Photo Mechanic 2026.1, build 9024 freezes on macOS 26.2

[Kirk Baker]

Michael,

Thank you for the Crash Report text file.  I was able to manually symbolicate the Photo Mechanic addresses in there to actual symbols in the 9024 build.  It appears to be Code Replacement/Hot Code related.  What variables are you using in your first label field in the Contact Sheet page of the Settings dialog?  Are you using Code Replacement files (with Hot Code generators in them)?

Thanks,

-Kirk

[mhobi]

Hi Kirk

Here my label settings:

Label 1: {pixels} pixels   {width} x {height}   {filesize}
Label 2: {model}   GPS: {gps}
Label 3: {location} {city} {country} {keywords}

For Code Replacements / Hot Code, I don't use this.

Attached are screenshots of the label settings and the code replacements settings (empty).

Thanks for looking into it and best regards
Michael

[Kirk Baker]

Michael,

I think if you were to load a single Code Replacement text file, it would stop the hanging.  It's just a tab-separated text file:

foo[tab]bar

(where it says [tab], you'd press the Tab key).

I've got a fix in the works.

Thanks,

-Kirk

[mhobi]

Hi Kirk

Thank you very much! I removed already all brackets '[]' from the EXIF data, so no more freezes with that workaround 😉
Happy to test if you have a fix ready.

Thanks again
Michael

[Kirk Baker]

https://forums.camerabits.com/index.php?topic=17126.0

This should address the problem.

You'll have to generate another image that causes the problem.

Thanks,

-Kirk

[mhobi]

Hi Kirk

Looks good! I rendered new panorama images containing the brackets '[]' and also manually changed the EXIF data to have brackets '[]' and all worked perfectly well 😊

Thank you very much and regards
Michael

[Robbo]

I have a similar problem PM+ 2026.2 build 9034 running on Sequoia 15.7.3. It mostly happens when I bring files, any files, from the navigator into a collection. I get the standard warning that this file is not in the catalogue and do I want to import it anyway. Never been a problem with the older version. I have tried bringing in one little jpg, several large tifs, or a few dozen jpgs. It doesnʼt seem to matter. Things will go fine for a while and then I get the rolling beach ball of doom and have to force quit and reboot. Then it started happening just after I had added a bit of meta data to a file. It just would not stay up. I started a trouble ticket and have had several back and forths including sending the crash reports every time. Nothing seems to work. I have had to revert to a previous, and now unsupported, version to keep working.
So, CB has offered to give me a partial refund and a discount on the standard version (useless to be as all I use it for is cataloguing) or a full refund but then I am stuck using an unsupported version until it rots and dies.
I have hundreds of hours into the catalogues and am really not happy about potentially losing it all in a year or two.
Any help would be most welcome. 

[Dannyprotech89]

Here’s a short, realistic, experience-based reply you could post:

Thanks Michael — this is a really helpful find.

I can confirm I’ve seen similar odd behavior tied to malformed or slightly non-standard EXIF fields (especially when brackets or unexpected characters are present). In my case it wasn’t Leica, but certain stitched panoramas with custom metadata blocks caused sluggish rendering and occasional freezes in 2026.1, while 2025 handled them fine.

Your discovery about the bracketed `Device model` string makes a lot of sense — it sounds like the newer build may be parsing that tag differently.

Might be worth Camerabits taking a look at how 2026.1 handles non-standard EXIF formatting in stitched/pano files. Good catch.

Hello

After further testing, I think it has something to do with panorama images I created with PTGui (https://www.ptgui.com). As soon as I scroll to an image that has been created with PTGui, Photo Mechanic 2026.1 freezes. Viewing the same images with Photo Mechanic 2025.10 is no problem.

I then tried several things and I noticed that when I change the EXIF data 'Device model' from '[LEICA Q3]' to 'LEICA Q3', the image shows correctly and Photo Mechanic doesn't freeze anymore.

Attached are the original image 'original.jpg' and the image 'changed_EXIF.jpg' with the changed EXIF data, and an image 'EXIF_difference.jpg' showing the EXIF difference.

I searched all my images having EXIF data 'Device model' as '[LEICA Q3]' and removed the brackets. Now the folders containing these images can be browsed without issues and the image display correctly in Photo Mechanic 😊

Not sure if this is just a problem on my machine, but maybe someone can reproduce it.

Thanks and regards
Michael

[Kirk Baker]

Danny,

Might be worth Camerabits taking a look at how 2026.1 handles non-standard EXIF formatting in stitched/pano files. Good catch.

This issue has been fixed in PM 2026.2, build 9034: https://forums.camerabits.com/index.php?topic=17126.0

HTH,

-Kirk