Very bad performance with PM6 on Mojave

[Kirk Baker]

Yes, as long as it runs on X.13.6. But on my computer it crashed on X.14.6.
My Mojave SSD is a CCC clone of the High Sierra SSD. After the cloning it was updated to X.14.6, and then PM6 was installed. I didn't test every single app on the disk, but all major software I normally use ran without any trouble on X.14.6. Except PM6...

Please file a crash report when the BugSplat crash reporter appears.  Be sure to enter your email address too.

-Kirk

[Goos van der Veen]

I will, next Monday. Have a nice weekend!

[Goos van der Veen]

I suppose the BugSplat report is the one with the PM6 logo on it? I sent a couple of these, but they only appear when PM6 crashes immediately at startup.

There often is another crash later when I am scrolling and clicking thumbnails. If that happens not the BugSplat screen appears but the Apple crash report, the one with the yellow triangle and exclamation mark. Don't know if Apple sends them to you, but I have copied a few of them in text files; just tell me where to send them to.

Here's a description of both crash types:

Crash on startup PM6 (BugSplat crash report)
Immediately after clicking the PM6 icon in the Dock the BugSplat crash report appears. After submitting it PM6 opens normally with the thumbnails of the previously opened folder.

Crash while browsing (Apple crash report)
These crashes happen after PM6 has started and the images are loaded, and I have scrolled a bit. After a while the scrolling freezes, a beach ball appears, and the Apple crash log comes up. The PM6 window remains visible in the background, and - after submitting the crash log - may or may not come back to life again.
Sometimes after the freezing and the beach ball,  after about 40 seconds, PM6 recovers without crashing and performs the scrolls and clicks that I did after the freezing. However, later it may freeze again and possibly crash.

[Kirk Baker]

I suppose the BugSplat report is the one with the PM6 logo on it? I sent a couple of these, but they only appear when PM6 crashes immediately at startup.

There often is another crash later when I am scrolling and clicking thumbnails. If that happens not the BugSplat screen appears but the Apple crash report, the one with the yellow triangle and exclamation mark. Don't know if Apple sends them to you, but I have copied a few of them in text files; just tell me where to send them to.

Here's a description of both crash types:

Crash on startup PM6 (BugSplat crash report)
Immediately after clicking the PM6 icon in the Dock the BugSplat crash report appears. After submitting it PM6 opens normally with the thumbnails of the previously opened folder.

This is the report that reaches us.  It is reporting the last crash.  There isn't a crash on startup.  If there was a crash on startup, you wouldn't be able to continue using the application because it would be terminated.

Crash while browsing (Apple crash report)
These crashes happen after PM6 has started and the images are loaded, and I have scrolled a bit. After a while the scrolling freezes, a beach ball appears, and the Apple crash log comes up. The PM6 window remains visible in the background, and - after submitting the crash log - may or may not come back to life again.
Sometimes after the freezing and the beach ball,  after about 40 seconds, PM6 recovers without crashing and performs the scrolls and clicks that I did after the freezing. However, later it may freeze again and possibly crash.

These reports only make it to Apple.  You can decide if you want to send them to Apple, but they definitely don't come our way.

I saw one of your crash reports this morning.  What kind of images are you working with and do you have PM6 set to perform RAW rendering via the Adobe DNG Converter?

Thanks,

-Kirk

[Goos van der Veen]

What kind of images are you working with and do you have PM6 set to perform RAW rendering via the Adobe DNG Converter?

As I told you before: The images are NEF files from a Nikon D800 in 5:4 crop mode; the files are 30.2MB each.

There isn't a crash on startup.  If there was a crash on startup, you wouldn't be able to continue using the application because it would be terminated.

Then how can I get rid of these reports that say that Photo Mechanic 6 unexpectedly quit? Or is it BugSplat that makes PM  quit?

These reports only make it to Apple.  You can decide if you want to send them to Apple, but they definitely don't come our way.

I offered you to send them to you, if you want them. But I don't want to post them here (there's so much data in these things), just give me a mail address.

do you have PM6 set to perform RAW rendering via the Adobe DNG Converter?

Huh? Is that necessary? Does PM6 depend on DNG Converter? Anyway, I have hundreds of thousands of NEF and CR2 files, I am not going to convert them to DNG. Please tell me I don't have to...

[Kirk Baker]

What kind of images are you working with and do you have PM6 set to perform RAW rendering via the Adobe DNG Converter?

As I told you before: The images are NEF files from a Nikon D800 in 5:4 crop mode; the files are 30.2MB each.

I'm sorry for not recollecting, but I was really wanting to know if you have PM set to render RAW or not.  You can check this from the "Render Cache" section of the Preferences dialog.  The reason I'm asking is because the crash that you filed with BugSplat (PM's crash reporter) looked like it was doing rendering.

There isn't a crash on startup.  If there was a crash on startup, you wouldn't be able to continue using the application because it would be terminated.

