Tagging & Colour Lag

[MHand7]

I have searched and found a few topics on this but for older versions of PM. I'm on the latest version of PM6

I'm running Windows 10 on a brand new Surface Pro and whenever I hit a number to apply a colour class to an image it seems to hang for a second or two before applying the class. This is both in the contact sheet and the full view. I used to use Pm on my mac and it was instant and I could cull a full wedding in a couple of hours. Now I'm having to wait an extra second or so per image I want to tag. After a while of going at it though the problem sometimes stops and tagging becomes pretty instant as it should be. This used to happen on an old surface pro too but I put that down to the specs of the machine. However, the new machine is a brand new 2019 i7 model with 16GB ram so it shouldn't have an issue.

I have my images on an external USB-C rugged drive and theres usually about 8000 images in a contact sheet, sorted by date created. I'm writing a separate XMP file and I'm shooting Sony A7iii raw files + medium Jpeg for better viewing in PM. Is this something that has been mentioned before and is there a fix?

I also experience a PM is not responding for about a minute if I switch into any other program, which is actually a bit of a blessing as it forces me to cull in one go and not switch to facebook etc. However, when I switch to check mail and then back to PM I have to wait 2-4 minutes until it "un-hangs". Again I haven't experienced any of these issues on my mac

Thanks

[Kirk Baker]

I don't have any specific advice, but I'd like some more information/investigation from you.

If you take a set of images and put it on the local storage of the Surface, do things improve?

Can I see screen shots of your Contact Sheet and IPTC/XMP pages of the Preferences dialog?  Use the 'Attachments and other options' link when you're composing your reply to this message and there you'll be able to upload your JPEG format screenshot.

Thanks,

-Kirk

[MHand7]

Thanks for the reply Kirk! Yes I shall have a session this evening trying a few variables and then send some results as suggested. Thank you

[MHand7]

Hi Kirk

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you on this. I've finally had a chance to do a bit of testing.

So I can report that it seems that if the folder is stored on my local drive which is an SSD, then the tagging is instant. I've only been able to test this with a 25Gb folder with around 600 images, Raw + Jpg Medium. I had the identical folder on a Rugged USB C HDD and a San Disk USB 3 SSD and both had a lag of around a second when tagging. It does seem that after a period of around 5 minutes the lag sometimes disappears, but it's still nowhere the speed of being on the internal drive. If I use a bigger sized folder on either drive the lag seems more prominent. Could it be something to do with my drive settings, something windows based with external drives or PM's cache? Both drives are Fat32 as I use them on my Mac too, which as stated is instant and as quick as the windows internal drive. Both always seem fine with normal file browsing in explorer etc.

Also, even just switching to this browser to write this reply and then back to PM, when looking at the folders on the drive, the green sort bar is visible and then PM hangs and displays not responding for about 30 seconds before allowing me to continue. If I have the internally stored folder open this doesn't happen. If I could copy every wedding directly onto the surface internal SSD for culling then I would but I don't have the disk space, so some guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Another observation is when the tag/colour class lag happens, if I hit the arrow key to advance multiple times before the class is applied, it jumps forward by the number of arrow presses, as if it's happening in the background and then catches up once the class writing is complete.

I've attached screenshots of the settings you requested plus a cache settings shot.

[Kirk Baker]

Thanks for the screenshots.  The settings look fine.

I'd like to see your Photo Mechanic log.  In Photo Mechanic go to the Help menu and choose "Reveal Support Data..." and moments later a Windows Explorer window will come forward with the zipped log file selected.  Use the 'Attachments and other options' link when you're composing your reply to this message and there you'll be able to upload your zipped PM log file.

And if you could note the time that PM6 was especially slow then that would help me in the search for the problem.  If you don't recall, then just do another edit session and make note of the time that you get the problem to happen and post the log afterwards.

