File reading behavior in large contact sheets

[jkm]

Thank you so, so much!!

[jkm]

I have added just one folder and subfolders from this year to my catalog now, so that it will be snappy when I open it instead of waiting a while to get loaded.

And as of last night everything was finished scanning and totally ready and fine.

But now, upon opening PM+ today, I just noticed that apparently everything I already added to the catalog from last year is now being scanned again, despite not being modified at all.

Why has the catalog not been kept up to date by PM, despite all the data being inside the same catalog folder and all the paths the same?

Everything already in the catalog was already scanned and stored when I added it from photos taken last year in a very long process already, and nothing has been added to the catalog since then except this one folder and subfolders that I added last night, from my hope to make opening the folder fast when I opened it today.

But now all that happened is when I opened PM today (in regular folder view, not even catalog view) it's just re-cataloging all million photos that I added from last year, that have all be unchanged since then.

If it needed to be kept up to date, why wasn't it doing that when I was using PM every day this whole year, instead of just waiting to do it now when I least can bear the delay?

I'm afraid I don't understand the benefit of the catalog for speed, if everything I already stored in it needs to be updated again despite not being modified since it was first added, and/or if nothing stored in it has been kept up to date automatically while I used PM.

Why is everything I added and scanned from last year all being scanned again now, and apparently every time I add one more folder to it like I did last night?

The catalog is supposed to make using PM+ go faster, correct?

By not needing to any more scanning once something has been added to the catalog and not modified since?

But it is definitely not functioning in that way.

Just adding one more folder from a shoot to it last night is now causing the entire million-photo existing catalog to be rescanned and recreated when I don't have the time and I have a due date coming up for the 250th anniversary of the Marine Corps photoshoot.

My computer is the same, my drive name/mount point is the same, etc.

[jkm]

I have not deleted, cleared, moved, or even tried to attempt anything that might cause this to happen.

It's just doing this automatically when I opened PM today. It did not do this last night when I added the new folder. Last night it said the catalog was finished and up to date. It took max 30 minutes, I think much less, to add the folder to the catalog last night, so as of then I was extremely impressed and looking forward to productivity today.

[jkm]

I assume that the "horse is already out of the barn" and it's too late to stop the process and revert back to the catalog that was fully stored and saved of those photos from last year?

Is it maybe a version update that is causing the whole catalog to be dumped and recreated?

I haven't done anything except right click on one folder last night and choose Include when scanning to catalog last night after finishing everything up in PM for the night, and then when it was totally finished and idle, quitting the program and going to bed.

Then coming back to it today and opening the same folder to rate/organize more photos, only to see a "Catalog Metadata Gathering" task popup in the lower left while my disks began crunching away with no input from me.

[jkm]

Once it's up to date, I think it will be the most amazing thing imaginable, though.

So I am so, so grateful for your replies to help me realize I haven't even been using the catalog perks yet.

Which just shows how fast PM is already even without the catalog caching speed.

[Kirk Baker]

Were all of the images always available over time?  Or were they on a drive that was disconnected for a long time?  The catalog doesn't constantly rescan for changes.  It will notice they've changed if you browse a folder that contains them.

I expect that something changed in the images file system data (size or modification date) or that the metadata was changed at some point.

This new folder that you added, was it anywhere near the folder hierarchy that the other million photos are in?

It is not possible to stop the metadata updates via the UI.  If you quit and resume, they'll pick up where they left off.

The purpose of the Catalog system isn't particularly for boosting speed.  It's purpose is to help you find your images based on their metadata and create virtual collections to better organize your images without having to change them (where they're located, what their filename is, etc.)

-Kirk

[jkm]

The only thing I can think of is that while rendering raw files from DxO Photo Lab, and rendering previews for my website at the same time, apparently my laptop ran out of watts (despite being plugged in to big Thunderbolt power sources from both sides) and lost connection to the drive yesterday and then it instantly reconnected.

I did a Disk first aid immediately as always when this happens, and the disk checked out fine. Then I just reopened the folder I was in in PM and kept going.

(Apple is horrible for making their plugged-in laptops barely have any bus power, and then shutting off devices if it thinks there's not enough power.)

But all of that is pretty normal, and that should have not triggered any kind of catalog update.

I never had a catalog update happen when I launched PM before, and similar things have happened in the past.

I've just been editing more raw files today, but I need to get back to PM.

Is there any harm in continuing culling/rating photos in a contact sheet in PM while it does the catalog metadata gathering process? Which still has 1.5 days left?

I appreciate all your help so much.

[jkm]

Is there any way to make the catalog things not run when I am actively using PM?

Or at least to set them to run only at night while I sleep if it can't auto detect when I am using it?

Update: I found where to stop the catalog processes and stopped them. Hopefully I didn't ruin something or make it need to start from the beginning again. I just couldn't deal with the half second pause after rating each photo before it moved to the next one.