Lightroom disaster

[malch]

I do like Linux, in fact have it installed on a laptop. But haven't been wild about the photo software for it, except for Gimp (which you can also use on Windows). What do you use?

I still do most of my photo work on Windows.

But I have used RawTherapee for raw conversions and it's very good.

darktable and showFoto/digiKam are worth a look. I've only really taken a casual peek but i do know they're attracted a lot of development effort in recent times and I've seen a lot of positive comments about the progress.

Geeqie and EOG are excellent viewers.

I'm considering switching my primary desktop to Linux although I would certainly set up a Win 7 VirtualBox for Photoshop and a few other Windows apps I can't live without. I'd probably port my home grown photo management app to Linux -- quite a lot of work but I may be able to take some major shortcuts.

 

[Skipper494]

Clean out any dust as suggested below, add memory. For LR a quad i5 is recommended, but my best advice is to get rid of LR. There are many much less demanding programs that are just as useful for almost any image processing.

 

[Patco]

I do like Linux, in fact have it installed on a laptop. But haven't been wild about the photo software for it, except for Gimp (which you can also use on Windows). What do you use?

Have you tried the Linux version of Corel AfterShot Pro 2?

http://www.aftershotpro.com/en/products/aftershot-pro/?pid=prod5520073

It's about the Mac version,but this post may be helpful:

Corel AfterShot Pro 2 vs. Adobe Lightroom 5

--
Patco
A photograph is more than a bunch of pixels

 

[bkpix]

Yes, I'm pretty interested in Aftershot Pro. Unfortunately I can't get it to download on either my Linux or Windows systems. Probably a temporary issue with their website; I'll keep trying.

Thanks for the suggestion and links.

 

[bkpix]

OK, the download is finally working

 

[TonyGamble]

Something other than LR?

I deliberately did not name the system I use as I don't think I have ever persuaded anyone on DPR to even try it - let alone use it. How lovely to hear a couple of people saying they would consider moving from LR.

I use Qimage Ultimate. It is faster than LR and IMHO produces better images from RAWs.

It is well supported on a forum that is monitored daily by the originator and a couple of end user experts.

The downside is that the GUI is different from LR, PS and the popular alternatives. That is what puts people off. I reckon it took me almost a whole morning to fathom out how it worked. But that was one morning in early 2001 - and not a bad investment in time over the last 14 years.

Originally I only used it for printing as that was all it originally did. But it evolved as a RAW converter around the time LR was screwing itself and its customers up - so I moved to QU to process my RAWs.

It is not a fully fledged picture editor. I use Picture Window Pro for that. Again supported by the writer and again better for editing within images. Don't forget that Photoshop was originally created for graphic designers and not photographers - hence this muddled concept of layers.

For inspecting and culling initial images to get rid of the dross I use Fast Picture Viewer. Tons faster than LR and, yet again, supported by the writer.

I despair when I read of people struggling with LR and then telling me they don't have the time to give QU a real test. For a couple of hours the GUI will confuse you - and then suddenly you will see the logic and how, doing away with masses of sliders is actually a step forward.

Tony

 

[Bob Janes]

As LR5 used to run fine, it suggests to me that something else on the PC has changed - have you tried a tune-up type application, or even doing a re-install of Windows 7 to get a 'clean' install?

 

[ernstbk]

I've had Lightroom for years; it's an essential part of my fine art photography.

When I upgraded to LR5 last year, I began to have sporadic crashes, mostly involving image importing and tagging. By "crash" I mean the whole computer suddenly shuts down, destroying any work in progress with other programs. Machine is an HP Pavilion with 8g memory, running Windows 7 Professional.

Please explain exactly what you mean with "crash" and "shuts down". Did you have a blue screen (BSOD) with a stop code ? Did the machine just reboot without any message ?

In the past month the issue began to accelerate. Soon LR became unrunnable.

I upgraded last week to LR6, thinking that might solve the problem.

Instead, it's become far worse. At first I got blue screen crashes every time I opened LR and ran it for more than five minutes. Now it's accelerated to the point that the computer no longer functions, even if I don't run LR. I'm about to do a system restore to get things going again.

Did you record the stop code that was shown on the blue screen ? The first parameter may also be needed to identify the problem.

Anyone else have this experience? Adobe customer service is non-existent. I can find no way to email them, and customer "chat" hasn't responded.

Adobe support is useless and this does not look like a Lightroom problem.

At this point I'm weighing several options:

Give up on Lightroom. It's expensive and bloated. I could run everything off Linux if I didn't need LR. Trouble is, there is no other single program that does image management and processing as well for me.

Very unlikely that Lightroom is the problem, there are lots of deficiencies in this software but not to the extend that it crashes the Operating System.

Give up on the HP computer. This seems to be a rare problem. Another computer might solve the issue and get me back to work. I could use a faster one anyway.

This might be a good idea because I suspect that you have a hardware problem.

