How often does Photo Supreme crash for you?

[acertain]

Hey all -

I'm wondering how often I should expect Photo Supreme to crash. For me it's about every few hours that I'm working with it. It's not a big deal as I just reopen and everything is right where I left it, but it's a little disconcerting. Is my experience completely out-of-line with everybody else's?

Thanks.

Andrew

[Mike Buckley]

Not at all consistent with my experiences. It hangs up quite often (far more than any other software application I use) but it so rarely crashes that I don't even remember the last time it crashed despite that I use the program almost daily.

[Phrans]

Every day one to several times: every time when I edit a collection name or when I use the sort options in portfolios (Move Up or Down a collection).
This is a known issue that is being worked on and I hope this will be resolved in a new build soon.

I also had PSU 'hanging' a few days ago when I forgot that I had activated 'Compact'. This is shown left below in the screen, but I forgot and did some search actions in parallel. PSU went blank.

Make sure you backup your catalog on a regular basis.

[HaraldE]

Morning,

It almost never crash but hangs now and then, maybe once a day.

Irritating but no big deal, I tend to use PSU almost every day. Whatever I was doing seems to have been completed when I start PSU again. I have also seen that some of these hangs are related to me changing name of a collection.

Another observation is that after using PSU a lot my ThinkPad is slowing down. If so I restart the PC and things are back to normal. NOTE: this may not be a PSU issue but PSU is the tool that is effected a lot by this behaviour.

Regards, Harald

[sanphotgn]

I am using Windows 7 64-bit.

For some reason on this computer, PSU and Lightroom will crash (not all the time, but frequently) during certain operations: building thumbnails in PSU and lots of quick editing over an extended amount of time and exporting (causes the most crashes) in Lightroom. I rarely have both programs open at the same time.

I have found disconnecting from the internet and turning off my antivirus eliminates (I can't remember when it has crashed since doing this) the PSU crashes and significantly reduces the Lightroom crashes. Why this works, I haven't a clue.

PSU hangs during Import. Not all the time. Seems to be somewhat dependent on the number of photos being imported, but I haven't kept track. When this occurs, I step away. Eventually, PSU and whatever else have untangled themselves and everything is OK.

[PhilBurton]

Two questions:

1. How often does a crash cause database corruption?

2. What if PSu contained a "trace log" option, so that if we experienced a crash, we could submit a crash report that included the trace log? (Or whatever Hert thinks would help him to identify the cause of the crash.)

Phil Burton

[sanphotgn]

I have had to roll back to a backup. How often? I haven't been counting. About a month ago, I was in a hurry, didn't perform my workaround, and the database crashed and corrupted several RAW files. The crash occurred during Import.

[jmtpct]

Maybe once a day on average, typically when I have been working with large numbers of photos. My issue seems to be a consistent memory bleed where PS will eventually use up 7-8 gigs of memory. If I let it get that high before closing and restarting, PS will eventually crash.

[Stephen]

A good topic to raise! I thought that I was the only one to have this problem.

The big import from Aperture was too taxing and so I split it up and was pleased that everything transferred, so I did not worry too much about the meta data.

Since then I cannot remember a hang or crash on import. An application VERY rarely crashes the Mac OS, but the PSu program can either hang completely (CPU activity suddenly drops) or can take ages to complete a task. Recently that has been mostly when processing too many meta data changes. Adding / designating lots of labels, wow!!! 2-3x daily! Far less frequently by adding keywords in the Details pane, which I been recommended not to do!

PSu reopens at the place I last started, but appears to have processed until when it stopped. I have trusted that it graciously slows down having completed its task, but it can be disconcerting when that happens at 40% on the task bar.

Copies of my original images are safe outside of PSu, but the time spent editing could be lost if things work out badly. Rhetoric questions: How would you discover this if you are processing material to address at a later date? Which backup would you really need to search for?

Although it does not always fit my schedule, I find that you have to treat PSu like an old lady - don't give her too many tasks and allow her lots of time… I often forget though, or just push the boundary.

Two questions:
1. How often does a crash cause database corruption?
2. What if PSu contained a "trace log" option, so that if we experienced a crash, we could submit a crash report that included the trace log? (Or whatever Hert thinks would help him to identify the cause of the crash.)

Excellent questions. I don't know how (and when) we could (will) verify question #1 (how good is a dentist?)
Question #2 A "trace log" sounds good.

[Preston B]

I haven't had PSu crash in a long time. Occasionally, it shows "Not Responding" when I do a DB compact, but the process always completes successfully. My SWAG is that the Compact process temporarily suspends the PSu GUI. (I don't touch the GUI during backup or compact: I just let PSu do its thing)

I import my NEF images using Nikon View NX to get the files onto my computer and then use Verify Folder. This appears to work very well, and I have no crashes.

For those of you who experiencing crashes when doing RAM-intensive operations, you might want to look into upgrading the amount of RAM installed. You can also close other applications. For Windows users on Win 8.1 or 10, you can use Task Manager, or the free CCleaner
to disable applications that run at startup. If you are using Wi 7, goto Run and enter MSConfig. Many of these applications are resident in RAM, so disabling ones you don't need frees up resources.