Thanks,

-Kirk

[MHand7]

Thanks again for the speedy response Kirk

I've attached the log

I started at 18:11 I think and for 10 minutes the lag was present. It then pretty much disappeared and culled the rest of the images. Once I got to the end of my set I switched out to chrome to literally check the instructions of how to find the log. When I went back there was about a minute hold before I could do anything and then the lag was present again. I culled about 10-15 images like this so that hopefully shows up too. That would have been around the 18:45 - 18:15 mark. I hope that helps.

[Kirk Baker]

While there isn't anything specific in your log during those times, you do have tens of thousands of these two errors repeated:

[Thu Nov-21-2019 18:53:57.226][00001778][10344744] ColorManagementCommon.cpp:19 LittleCMS error: 13, 'Couldn't link the profiles'
[Thu Nov-21-2019 18:53:57.226][00001778][10345392] ColorManagementCommon.cpp:426 CreateColorManagedBitmap(): no transform found for image to profile ID


So I'd first like to get to the bottom of this.  I'd like for you to turn on color management logging.  In Photo Mechanic's preferences folder you'll create a text file named PMDebug.txt and enter the following text:

COLOR_MANAGEMENT_LOGGING ON

The location of the preferences folder is:

C:\Users\<your username>\AppData\Roaming\Camera Bits, Inc\Photo Mechanic\

Then quit and start Photo Mechanic again.  Browse some files.  I think it happens so frequently that only a minute or two will produce good data.  Once you have browsed a few files choose the "Reveal Support Data..." command on the Help menu.  A Windows Explorer window will come forward with a zip compressed copy of the PM.log file.  Please reply to this message.  Use the 'Attachments and other options' link when you're composing your reply to this message and there you'll be able to upload your zipped log file.

Thanks,

-Kirk

[MHand7]

Hi Kirk

I've had a quick browse with the same files and drive with the color management turned up as you said.

It's around the 00:00 mark

[Kirk Baker]

Hi Kirk

I've had a quick browse with the same files and drive with the color management turned up as you said.

It's around the 00:00 mark

Hmm.  That log, while newer, doesn't appear to have the additional messages that should appear if the COLOR_MANAGEMENT_LOGGING was turned on.  How did you create the text file?

You can post it here if you like.

Thanks,

-Kirk

[MHand7]

I have seen my error.... "PMDebug.txt.txt"

I shall try it again now without the double .txt

[MHand7]

Ok let's try again

Roughly 01:25

[Kirk Baker]

Ok let's try again

Roughly 01:25

Thanks.  It definitely has the logging on, but I no longer see errors.  All is functioning well in regards to color management.

-Kirk

[MHand7]

So, at the same time, I had an issue on this machine with Lightroom and different color profiles in the develope and Libary module. Last night I finally managed to get it to load a custom color profile which seemed to sort that issue.

However, the lag is still present when tagging and if I switch application it hangs for around 30 seconds before starting again. This also happened on a previous surface device I had and another Windows machine. Could it be a windows setting on the external drives?

[Kirk Baker]

So, at the same time, I had an issue on this machine with Lightroom and different color profiles in the develope and Libary module. Last night I finally managed to get it to load a custom color profile which seemed to sort that issue.

However, the lag is still present when tagging and if I switch application it hangs for around 30 seconds before starting again. This also happened on a previous surface device I had and another Windows machine. Could it be a windows setting on the external drives?

OK, you can turn off that logging now that the problem with your monitor's profile is fixed.

The hanging on resume is due to how slow your drive is at returning directory information.  Photo Mechanic rescans all Contact Sheets on resume by default.  This can be turned off if you want but you'll have to remember to do a manual rescan whenever you know that the directory contents have changed for any of the Contact Sheets that you're using.  The setting is "Rescan on resume" in the Contact Sheet page of the Preferences dialog.

As for Windows settings affecting performance of drives, I don't know of any.

If you'd like hands-on help with this issue, I suggest contacting our support folks at:

By phone: +1 503.547.2800 option 2

Hours: Mon-Fri, 9:00am-5:00pm [PST/PDT]

[MHand7]

Ok cool, thank you. I shall have another look and play and see if I can tweak any drive settings. As I say, there's no lag with the same drives on my mac so could be how Windows is reading the drive.
If no joy I'll give support a call.
Thanks