Why is v2024 so so slow (mostly"Not Responding")?

[RickHeath]

I upgraded from v6 to 2024 & v2024 seems to spend most of its time "Not Responding" & continuously reading/writing data on the separate HDD that has all of the PS catalog database & thumbnails database.

Today I tried to finish labelling a batch of 49 photos (RAW +JPG pairs) that I had imported yesterday. The database was compacted overnight.

Added a label to all images (the actual images are on a NAS the catalog & thumbnails are on a separate HDD with nothing else being used on it). PS immediately "Not Responding" (v6 on the same hardware would allow work to continue). After 90 minutes the program was no longer using any CPU or accessing HDD. After leaving it for a further 30 minute there was still no sign of activity & Synchronize Service had not made any further progress. So I killed the program in Task Manager.

I relaunched it and, as previously, PS 2024 launched into an extended period of continuous reading from the catalog drive. I timed it today at just shy of 39 minutes before PS was usable.

33 of the 49 needed relating as the clock on 1 camera hadn't been updated when the clocks went forward. I set that going & it trundled off running redate & synchronize service & rebuild thumbnails (why does PS need to rebuild thumbnails every time I add a label or change the image date?this batch must have had their thumbnails rebuilt 4 or 5 times in the last couple of days!) Redating seemed to finish after around 47 minutes. By 130 minutes the rebuilding thumbnails seemed to have finished. As I write we are now past 150 minutes in & Synchronize Service hasn't moved from 58.3% since I started writing this. PS is showing 0% CPU/Disk/Network & a steady 393.3 MB of memory.

Now past 160 minutes since I started the redate & Synchronize hasn't moved in nearly half an hour & no noticeable activity... And still "Not Responding"!

Total achievements today - 1 label (& it's parent) added to 49 images & 33 images redacted.

The computer is usable to do other stuff, although I've been trying not to, it is just PS that is stopping responding. It quite an old PC but V6 wasn't having this problem on the same hardware. I could still do other stuff in PS while Synchronising happened in the background.

[Hert]

PSU24 typically starts in seconds. I timed it just now with a catalog of 22K images and it starts in under 3 seconds. Then I timed a start of PSU24 with a catalog of 250K images and it starts in 8 seconds. A startup time longer than 30 seconds would already raise my eyebrows.
Compare that to the 39 minutes on your side and you can easily draw the conclusion that something must be very different or wrong.

Start with the obvious:
1. VERY IMPORTANT! Make sure that the folder that holds the catalog files is excluded from any virus scanner (also Windows Defender)
2. Compact the catalog
3. After starting PSU, close all open tabs
4. You mention using an external HDD. Note that even the slowest SSD is 10x faster than a average HDD (which by itself would already bring your timing back from 39 minutes to 3.9 minutes..still too slow but to put it in perspective). On top of that an internal HDD on its turn is again faster than an external HDD. PSU is a disk intensive application, meaning that almost everything does through the catalog database. Disk speed is a very relevant factor here. I can not express this enough: use your fastest internal SSD to hold the catalog files (the one I use for the tests above is a relatively older SSD but still about 3400MB/s read speed). If you need portability then copy the catalog files before traveling. That way you won't be affected that much during daily work.
5. Could it be that your catalog is incomplete and is hence impacted by new startup "health" check? If so, try starting with the Shift key pressed before starting PSU and keep the Shift key pressed until about 10 seconds after PSU started. Also read through some of the topics here about the startup checks and people that were affected by that. In the end it will help you identify the incompleteness in your catalog.

Here's a video illustrating PSU24 startup speed.
https://cp.idimager.com/support/videos/StartupSpeed.mp4

The machine has 32GB internal memory, a i7 10th gen 1.1GHz processor (processor speed is not very important), and a Sandisk Extreme Pro 500GB SSD (3400 read/2500 write). A somewhat outdated machine.

[RickHeath]

Thanks for your reply. I've not tried doing anything yet as I've not had access to the computer since I read it.

The separate hard disk with the catalog & thumbnail database is an internal one but a good(?) old fashioned SATA spinny one (I think around 150 MB/s read/write). I'd been thinking the workstation needs updating (probably completely replacing) & realise its hardware is probably unchanged, apart from changes of HDD, since around 2010. I had, perhaps mistakenly, assumed that having had v6 working OK, if a little slowly, I would be all right upgrading to V2024 on the same hardware. Unless I missed it (I did look), I couldn't find any info on minimum/recommended hardware for PS.

I have access to a newer laptop (bought 2021) which would probably do the job better so I may just move everything across to that & see what difference it makes. I've just checked the specs for that:-

CPU: Intel Core i7-10750 @2.60GHz
RAM: 16GB 2933MHz SODIMM
HDD: 1TB NVME SSD WDC PC SN730 SDBQNTY-1T00-1014 (up to 3400 MB/s read speed apparently)
GPU: NVIDIA Quadro T1000 4GB dedicated/ 8GB shared memory (if that is likely to make much difference with PS)

[RickHeath]

Moving to the laptop with a fast SSD seems to have solved the usability issue. It still seems to do something for about 20 to 30 seconds on start up, but doesn't tell me what.

