Hours long synchronizing after writing metadata to all files

[30west]

As reported in a different post, I have been struggling with whether to "Write hierarchical keywords" in Synchronization settings. I finally opted to do this, and after making the change, I did a "write metadata to files" in all 58000 + photos. Then I did a folder verify (binary) to capture the changes. Then it reported some 26000 + files that needed to be "re-imported" (or whatever the correct term is).

After 24 hours, it is STILL "f-ing" around in this process. I am away from home for the holiday and using an older Mac (M1) laptop (16gb ram). All files are on internal "nvme" storage. I do not understand why it has to rebuild all the thumbnails just because of some changes in metadata. Also, and this really makes me question what is actually going on...the "Building thumbnails" and the Synchronization" progress bars constantly go from around 95% to 99% (or more), then back to 0 or something fairly low. Is that the status of each individual file? Is there no way to discover the percentage of the ENTIRE process? This process is still ongoing as I write this and I have no idea if it will ever end!

I have encountered a similar scenario previously on my Mac Studio (M2 Max w/ 96 gb ram). I am afraid to touch any other settings in fear of starting another endless process that ties up my library for more than a day.

Any thoughts or comments on why this is such a confounding process?

thanks

gary

[Hert]

A binary verification tells PSU that the bytes for the file has changed compared to what it knows about the file (PSU keeps a binary signature for each file in its catalog).
When changes are found then PSU only knows "something changed". PSU then triggers a thumb rebuild and a sync process to make sure all is in order. If you think that building thumbs is not needed then cancel that part of the process.

BTW; 24 hours to read or even write a few 10,000 files from a local nvme disk seems very slow. Could it be that there's some virus scanner installed that monitors the catalog folder? A virus scanner that scans the temporary journal files that SQLite creates constantly will then slow everything down. Make sure to exclude the catalog folder (the folder containing the cat.db and thumb.db files) from any virus scanner installed.

[30west]

Thanks Hert....as additional info discovered after my original post, it became noticeable that it was the same folder of photos that was constantly being "worked" (thumbnail and synchro). I did finally cancel the process and when I reopened PSu, the process did not restart. I did a catalog compact, another folder verification and checked "States". All seems normal EXCEPT, I now notice that the "problem" folder is entirely DNGs from a Fuji X10 camera from 2013. PSu apparently can not render these photos because ALL of these thumbnails show only "static noise". This camera had an unusual pixel "binning" sensor and there are other applications that also will not render the raw files from this camera, although after conversion to DNG, most other software WILL. Also, in answer to your question, there is no antivirus at work on this machine.

Given that part of the mystery is now solved, I am still curious as to why PSu will not provide a total process indication. It seems that in the case described, the app was in some sort of continuous loop that it couldn't escape. Thanks as always for your follow-up.

gary