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Author Topic: Book Module Issues  (Read 5261 times)

Remo Nonaz

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Book Module Issues
« on: January 24, 2017, 05:01:41 pm »

I have used the Lr Book Module many times and although I don't think it is a perfect tool, it works and does create pretty good albums. In my most recent adventure with this tool I'm finding that it is bogging down terribly and frequently the pop-up instruction boxes fail to work. A good example of this is the Create Saved Book box, which won't let me enter a name for the new book. In other instances the box will appear but won't completely form on the page, so you can't see what the various selections are.

I have a pretty powerful PC computer; 3rd gen Core i7 and 16GB of memory, which is running Windows 10 and normally deals with Lr very well. I don't know if this new behavior with the Book Module is since the last Lr upgrade, but I suspect it is. I am presently running CC 2015.8 [1099474]. This also may be the first time I've used the Book Module since I (recently) upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10.

Is anyone else seeing these odd behaviors and is there a resolution to them? As is, the Book Module is essentially unusable.

Post Script:
I'm having issues with the Develop Module as well. For example, the crop tool no longer displays the options for locking the ratio or setting a ratio. The spot removal tool is very sluggish to set the sliders and numbers cannot be entered into the settings instead of using the sliders. Are there general problems with this release?
« Last Edit: January 24, 2017, 05:23:51 pm by Remo Nonaz »
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Hoggy

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Re: Book Module Issues
« Reply #1 on: January 24, 2017, 06:06:23 pm »

You may want to try backing-up and then resetting the preferences file.  I've heard it can help when things get strange like that. (https://www.lightroomqueen.com/articles-page/how-do-i-reset-lightrooms-preferences/)

Failing that, a re-install might be in order.

... It's worth a shot.  Otherwise I wouldn't know.  I haven't experienced anything like that over here - currently at 2015.8, Win10.
« Last Edit: January 24, 2017, 06:17:25 pm by Hoggy »
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Remo Nonaz

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Re: Book Module Issues
« Reply #2 on: January 24, 2017, 09:00:57 pm »

Failing that....

I shut down, restarted and reopened Lr. Initially it looked much better but within five minutes it was awful again. I reset the preferences, which changed nothing. I de-installed Lr and reloaded it. Again, initially it looked better. As I worked with it, it slowed down again. And, it's not just the Book Module. It's the whole program. The develop module is slow. Scrolling the catalog is nearly impossible as there is such a long lag between your mouse movement and when the catalog list starts to scroll.

I suspect this is not a Lr problem. There is something with Windows 10 that is hosing this system up. And to think that I went to Windows 10 so that I could load the latest version of Lr, which is no longer supported under Windows 7!
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I really enjoy using old primes on my m4/3 camera. There's something about having to choose your aperture and actually focusing your camera that makes it so much more like... like... PHOTOGRAPHY!

stingray

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Re: Book Module Issues
« Reply #3 on: January 25, 2017, 09:33:24 am »

If you have recently upgraded to Windows 10 .... some thoughts..

Check your anti virus settings ... 
Make sure that a full AntiVirus scan is not in progress.
Exclude previews folder from Anti Virus check
Check what programs are starting automatically (Task Manager / Start Up Tab / Sort by Publisher .... initially leave all Microsoft apps)

Are previews been generated. Leave Lr on for a few hours or overnight to try and get all background processes to finish.
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Remo Nonaz

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Re: Book Module Issues
« Reply #4 on: January 25, 2017, 07:53:37 pm »

I worked late into the night to finish the album I was making, struggling all the way with Lr working in a balky manner. Today I trolled the web looking for further suggestions as to why my machine is behaving so badly. I found no answers that had not been already suggested or looked at. Nevertheless, today Lr seems much better. The Develop Module is working as it normally does and a quick test with Book Module indicates that it is working better as well - at least it will let me name an album in the create album popup.

I've done nothing to fix my issues. I'm glad it is working better but I sure would like to know what the issues were and why they mysteriously have gone away.
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I really enjoy using old primes on my m4/3 camera. There's something about having to choose your aperture and actually focusing your camera that makes it so much more like... like... PHOTOGRAPHY!