Thanks again.

[blindShooter]

I am experiencing the same problem. I installed the latest version yesterday and the program is still not usable. "Synchronize Service" and "Building Thumbnails" have not finished after about 24 hours or more... This is very disappointing. I have been using Photo Supreme like forever and have never before encountered such problems before. The database resides on a hard disk, not an SSD but this has never been a problem. Updating the database following a program update has always been taking long but after a night of running it was always ready. I do have about 25,000 images but Photo Supreme has always handled this number with ease. Not now.

[RickHeath]

I am experiencing the same problem. I installed the latest version yesterday and the program is still not usable. "Synchronize Service" and "Building Thumbnails" have not finished after about 24 hours or more... This is very disappointing. I have been using Photo Supreme like forever and have never before encountered such problems before. The database resides on a hard disk, not an SSD but this has never been a problem. Updating the database following a program update has always been taking long but after a night of running it was always ready. I do have about 25,000 images but Photo Supreme has always handled this number with ease. Not now.

Using a "classic" hard disk was never much of a problem for me before. But moving to a newer machine (2021 v 2010) with an SSD has brought things back to life with v2024 (bear in mind I did jump a few versions too from v6) with ~20x disk speed (plus having ~5x faster RAM & more processor cores probably helps too). There are still occasional pauses but general only for a few seconds & most of the time I can carry on doing stuff while PS is synchronising, or whatever.

[apanella]

Thoughts...

Hert's #1 rule is very important! Although you need to evaluate your personal level of comfort, I have also exclude some photo-only file formats from scans (TIFF, TIF, raw files) from the virus scan which seems to have helped

I have a short startup, but 5s-15s delay before I can use PSU, During that time, I can tell it is doing some startup file checking as Hert and others described. In my case, many photo files are on a network drive. I attribute the extra 5s-15s as the penalty for files over the network as I see the network data performance monitor peak for about 5s-15s.

[blindShooter]

Thank you. I have excluded the folder with my photos as well as the database folder in my antivirus program yesterday but Photo Supreme 2024 has still not finished with "Verifying", "Synchronize Service" and "Building Thumbnails". The latter looked very promising last night as it stood at 99.8 per cent but at this stage the program just hung and I had to kill it this morning... After launching it again this morning it seems to be working but progress is achingly slow. This has never happened before. I have been using this program since version IDImager Pro 5 and have been a happy customer since, that is before Photo Supreme 2024. I think there is something seriously wrong with this version. The screenshot shows what has been accomplished since this morning, i.e. within 7 hours.

image_2024-04-26_144638512.png (21.04 KiB) Viewed 2423 times

[blindShooter]

Funny thing is that the "Verifying" progress jumps back to 44% or even lower intermittently...

[Hert]

New in v2024 is that it checks if all files for your catalog are properly imported and if all files have thumbnails. If not then PSU will do that on startup. And that is what you are seeing. You will have to bite the bullet here as afterwards your catalog will be properly lined up.

There are quite a few forum topics on this subject already but I'll try to summarize:

1. You can bypass the startup consistency check by pressing the Shift key before starting PSU. Keep it press up to about 10 seconds after startup. Do this only if you need the catalog and don't want to be bothered with the catalog lineup. But if time permits, then let it run. You need to get though this. Starting PSU with the Shift key pressed will start PSU as it did in older versions.
2. You can cancel the progress if you cannot wait for it at this point. The next time that you start PSU, it will continue where it left off. You should see the numbers go down.

If you think that you catalog is complete then:
1. Start PSU with the Shift key as explained above
2. Verify your top level folder(s) with Verify Quick and let PSU process the changes
3. Run Tools -> Check for missing thumbs and preview. That will start building the ones missing
3a. If thumbs continue to not build then check if perhaps these files are corrupt.
4. In Timeline, check if there is a 0 entry or a 1899/12/30 entry. If you start PSU without the Shift key pressed then PSU will start the sync-reading for all files that have a 0 year or 1899/12/30

Once you have your catalog lined up, PSU will start identically as it did in older versions.

[blindShooter]

Thank you Hert!
Even though Photo Supreme crashed without a warning while I was out doing some shopping, it has obviously finished building the thumbnails. After a restart only the "Verifying" and "Synchronize Service" processes are still running, albeit very slowly.
I am being patient and hope for the best. Maybe tomorrow I can start using the program for what it is intended for...

[blindShooter]

The update to version 6358 did the trick. After the previous version had crashed several (at least four) times without an apparent reason and without completing its tasks during the last couple of days, version 6358 ran through "Verifying" and "Synchronizing" till the job was finished. I am very much relieved.

One question, though: is there another source for finding out which the latest version number is apart from the "What's new" page (https://www.idimager.com/what-s-new-in- ... preme-2024)? Maybe a forum topic? (Looked for it but didn't find any.)