Lightroom settings not remembered - library & develop modules

[goosemang]

hello all.  new to the forum... did a search for this and didn't see anything, so feel free to point me in another direction if i'm missing something.

i've had LR3 for a year or so now.  recently some of my settings in the Library and Develop modules don't seem to take, no matter how many times i change them.  specifically, these are the two annoyances:

in the Library module, i setup my grid view to "show grid extras", such as aperture/shutter speed/iso, flags, etc.  every time i open lightroom these settings have reset, and i have to go into the library view options and re-select them.

the second problem is when i switch from the Library module to the Develop module.  every time i switch, the Adjustment Brush is automatically open.  of course i never notice this, and frequently think i'm clicking on the image and instead end up applying exposure changes with the brush that i have to undo.

i'm running 3.6 on both my mac and a PC.  this only happens on the mac, and has been happening since before 3.6 was rolled out. 

any thoughts?

[dchew]

Similar things happened to me a few versions ago, especially the adjustment brush problem.  Can't remember what fixed it, but a few things you might try:
1.  Try optimizing the catalog
2.  Remove older versions of Lightroom if you have any.

Dave

[john beardsworth]

Corrupt Mac preference file?

[goosemang]

not sure about a corrupt file.  i guess i could uninstall & reinstall the entire program?  if i do that, will it delete my catalog file?  i back everything up to a separate hard drive, but just wondering how much of a pain in the neck this could potentially be.

the program, in general, is running poorly compared to my PC.  but the PC has a very small library, the mac has about 25k images on it.  maybe i'm just over working the program and need to downsize?

i have already optimized the catalog, and don't have any old versions on the computer.

[john beardsworth]

No, don't reinstall - Mac preference files seem to go wrong far more than Windows registries ever did!

You could try setting up a new user on the Mac and seeing if that user has problems - if not, that would point to your prefs being corrupt. Alternatively close Lightroom and take a look in User\Library\Application Support\Preferences\ . You'll find a Lightroom3.plist file. Move it somewhere safe (just so you can put it back) and restart Lightroom. It will recreate the preferences file.

25k is not big - I work with someone who is now close to 400k. Optimising your catalogue was a good move, and also read http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/400/kb400808.html . I'd also point to the size of the Adobe Camera Raw cache - bigger the better.

John