Remo Nonaz

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Re: Book Module Issues
« Reply #5 on: February 07, 2017, 01:30:35 pm »

I returned from a trip to Florida this week with about a thousand images to process. I had no difficulties with Lr at all... until I started to make an album of the trip. Within minutes of moving to the book module, all the problems I was seeing two weeks ago started again. This included having the develop module be very sluggish even after I got out of the book module. I shut down Lr and re-started it and the problems persist. Based on my past experience, I guess it is going to take several re-boots of my computer and a few re-starts of Lr before the system returns to normal again. However, I think I'm going to skip making the album I wanted to create - it's just too frustrating to work with. Perhaps this will be fixed in a future release. Right now the book module is unusable.
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I really enjoy using old primes on my m4/3 camera. There's something about having to choose your aperture and actually focusing your camera that makes it so much more like... like... PHOTOGRAPHY!

john beardsworth

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Re: Book Module Issues
« Reply #6 on: February 07, 2017, 02:43:23 pm »

There aren't any other current reports of problems in Book, so focus on your system. How much disc space? If not much, free some up. What about the graphics card? Update the driver. Have you optimised the catalogue recently? Internet connection - Book needs to communicate with Blurb so is there a problem in that area?
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Remo Nonaz

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Re: Book Module Issues
« Reply #7 on: February 07, 2017, 03:42:36 pm »

Lr uses a dedicated 120gb SSD for its temporary files and that drive is essentially empty. I have an in Intel 3770 CPU and a good cable internet connection. I don't have a graphics card but I do use the CPU's HD 4000 graphics, which have the most recent drivers. I don't think there is a problem with the computer.

After restarting Lr twice, the slowness persisted in the develop module. I re-booted the computer and then re-started Lr, after which the develop module is back to normal. There's got to be something mixed up in the book module.
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I really enjoy using old primes on my m4/3 camera. There's something about having to choose your aperture and actually focusing your camera that makes it so much more like... like... PHOTOGRAPHY!

john beardsworth

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Re: Book Module Issues
« Reply #8 on: February 07, 2017, 03:50:52 pm »

Optimised the catalogue? Enough space on the system drive? In Book, is it quickly showing the price? When it slows down, what's the memory usage like (Windows Task Mgr)? As I say, I don't see a lot of current reports of problems in Book like this, and I've been using in a lot recently on my Windows 10 computer without seeing anything odd. It's not as if Adobe have done anything to Book recently....
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Remo Nonaz

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Re: Book Module Issues
« Reply #9 on: February 07, 2017, 05:14:29 pm »

The catalog is optimized. The drive space (SSD) is fine. I notice that it takes a few moments for the module to go through "gathering information". The time to do this varies. Sometimes it is ten seconds, other two or three minutes. The Blurb pricing in present. Initially all seems well but then it starts bogging to the point it is unusable and then no amount of starting and stopping Lr helps. You have to re-boot the machine and start over.
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I really enjoy using old primes on my m4/3 camera. There's something about having to choose your aperture and actually focusing your camera that makes it so much more like... like... PHOTOGRAPHY!

john beardsworth

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Re: Book Module Issues
« Reply #10 on: February 08, 2017, 05:04:24 am »

What's the memory usage like when it bogs down? Take a look at the Processes tab too.

Usually Book loads slower the first time in any Lightroom session, and subsequent visits don't require loading the module into RAM. But I don't see any long delays or other variability.
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Remo Nonaz

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Re: Book Module Issues
« Reply #11 on: February 08, 2017, 11:46:39 am »

I won't deny that this looks like some kind of a machine problem, but my CPU never goes over 50% on one core, let alone all four. I have 16GB of memory and that never gets taxed either. After re-booting, the book module is fine for about five minutes then starts getting worse and worse until it is unusable. This never happens with the develop module, even when I am working with very large .tiff files.

It is hard to determine, but it may be that only certain functions in the book module are causing this. Yesterday I was able to coax the machine to work well in book module until I started playing around with the page style presets. Suddenly the pop-up boxes would not fully paint and commands entered to them took several minutes to respond. Nothing to do but quit Lr (which in these situations is difficult), shut-down and start over.
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I really enjoy using old primes on my m4/3 camera. There's something about having to choose your aperture and actually focusing your camera that makes it so much more like... like... PHOTOGRAPHY!

john beardsworth

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Re: Book Module Issues
« Reply #12 on: February 08, 2017, 01:25:11 pm »

You might just try going back a version or two, but I don't think Adobe have done anything there for a while - so I'd suggest you keep looking for patterns. By popup boxes, do you mean the boxes that appear when you click the little down arrow in the bottom right of each page layout? Have you defined any custom pages?
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Remo Nonaz

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Re: Book Module Issues
« Reply #13 on: February 08, 2017, 04:27:38 pm »

Perhaps we can figure this out John.

I opened up Lr and copied a recent book to mess around with. As before, initially Lr performed wonderfully for about ten minutes, then it slowed down. When it slows, what happens is that the commands become painfully slow. For example, I was creating custom Auto Layout pages since this seemed to be related to kicking off the slowness (I don't think it is). When Lr bogs down what happens is that the text boxes that get put up do not properly display - they are just a box with no instructions in them. Then, once they do paint the commands, like using the scroll bar or giving the preset a new name are very slow.

