EVERY time I make a change. So I crop? It disappears/reloads. Adjust exposure? Disappears/reloads. Etc.

It's driving me nuts! I get the feeling it's a setting somewhere, so I'm hoping one of you lovely people has some idea how I can make it stop doing it...

This is entirely since the reinstall, btw - never had an issue with it before. LR v is 3.6, so the most up-to-date.

basflt

did you re-installed the latest driver for your graphic card ?

divamum

Yes, the driver is up to date.

Any other ideas, anyone? This is making LR almost unusable since the image keeps disappearing momentarily every time I make an editing adjustment. Gah!

basflt

try : ( dont know if it helps )

in preferences / file handling , adjust maximum cache size
also un-check limit video cache

divamum

Didn't work. But I did a hard-reboot and started from scratch and it seems ok for the time being. Here's hoping it was a transient glitch because it was ANNOYING!!

basflt

good to hear it is solved

divamum

Ok, it started up again. It SEEMS to be after I've created a tif to work on in PS, and then gone back to the file in LR BUT... it affects all files, not only the one which has been edited in both.

Where are the how-PS-talks-to-LR settings so I can check those?

Ugh - this is minor, but so annoying! It's impossible to work on an image when every click of the mouse makes the program stop what it's doing to save/reload....

basflt

divamum wrote: »

Ok, it started up again. It SEEMS to be after I've created a tif to work on in PS, and then gone back to the file in LR BUT... it affects all files, not only the one which has been edited in both.

Where are the how-PS-talks-to-LR settings so I can check those?

for both LR and PS ; Edit / preferences

did you made changes there ?
good idea is to reset all to default in LR ; Edit / preferences / presets tab


also ;
i assume you re-installed from original disk
did you check if there are updates ?
installing latest version for your software could also solve ( recommended )
get them from here
http://www.adobe.com/downloads/updates/

divamum

Yes, it's the latest version. It's LR3, so no more updates now LR4 is out (?). Resetting defaults is probably a good idea, although since I didn't consciously reset anything, no idea what could have changed .

basflt

divamum wrote: »

Yes, it's the latest version. It's LR3, so no more updates now LR4 is out

LR3 what ?
LR3.6 is latest ( December 2011 )
and Camera Raw 6.6 for PS ( December 2011 )

with those two i cant imagine there is something wrong

even if you have , it cant hurt to install them again

otherwise , it must be a graphics issue , driver most likely


further im out of idea's , sorry

divamum

Yes, 3.6....

I have CS3 and never use Bridge, so haven't updated the raw driver in that since forever (I don't think I even can, now).

Anybody else - Arodney? Jim?

Gary752

Has there been any updates installed from Mickeysoft lately? That was the root of my problems. After formatting twice and reinstalling everything, I now no longer let Mickeysoft install any updates. I also started storing my LR catalog on the same drive as my photos (not OS drive) in case I have to do another format/install in the future.

GaryB

Dan7312

I haven't had this problem (screen painting slow, complete screen repaints on every command) with LR, but I have run into it with both Photoshop and Premiere. I've found the only fix that seems to clear things up in these cases is a machine restart.

My speculation is that Adobe can't figure out what video memory to free up for other purposes. Video cards contain memory, but they can also use the regular memory in the computer. The video memory is used for more than just the image you see on the screen, it's also used for buffering intermediate calculations that can speed things up a lot. However once the video card starts using significant amounts of the regular computer memory things sloooow down.

My guess is a video card with more memory would reduce how often this happens, maybe to zero. But I've never really had a chance to try this out.

However this problem doesn't crop all all that often for me, maybe 2 or 3 times in the last 6 months.

One thing that may give you a hint as to what is going on is the Windows Event Log. Some software will log information when they system doesn't seem to be responding properly. Unfortunately the message are often cryptic, but if you see a correlation between video card messages and this slow down it might be a hint. You get to the even log with start->control panel->administrative tools->event viewer.

Sorry I can't come up with something more definitive.

divamum wrote: »

Yes, 3.6....

I have CS3 and never use Bridge, so haven't updated the raw driver in that since forever (I don't think I even can, now).