Give up on Windows. Thing is, I rather like Windows, and despite some years of experience with that other system, I don't much like Apple. (Most recent bad experience: My son, who's travelling the world this year to try to set a world Big Year birding record, was home for a few days last week and needed to upgrade his now nearly nonfunctional iPhone 4. He bought a new iPhone 6, and then learned that the phone store couldn't transfer any of his files from one to the other; the Apple store in town, wouldn't; and the approved Apple solution -- using iTunes to manage the transfer -- required him to install a new version of iOS on his new phone. After hours of downloading iOS, the phone crashed. The solution: I downloaded a $20 program onto my Windows computer and made the transfer of files from one phone to the other in an hour.)

Try to find an installation disc for LR4. Anyone got one?

Which version would like ?

OK, enough kvetching. Anyone out there got a great idea to solve this?

Thanks.

I suggest you have a look at the eventlog and try to identify the stop codes. I suspect that you may have a hardware problem. This could be CPU malfunction caused by a defect or overheating (did you clean the processor fan ?), faulty/degraded power capacitors on the main board, faulty RAM, bad power supply or a problem with the Graphics Adapter.

I suggest that the first thing you should do is to test the RAM with RAMTEST86. Start with a single core test, then do a test with all cores. If you see a few errors then you most likely have a bad RAM module, if you see lots of errors then the same can be true or you have a problem with the CPU. If MEMTEST86 crashes after showing errors (black screen reboot) then you may have a temperature problem or a CPU/Mainboard problem. Preferably you should do at least a 24 hours test with multiple cores to verify that a) RAM is ok, and b) CPU is OK.

Note: If you see Bug Check (Stop) 0x122/0x124 on the blue screen then it is very likely that your CPU is the cause of the problem. For a complete list of stop codes see here

The problem with this kind of crashes is that it looks as if a particular application can be the cause, in most cases this is not true. Some applications make better/more use of the resources available.

If the RAMTEST is successful I suggest you check the following:
- run a complete chkdsk on your system partition using /F
- Delete pagefile and recreate (tricky but can be done)
- Check you drivers for the Graphics Adapter and maybe update.

 

[Gray Drake]

I've had Lightroom for years; it's an essential part of my fine art photography.

When I upgraded to LR5 last year, I began to have sporadic crashes, mostly involving image importing and tagging. By "crash" I mean the whole computer suddenly shuts down, destroying any work in progress with other programs. Machine is an HP Pavilion with 8g memory, running Windows 7 Professional.

In the past month the issue began to accelerate. Soon LR became unrunnable.

I upgraded last week to LR6, thinking that might solve the problem.

Instead, it's become far worse. At first I got blue screen crashes every time I opened LR and ran it for more than five minutes. Now it's accelerated to the point that the computer no longer functions, even if I don't run LR. I'm about to do a system restore to get things going again.

Anyone else have this experience? Adobe customer service is non-existent. I can find no way to email them, and customer "chat" hasn't responded.

At this point I'm weighing several options:

Give up on Lightroom. It's expensive and bloated. I could run everything off Linux if I didn't need LR. Trouble is, there is no other single program that does image management and processing as well for me.

Give up on the HP computer. This seems to be a rare problem. Another computer might solve the issue and get me back to work. I could use a faster one anyway.

Give up on Windows. Thing is, I rather like Windows, and despite some years of experience with that other system, I don't much like Apple. (Most recent bad experience: My son, who's travelling the world this year to try to set a world Big Year birding record, was home for a few days last week and needed to upgrade his now nearly nonfunctional iPhone 4. He bought a new iPhone 6, and then learned that the phone store couldn't transfer any of his files from one to the other; the Apple store in town, wouldn't; and the approved Apple solution -- using iTunes to manage the transfer -- required him to install a new version of iOS on his new phone. After hours of downloading iOS, the phone crashed. The solution: I downloaded a $20 program onto my Windows computer and made the transfer of files from one phone to the other in an hour.)

Try to find an installation disc for LR4. Anyone got one?

OK, enough kvetching. Anyone out there got a great idea to solve this?

Thanks.

I do not believe this is a base issue with LR. IMO this issue surrounds either your downloads, the size of your computer or your environment. I have used a PCs laptop only, I use it 100% wirelessly (even at home), I have about 20,000 images in my laptop inventory, have processed/deleted many 1,000's more and have not had a crash. I change computers on a 3 year calendar schedule (I recently sold a 17 inch, 3 year old HP, that I had paid $700 for for $275 on ebay, so the 3 yr cycle is not that costly), wait for an early sale on the newer processor. I just changed to a 4th gen i7 processor, with 12 g of ram and a TB hard drive.

What computer op system, processor speed, memory and hd capactiy are you using?

Incidentally, I rejected a recent excursion into a 4k screen (Dell makes a 15.6 4k avail for under $1k). Great for photos, but terrible for my other passion - options trading. It turns out that many sites are not set up for 4k and I was forever switching resolution because these sites were unreadable at 4k. I returned the 4k laptop in 3 weeks and went back to a standard HD screen.