I do not advocate turning off Anti-Virus or Anti-Malware. Most of the better applications allow you to exclude applications, folders, or file types from active scanning. Therefore, you might want to check if your system protection programs have such capability.

I hope this helps,
--P

[sanphotgn]

My SWAG is that the Compact process temporarily suspends the PSu GUI. (I don't touch the GUI during backup or compact: I just let PSu do its thing)

Same here.

Most of the better applications [Anti-Virus or Anti-Malware] allow you to exclude applications, folders, or file types from active scanning. Therefore, you might want to check if your system protection programs have such capability.

I have done this, but I still get the crashes (blue screens) with both applications, thus the workaround. Like I said I am not sure what is going on, but, without the workaround, building thumbnails (PSU) and exporting (Lightroom) (similar actions in some ways?) are usually what is happening when the blue screen appears. (Note: I am not doing these at the same time.) With the workaround, which includes not having other programs open, I have been able to eliminate (PSU) and reduce (Lightroom) the blue screens.

Rhetoric questions: How would you discover this if you are processing material to address at a later date? Which backup would you really need to search for?

In my experience you know immediately after recovering from the blue screen because the database does not open. I typically make backups before I close out the database, so I would go to my current backup and then figure out what I need to redo.

[tstoddard]

I'm not sure what you mean by "crash" but for me, the program becomes unresponsive and needs to be shut down and restarted fairly often. It depends on how often I'm importing new files, since that is when it usually happens. Once I've completed my importing and I move on to assigning and other tasks, I usually don't have issues. I can't reproduce my problems so I don't bother to try to diagnose them. My normal workflow is to use FastPictureViewer to cull and then import files from my memory card onto my hard drive. I use FPV to rename the files and save a backup copy to an external drive so I don't use PSU to do any of that any more.

Once I have my files on my local hard drive, I usually open them in a raw processor and make adjustments to some of them, outputting jpegs for the ones I've adjusted. Then, I import each folder into PSU (one at a time if there are more than one created during the earlier steps) using a fairly simple import profile that adds some standard metadata and also creates version sets for those images that have a raw and jpeg version. I always save the jpegs to the same folder as the raw so I don't need to import subfolders.

PSU never freezes during the actual import but it does sometimes freeze when it gets to the synchronization step. The versioning completes successfully as well. I'm pretty sure that all files are getting imported successfully because there are never any new files found when I verify my folders. When PSU becomes unresponsive, I have to restart the program, select the folder that I've imported and manually save metadata to files and then manually create thumbnails since neither of those steps appeared to be done in the import process.

This happens inconsistently. Sometimes all of the processes complete successfully during import and other times they don't. I haven't been able to recognize any pattern or reason for it happening sometimes and not others. When the processes hang, they always hang at the exact same place. Just when the import process bar reaches 100% and it closes and then it pops up with the synchronization process bar and the creating thumbnails process bar. Both of those process bars never move from 0%. I wait a while and then click anywhere in the interface and the gui dims and the title bar displays "(not responding)".

I've gotten used to this and haven't bothered to complain. It's a minor nuisance but it really only adds an extra minute or two to my workflow.

[PhilBurton]

Now I can see why someone quoted Hert (in another thread) that his first priority for PSu is stability.

[fbungarz]

There is a difference of getting a blue screen from a regular crash. I have so far not ever experienced a blue screen using PSu (and not using IDI prior to that either). A blue screen crashing your entire PC is pretty serious.

Compacting [and backup] regularly freezes PSu, that is no different from IDI. On can check what is going on in Windows Explorer: a temporary db-journal file is being built during compact. I agree some feedback or progress bar would be a nice feature, but that never worked in IDI either. No idea why it is possible to watch the db-journal file grow during compact, but PSu itself appears frozen.

Then- the program being frozen and actually crashing are again two different things. For example, when using CTRL+F PSu is extremely slow to respond (see http://forum.idimager.com/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=24139). It is a real nuisance that the popup window with the choice of labels even remains in front of other windows on the screen, but even though the program then appears as if crashed, it is, most of the time, just frozen.

This might be the case for many other crashes as well: PSu hangs, it is unresponsive, it looks like it has crashed. But it might just be thinking.
Then: I am often simply too impatient. If the program hangs for 2-3 minutes a re-start is usually faster than waiting for it to respond.

BTW - since I am a bit paranoid, I prefer running PSu in synchronous mode (see http://www.senoiaphoto.com/psu). So far I haven't had to deal with a corrupt database. I am pretty glad, that has not yet happened. My database is now 8.7 GB and doing regular backups for a file that size is a real pain!

[Phrans]

Compacting [and backup] regularly freezes PSu, that is no different from IDI. On can check what is going on in Windows Explorer: a temporary db-journal file is being built during compact. I agree some feedback or progress bar would be a nice feature, but that never worked in IDI either.

In the 7 years I used IDi, I never ever had IDi freezing on compacting and/or backupping and the progress bar was indeed a nice feature and ALWAYS worked for me in IDi also.
The progress window in IDi prevented you from doing other actions with the software and I think that was a better solution, especially when it makes the software freeze or crash.