Anybody else - Arodney? Jim?

divamum

Whoa - I think you're totally on to something. I don't know what it means, but I find a slew of logged items which read "The entry in the hash map cannot be updated."

Seems that would be consistent with what I was describing.... Ditto that the thing which seemed to fix it was a full reboot.

The weird thing is that it never happened before the system reinstall last month; I wonder what's different now that causes it to be an issue sometimes? THe hardware is identical - the only change was formatting/reinstall. I have, of course, updated all drivers (insofar as I can with a 3.5 yo machine)

basflt

try to run LR as administrator ; right-click the icon / run as administrator

divamum

Thanks - what am I doing when I run it as administrator?

Btw, here's the full error message (somehow I must've copied/pasted incorrectly)

The entry < C:\USERS\MG\PICTURES\LIGHTROOM\LIGHTROOM 3 CATALOG PREVIEWS.LRDATA\ROOT-PIXELS.DB-JOURNAL > in the hash map cannot be updated.

basflt

divamum wrote: »

Thanks - what am I doing when I run it as administrator?

windows protect itself from other software
running a software as administrator gives the software more privileges
often this helps

just try it
if it works , i tell how to make it permanent


BTW
forget error-log if you dont know what you looking for , the log is too big
here is mine ( and my PC runs just fine )

Dan7312

When you do "run as administrator" you are circumventing some of the things windows does to protect against viruses. It means the application has free run to read or change anything on the computer.

BTW, unless you are logged in with administrator privileges you will not be given the option of "run as administrator". In windows even if you are logged in as administrator you are not given access to everything unless you specifically ask, by running as administrator.

The error you are seeing may be due to lack of privileges, though that shouldn't be the case.

One way to find out is to check the event log when LR is running properly and see if those errors are still appearing. They are time stamped so you can tell when they occurred. If they are appearing when LR is running properly than that is not what is causing the problem.

It looks like you are logged in as "MG", is that the case? (USERS\MG is the folder Windows creates for the user named "MG"). If you are logged in as "MG" then access to the files is not your problem. If you are logged under another name then it might be.

divamum wrote: »

Thanks - what am I doing when I run it as administrator?

Btw, here's the full error message (somehow I must've copied/pasted incorrectly)

The entry < C:\USERS\MG\PICTURES\LIGHTROOM\LIGHTROOM 3 CATALOG PREVIEWS.LRDATA\ROOT-PIXELS.DB-JOURNAL > in the hash map cannot be updated.

Dan7312

If "Run as admin" is the only way to fix things then you will have to do that. But in general it's not a good idea to do this unless you really have to.

It does add a level of virus protection, but unless you are opening up files from some really strange sources that is not an issue with LR.

However this feature is in Windows to protect you against yourself too. In general administrators on other operating systems don't enable their full admin privileges unless they are doing a task that specifically needs them, just for protection from themselves. Running with full admin priv's is akin to "running with scissors."

The are a couple of other problems this can end up causing. Because it allows LR to access and change anything, even file crucial to the operation of Windows, it means a bug in LR might corrupt your system.

Run as admin also means that if you, by accident, point LR at directories you typically don't have access to you will end up successfully saving files there, or maybe walking on top of a file that you shouldn't.

And because you can access directories you normally wouldn't you may end up percolating the "run as administrator" requirement to other applications. For example you might save a file to a directory you don't normally have access to, and then try to open it with PS. However because the file ended up in a directory you don't normally have access to PS would need "run as administrator" too.

Dan7312 wrote: »

When you do "run as administrator" you are circumventing some of the things windows does to protect against viruses. It means the application has free run to read or change anything on the computer.
.

divamum

Thank you both - wow, I'm learning a lot in this thread!

- yes, I run the computer as user MG
- I'm the only user, so I never set or un-set admin privileges, which (I believe) means I have them
- yes I could open LR in admin mode
- sounds like I don't really know enough about the underlying function of Windoze to be trusted with extra privileges (for the same reason I will NEVER touch the registry unless I'm doing it with a step-by-step walkthrough from a trusted source!). I know just enough to be dangersou...

