Dan,
I've been using PM for four years -- mostly happy and trouble free. I recently upgraded to 4.5 and discovered that several image files from each card would randomly not ingest but generate error messages in the ingest progress window. When I simply dragged and dropped the same files from the same cards into a folder everything was fine (but without the advantage of the IPTC info and file naming I love) -- in other words the files are not corrupted. I was told by phone to upgrade to 4.5.1 Did that the other day. NOW ingesting a 2 gig card, which used to take maybe five minutes takes about 30 minutes! On top of that the IPTC information I'd written to the stationary and designated to be added on ingest is gone -- replaced by a caption I wrote for the last job downloaded a couple of days ago.
I also still get an occasional random ingest error -- same as above.
I am not new to the program and I am doing everything right as far as I know, though I am a bit confused by the "global" v "local" designation on the IPTC stationary. I am running a G5 with 10.4.9 Lightroom is recently onboard, too. I note from the forum it may be causing some issues..?
Firstly please download and install 4.5.1.1 and use it instead of prior 4.5 versions.
I think the issues with Lightroom are Windows-specific dealing with how it responds to images being passed to it from Photo Mechanic.
Regarding your slowness issue, I don't know what would be causing that but I'd be happy to try and troubleshoot it with you directly. Contact me privately by clicking on my name to the left of this message and then send me a personal message with your contact information.
As for the Global vs Local IPTC Stationery Pads: if you want the old behavior, leave the setting on Global. Whatever the last saved IPTC Stationery Pad was will always be used then. So if you like to setup your IPTC Stationery Pad before you start an Ingest then Global is what you want.
If you want to have the same IPTC Stationery Pad that was last used in Ingest to be used for the next Ingest, then set it to Local. Old hands like yourself will find the Global setting to be the most comfortable.
-Kirk