Drake

 

[ADMint]

There are many people using Lightroom under Windows and/or Mac and have never had the issues you describe. And with the crashes and BSOD's, it sounds like the PC itself may be the issue, not Lightroom. I myself use Lightroom under Windows 8.1 and have issues.

You might want to check out your PC and Windows installation - perhaps an OS reinstall is in order. And even if you switch to "something else", your original issue may still pop up.

If Lightroom was truly FUBAR, you'd see your issue popping up all over the place, not just a machine here or there.

My two cents.

 

[TonyGamble]

ADMint,

If Lightroom was truly FUBAR, you'd see your issue popping up all over the place, not just a machine here or there.

Count the times people posted that in the LR thread I pointed to a few posts ago.

OK, maybe it's harder on a Sunday but if I had a problem with QU and went on their forum I'd have a reply before the end of the day. Try that with Adobe.

Tony

 

[dquangt]

LR is pretty resource intensive and can also strain the cpu. If your cooling isn't up to snuff or your case is inundated with dust you may be hitting the temp limit. High temps will often give you strange sporadic behaviour before it shuts down also. Personally I think this is your issue. You could easily get a free temp monitor and check the temps when you run LR.

 

[ADMint]

Count the times people posted that in the LR thread I pointed to a few posts ago.

This is sort of like going to a hospital and not hearing of reported illnesses. At a tech/support forum, you'll see reports of issues!

While Lightroom isn't perfect (no software is), and may have issues, it is consistently more solid than not. So while there are forum reports of issues with Lightroom, just as there are ill people in a hospital, the larger world outside is a bit healthier. In short Lightroom is consistently more good than problematic. That's the point of my statement you highlighted.

As for the OP's issue, all he/she is saying is Lightroom is crashing his PC - a most curious, and rare issue... even for Lightroom. Lightroom may have issues, but crashing PC's isn't generally one of them.

Peace.

 

[bkpix]

Thanks for all the detailed replies.

I don't believe heat is the issue. The case is completely clean, inside and out; the room is cool; and I ran a small portable fan blowing into the case yesterday to see whether it made a difference. It didn't.

Still musing whether it's worth trying to repair the computer, if that is indeed the problem, or whether I should buy a new one; or switch out of LR.

The biggest issue is time. I don't have a lot of spare time to investigate this, and I need to have a functioning system.

Currently trialing Aftershot Pro 2 and ACDSee. We'll see.

Bob

 

[TonyGamble]

Currently trialing Aftershot Pro 2 and ACDSee. We'll see.

But not Qimage Ultimate.

You say you would be prepared to give up LR. You asked me for a suggestion and then start trialing two software systems not even mentioned in this thread.

Why? I'd really love to know.

Tony

 

[ADMint]

Thanks for all the detailed replies.

I don't believe heat is the issue. The case is completely clean, inside and out; the room is cool; and I ran a small portable fan blowing into the case yesterday to see whether it made a difference. It didn't.

Still musing whether it's worth trying to repair the computer, if that is indeed the problem, or whether I should buy a new one; or switch out of LR.

The biggest issue is time. I don't have a lot of spare time to investigate this, and I need to have a functioning system.

Regardless of whether you stay with LR or switch to another program, I still think your issue is with the PC and/or OS itself and will still be there unless addressed.

BTW do/have you updated your OS through Windows Updates? Update any drivers? If not, you need to so that things can continue to run smoothly for the OS.

Peace.

--
A photograph is usually looked at - seldom looked into – Ansel Adams

 

[olakiril2]

or switch out of LR.

The biggest issue is time. I don't have a lot of spare time to investigate this, and I need to have a functioning system.

If your issue is time then switching to another program should not be an option. And as I have told you before and other people as well it will most probably not solve your issue. \

Fastest way:

Buy a new computer

Optimal way:

Google your BSOD error message.

I bet it is a hard drive problem and that can be fixed with a new hard drive. Get an SSD to get better performance too. Backup everything and just do it .

 

[malch]

Regardless of whether you stay with LR or switch to another program, I still think your issue is with the PC and/or OS itself and will still be there unless addressed.

I agree and now that the OP has eliminated the most common cause of such problems (the dust bunnies) I fear diagnosis and repair will be quite tricky. It could be related to CPU, memory, motherboard, disk drive, power supply... basically anything.

 

[bkpix]

Tony,

Actually, Aftershot was mentioned in this thread before you replied about QImage -- which I plan to take a look at, as well.

Bob

 

[Fazal Majid]

Instead, it's become far worse. At first I got blue screen crashes every time I opened LR and ran it for more than five minutes. Now it's accelerated to the point that the computer no longer functions, even if I don't run LR. I'm about to do a system restore to get things going again.

Have you tried "Optimize catalog" (in the File menu on my Mac version)?