This glitch does seem to come and go, which suggests that Dan's assessment is very likely. I'll keep an eye on it; if I can find any more obvious clues, I'll be back to this thread to see if anybody can help me narrow it down and/or find a solution. It's mainly just ANNOYING, and I can imagine next time I have a big shoot (one coming up), it will be maddening if I have to put up with it and/or keep rebooting to lose it...

Thanks again for all the help - much appreciated (and very informative and interesting!)

Gary752

Diva...Look into a program called "System Mechanic" by Ilo. This program came highly recommended by Dell, and seems to have helped quite a bit on my laptop. This program checks everything, and either reports to you what it finds wrong so you can take action, or you can have it automatically fix any problems it finds. I am going to be using this program for my weekly maint. as it not only gets rid of junk files (temp files, internet history, ect...) but it also defrags the hard drive, which I think does a better job than MickeySofts defrag (at least you can see what it is doing). Before I started running this program, I couldn't run LR4 at all, now it runs, a little slow at times, but at least it runs now!

GaryB

divamum

Update on this: it only actually does it after I've exported a file as a tif to PS, worked on it, and then start working on it again in LR. Any further suggestions?

Dan7312

A tiff file is pretty big compared to a psd. You might be running into memory (virtual or otherwise) limitations that can kick in before physical ones do.

You can also export as PSD, which should be about the same info, but in a different, more compact format. Is there some reason to choose TIFF. It's not something I do some I'm not familiar with the differences between export tiff or psd to Photoshop.

Also Lightroom has a Photo->Edit in->Photoshop that might be lighter weight if it does what you want.

divamum wrote: »

Update on this: it only actually does it after I've exported a file as a tif to PS, worked on it, and then start working on it again in LR. Any further suggestions?

divamum

Yes, I use the right-click "edit in photoshop" option, but I have to convert since CS3 doesn't recognize the raw files from my 7d. I gather I can also convert to dng, but somebody a while back suggested it was better to work on the tiffs.

In my experience PSD's are usually bigger, but maybe that's because I only use them when I'm saving layers? Not sure.

However, this seems to confirm that it's in some way related to LR and PS talking to each other.

And, of course, the burning question: why does this ONLY do this after the reformat, when I never had a problem with it before? (that's a rhetorical question, btw - I'm not sure there is an obvious answer!!). So weird.

Dan7312

Good job and zeroing in on the issue

Flattening all the layers will make both tiff's and PSD's smaller. Once you export to tiff from LR, then edit it in PS, you (I assume) end up adding a bunch of layers. PS then updates the tiff file with all those layers tend make the size of the tiff a lot bigger. Are you choosing compression when the tiff is saved? That might not make any difference because LR will have to decompress it before it can use it, but it is worth a try.

BTW uncompressed tiff's with layers are, I'm pretty sure, bigger than PSD's with layers. You check this out for your images by just saving a few as a PSD, a TIFF (compressed and uncompressed) and compare them.

You could, if you don't really need the layers, flatten the layers in PS before you go back to LR. You could also convert it to 8-bit from 16-bit... I think LR exports 16-bit tiff's by default. You might try doing this just to see if it makes the problems go away.

I didn't realize you were using CS3. It well may be that CS3 doesn't do as good a job at managing memory or maybe tiff's as well as the later versions.

If you want to confirm this you could install the trial of CS6 and see if it is still an issue. Installing CS6 doesn't remove your CS3 install, you will just end up with both of them on your machine. If the problem goes away with CS6 then at least you know the issue.

divamum wrote: »

Yes, I use the right-click "edit in photoshop" option, but I have to convert since CS3 doesn't recognize the raw files from my 7d. I gather I can also convert to dng, but somebody a while back suggested it was better to work on the tiffs.

In my experience PSD's are usually bigger, but maybe that's because I only use them when I'm saving layers? Not sure.

However, this seems to confirm that it's in some way related to LR and PS talking to each other.