Now here is where it gets really interesting. I had opened up the snipping tool and placed it over on my second monitor so that I could capture a screen shot of one of these instruction boxes in their crippled state. However, when you click on the "new" command of the snipping tool the unformed instruction box in Lr immediately populates and you can only take a screen shot of the fully formed box. I tried this with numerous commands and got very consistent results.

Attached is a screen shot and you can see that it is normal. However, this problem effects more than Lr. When I went to save the attached snipping tool image, the save box in Windows was not working properly and displayed a slowness very similar to what I was seeing in Lr. Furthermore, when I went to use spell checker (right click) in this very message, the spell checker box does not display correctly. Whatever this problem is, it starts with Lr but then effects the entire system.

It is possible that I have a memory issue, but it is not a lack of memory and I have run tests on the memory to confirm that there are not issues with it. Whatever it is, it is impacting the ability to execute commands across the whole computer and requires a re-boot to clear. Any ideas?
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I really enjoy using old primes on my m4/3 camera. There's something about having to choose your aperture and actually focusing your camera that makes it so much more like... like... PHOTOGRAPHY!

john beardsworth

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Re: Book Module Issues
« Reply #14 on: February 09, 2017, 12:50:23 pm »

I think you need to keep a close eye on these behaviours - sooner or later you'll see a common factor.
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rdonson

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Re: Book Module Issues
« Reply #15 on: February 09, 2017, 02:05:56 pm »

A friend of mine ran into a similar situation.  In his case the SSD on the main OS drive was 90% full and the OS was gagging creating and managing cache files.  Had nothing to do with Lr.   SSDs typically work best at no more than 50% capacity on consumer machines.

This may not be related to your issue though.
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Regards,
Ron

Remo Nonaz

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Re: Book Module Issues
« Reply #16 on: February 09, 2017, 03:00:23 pm »

Thanks all. I may have this fixed.

I searched this problem a bit on the general web and found several posts in other forums that suggested checking one's anti-virus settings and changing the computer's anti-virus to not scan the Lr catalog or previews folders. This was also suggested by Stingray in this forum. 

I had received some earlier advice from a trusted source that Windows 10 anti-virus is very good and that external anti-virus, like AVG, is no longer necessary. Due to some browsing issues, I had already shut off AVG anti-virus, but not de-installed it. After reading the posts indicating that anti-virus may be related to Lr slowness issues, I completely de-installed AVG and then went into Windows Defender and excluded the file C:\users\name\pictures\lightroom from monitoring. This folder contains both the catalog and the previews folder.

After doing this I opened Lr and hammered the book module for about twenty minutes. Using the auto layout tool I kept clearing and rebuilding my book. At this time, Lr is still functioning very well - in fact I'd say it is functioning better than normal but I don't have any proof of that.

I think I have this issue beat but I won't be sure for a while yet. I'll check back and let you know if this is a final fix or not.
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I really enjoy using old primes on my m4/3 camera. There's something about having to choose your aperture and actually focusing your camera that makes it so much more like... like... PHOTOGRAPHY!

rdonson

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Re: Book Module Issues
« Reply #17 on: February 09, 2017, 04:20:23 pm »

Sounds like good progress, Remo!!!
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Ron

Hoggy

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Re: Book Module Issues
« Reply #18 on: February 09, 2017, 07:48:35 pm »

I used to use AVG [free] as well, until it started becoming bloatware.  Then I switched to Avira/Avast IIRC.  Then I heard that Miscrosoft Security Essentials was quite good and very low on system resources - with Windows 7.

So now at Win10, I figured the same code base was probably used for Windows Defender - so I just stuck with it.

You may also want to exclude the Lightroom executables directory in C:\Program Files - a well as some other programs.

Also, depending on how risky your computing behaviors are, you may also want to make sure scheduled scans are never done..  And might only want to do a scan if you think you may have an STD (Software Transmitted Disease  ;D ).
« Last Edit: February 09, 2017, 07:52:33 pm by Hoggy »
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Remo Nonaz

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Re: Book Module Issues
« Reply #19 on: February 09, 2017, 08:49:59 pm »

I generally don't do auto scans as I leave my computer off or in sleep mode whenever I'm not using it, so it screws up the schedule. I'm also pretty careful about what I open in emails and where I wander to on the net, so picking up viruses has not been an issue - so far :-X.

Right now, without any Lr re-loads or system re-boots in about three hours, Lr is running like a champ. I'm not in the book module, just develop, but it is fast and flawless. Let's hope it stays this way. Thank you to all who contributed to this discussion.
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I really enjoy using old primes on my m4/3 camera. There's something about having to choose your aperture and actually focusing your camera that makes it so much more like... like... PHOTOGRAPHY!
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