Then how can I get rid of these reports that say that Photo Mechanic 6 unexpectedly quit? Or is it BugSplat that makes PM  quit?

A crash causes PM to quit.  On startup PM's crash reporter (BugSplat) determines that a crash had occurred on the last usage of PM and asks the user to report it so that we can receive the annotated crash reports which help us find and fix problems in Photo Mechanic.

If PM crashes, you'll see these reports.  The key would be to get PM to not crash anymore which is very much our goal.

These reports only make it to Apple.  You can decide if you want to send them to Apple, but they definitely don't come our way.

I offered you to send them to you, if you want them. But I don't want to post them here (there's so much data in these things), just give me a mail address.

Filing via PM's crash reporter (BugSplat) is much more useful.  I can't really use the Apple ones without a lot of effort on both our parts.  Ignore the Apple ones, please do send the BugSplat ones.

do you have PM6 set to perform RAW rendering via the Adobe DNG Converter?

Huh? Is that necessary? Does PM6 depend on DNG Converter? Anyway, I have hundreds of thousands of NEF and CR2 files, I am not going to convert them to DNG. Please tell me I don't have to...

No, you don't have to convert to DNG.  The Adobe DNG Converter can be used by PM to render RAW files.  It is very slow and is completely optional.  But I do want to know if you had set it up and whether it was set to Render or not.

-Kirk

[Goos van der Veen]

Yes, rendering was on, see screenshot. Switching it off made PM6 much more stable (had no crash so far) and browsing thumbnails is smooth. Browsing previews is smooth too, but very slow: 2+ seconds to jump to the next one. This is on Mojave.

Back on High Sierra now, PM6 is very stable and very fast, except with rendering switched on: PM6 stalled (with beach ball) after 28 images while browsing previews. Had to force quit PM6 after about 10 minutes. Have an Apple crash log if you want it.

UPDATE: I installed the Adobe DNG Converter to render the NEF's instead of Photoshop CC 2019. To my surprise, that made a difference. Browsing previews is slower and speed is irregular, but DNG Converter seems to be more stable; no crashes so far. Switching RAW rendering off is clearly the best option, both in speed and stability.

In numbers, browsing 177 NEF files in Preview (28%):
High Sierra / Photoshop:          20 seconds, crashes possible
High Sierra / DNG Converter:   31 seconds
High Sierra, no rendering:        16 seconds
Mojave / Photoshop                 18 seconds, irregular speed, crashes possible
Mojave / DNG Converter:         33 seconds, irregular speed
Mojave, no rendering:              15 seconds

My preliminary conclusion:
Having RAW rendering switched on causes trouble, on Mojave and to a lesser degree on High Sierra. With RAW rendering switched off browsing previews is very fast on both High Sierra and Mojave.
If you really want RAW rendering, use Adobe DNG Converter, not Photoshop.

[Hayo Baan]

Of course enabling raw rendering is slow; it takes noticeable time to convert an image from raw to dng (which you will notice when you convert manually with DNG converter or save as DNG from within camera raw). My advice is to never enable it unless you really really require it for your workflow. Instead, you might want to switch to a DNG workflow completely (I did); speed that way is excellent and PM will show you your editing results as well! (with LR you need to manually choose to update the DNG previews, make sure they are set to full size as well!).


P.S. I didn't even now you could use Photoshop to perform the DNG conversion, but it doesn't surprise me this leads to crashes: PS is known to crash every now and then, especially from within Camera RAW (at least, I have seen many many crashes in the last couple of years using it).

[Kirk Baker]

Please only ever use the Adobe DNG Converter.  Never choose Photoshop as the RAW render app.  It just won't work.  I will put measures in place to never allow anything but the Adobe DNG Converter to be chosen for that task.

And yes, if you want speed, do not enable RAW rendering.

-Kirk

[Goos van der Veen]

I will put measures in place to never allow anything but the Adobe DNG Converter to be chosen for that task.

Great idea. Is RAW rendering on by default? Can't remember to have switched it on. Anyway, maybe better to switch it off by default, too?

@Hayo: There's a lot to say about Photoshop and/or ACR, but crashes? Never...

[Kirk Baker]

I will put measures in place to never allow anything but the Adobe DNG Converter to be chosen for that task.

Great idea. Is RAW rendering on by default? Can't remember to have switched it on. Anyway, maybe better to switch it off by default, too?

It is not on by default.

-Kirk

[Hayo Baan]

@Hayo: There's a lot to say about Photoshop and/or ACR, but crashes? Never...

Really, you’ve never had ACR crash? You lucky man... I could at one time consistently have it crash during the save of my edited (dng) images. I think that is fixed now, but I still sometimes experience unexplainable crashes. And I very regularly have ACR show me the wrong cursors while editing (luckily switching out of and then back into ACR fixes this). Having said that, I do actually very much like ACR (hey, as software developer, I know how hard it is to make bugless programs )