And, of course, the burning question: why does this ONLY do this after the reformat, when I never had a problem with it before? (that's a rhetorical question, btw - I'm not sure there is an obvious answer!!). So weird.

divamum

All of which still begs the question: why only now, with a re-install of the same OS onto the same hardware, with the same drivers, and the same software... is there a new, not-seen-before problem.

However, I've reset it to 8bit, which I hadn't tried; will be interesting to see if that makes a difference

Thanks for the continued brainstorming!!!

Dan7312

My guess would be that there is some difference in the configuration of your system before and after you repaved it. It might be in the configuration of the OS itself or in the applications.

For example after the repave did you do a bunch of Windows updates? Do you know if the last Windows update you did on the system before repave was the same as the last one you did after?

Doing all the Windows updates at once can result in a slight system config difference than what you would end up with if you did them one at a time, over time, as they occurred.

Normally these differences would be trivial and not affect anything. But if a system is on the edge resource-wise (like memory) they could push it over that edge. That's just speculation on my part, tracking something like this down is hard, but as that great computer scientist Thomas Wolfe noted "You can't go home again."

divamum wrote: »

All of which still begs the question: why only now, with a re-install of the same OS onto the same hardware, with the same drivers, and the same software... is there a new, not-seen-before problem. <img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/headscratch.gif&quot; border="0" alt="" >

However, I've reset it to 8bit, which I hadn't tried; will be interesting to see if that makes a difference <img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/thumb.gif&quot; border="0" alt="" >

Thanks for the continued brainstorming!!!

divamum

It is entirely possible the updating has been different since it was done en masse. That said, I typically only do security updates - Windoze "improvements" are almost invariably a disaster!

What's also interesting is that with this reinstall I'm experiencing my first driver conflicts, the kind so many complained about when Vista first came out. When I got this machine I had ZERO problems with it - I may be the only person I know who didn't curse Vista to the skies when forced to switch. Until now

Alll that said, this machine is running almost like new since the reinstall; even with only 4g memory (I love that "only" - I remember running our first computer which had 4MB or RAM!) it's handling pretty much everything I throw at it and relatively quickly too.

I do want to upgrade to CS6 - badly - but I'm a little concerned that it may overtax this system (thoughts? Typical 2008 machine with Vista Home Premium 32bit; Intel core 2duo T5750 @2ghz; 4g ram; ATI Radeon 3400 series - can't remember how much vid mem). I'm definitely holding off on LR4 for a while given the reports of slow performance - LR3 is a great program and should keep me going until I jump to a camera it can't read (eg I'm not sure if they're adding 5dIII compatibility to it or not)

Dan7312

Adobe claims it will run in 1G of memory (http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/tech-specs.html) so maybe 4G will be OK. Your video card supports Open GL (http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/ati-radeon-hd-3000/hd-3400/Pages/ati-radeon-hd-3400-specifications.aspx) which is also one of the requirements. Adobe actually don't list Vista as a supported OS, but I am running it on Vista with no problem, but I have lot's of memory.

A lot depends on the images you work with and how much editing/layers you do with them.

However in the end not matter what system you have and what Adobe says the only way you will know if/how well it will work is to download the trial version and try it out.

Dan

divamum wrote: »

I do want to upgrade to CS6 - badly - but I'm a little concerned that it may overtax this system (thoughts? Typical 2008 machine with Vista Home Premium 32bit; Intel core 2duo T5750 @2ghz; 4g ram; ATI Radeon 3400 series - can't remember how much vid mem).

divamum

I FOUND IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's the XMP sidecar setting for "other programs to view LR changes". Picasa was constantly updating the thumbnails as LR redrew = sloooowww and annoying glitch.

The good: I've found it and can switch it off (you have no idea what a relief it is to edit without that!)
The bad: I'm still stuck with only xmp's in my catalog instead of next to the files.

Hmmmm....

Dan7312

Great job zeroing in the real bug

In LR you can do a right mouse button on a folder in folders pallet and output the metadata of the images in that folder into sidecar .xmp files. Just remember to do this every once an a while and you will have your .xmp files next to the image file.

divamum wrote: »

I FOUND IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!