PM 4.6 slow to open folders and slow to switching from different program

[Radek]

Hi,
   I use PM 4.6 (tested also on 4.6.1 beta6) on Mac mini (10.5.6, 2GB) and it got very slow to open folders and also if I am in a different app for example Finder and switch to PM, I get a beachball and it take couple seconds for PM to become responsive. One thing I notice is that, the process 'notifyd' is involved at the same time, which takes 30%-60% processor time. I am using only JPG files.

  I have also Macbook Pro and on this there is no problem and PM is working fine. In one old post you suggested to check caching options, which I check and they are ok.

             Radek

[Kirk Baker]

Radek,

   I use PM 4.6 (tested also on 4.6.1 beta6) on Mac mini (10.5.6, 2GB) and it got very slow to open folders and also if I am in a different app for example Finder and switch to PM, I get a beachball and it take couple seconds for PM to become responsive. One thing I notice is that, the process 'notifyd' is involved at the same time, which takes 30%-60% processor time. I am using only JPG files.

  I have also Macbook Pro and on this there is no problem and PM is working fine. In one old post you suggested to check caching options, which I check and they are ok.

I don't know what "notifyd" is.  It certainly isn't part of Photo Mechanic.  How many files are in the folders?  Are the folders stored locally or on a server?

-Kirk

[Radek]

Radek,

   I use PM 4.6 (tested also on 4.6.1 beta6) on Mac mini (10.5.6, 2GB) and it got very slow to open folders and also if I am in a different app for example Finder and switch to PM, I get a beachball and it take couple seconds for PM to become responsive. One thing I notice is that, the process 'notifyd' is involved at the same time, which takes 30%-60% processor time. I am using only JPG files.

  I have also Macbook Pro and on this there is no problem and PM is working fine. In one old post you suggested to check caching options, which I check and they are ok.

I don't know what "notifyd" is.  It certainly isn't part of Photo Mechanic.  How many files are in the folders?  Are the folders stored locally or on a server?

-Kirk

Usually there is between 500 and 1000 files and they are stored on local HD.
'Notifyd' is part of OS X System and it seem that its triggered by PM for some reason, when you open folder or switch from any app to PM. I never saw it running before.

                             Radek

[Kirk Baker]

Radek,

   I use PM 4.6 (tested also on 4.6.1 beta6) on Mac mini (10.5.6, 2GB) and it got very slow to open folders and also if I am in a different app for example Finder and switch to PM, I get a beachball and it take couple seconds for PM to become responsive. One thing I notice is that, the process 'notifyd' is involved at the same time, which takes 30%-60% processor time. I am using only JPG files.

  I have also Macbook Pro and on this there is no problem and PM is working fine. In one old post you suggested to check caching options, which I check and they are ok.

I don't know what "notifyd" is.  It certainly isn't part of Photo Mechanic.  How many files are in the folders?  Are the folders stored locally or on a server?

-Kirk

Usually there is between 500 and 1000 files and they are stored on local HD.
'Notifyd' is part of OS X System and it seem that its triggered by PM for some reason, when you open folder or switch from any app to PM. I never saw it running before.

Try turning off the "Automatically rescan when folder contents change" option in the Contact Sheet tab of the Photo Mechanic Preferences dialog.  Then restart PM.

-Kirk

[Radek]

Try turning off the "Automatically rescan when folder contents change" option in the Contact Sheet tab of the Photo Mechanic Preferences dialog.  Then restart PM.

-Kirk

This helped, its still takes 30 seconds to open a folder with 700 jpgs, but at least 'notifyd' is not showing up and there is no delay when switching applications.

          Radek

[Kirk Baker]

Radek,

Try turning off the "Automatically rescan when folder contents change" option in the Contact Sheet tab of the Photo Mechanic Preferences dialog.  Then restart PM.

This helped, its still takes 30 seconds to open a folder with 700 jpgs, but at least 'notifyd' is not showing up and there is no delay when switching applications.

Do you have PM set to show the path in the Navigator when a new contact sheet is opened?  That can certainly take a lot of time.  You can change that setting in the Launching tab of the Preferences dialog in Photo Mechanic.

-Kirk

[Radek]

Do you have PM set to show the path in the Navigator when a new contact sheet is opened?  That can certainly take a lot of time.  You can change that setting in the Launching tab of the Preferences dialog in Photo Mechanic.

-Kirk

No, this setting is not on.

                    Radek

[Kirk Baker]

Radek,

Do you have PM set to show the path in the Navigator when a new contact sheet is opened?  That can certainly take a lot of time.  You can change that setting in the Launching tab of the Preferences dialog in Photo Mechanic.

No, this setting is not on.

Are you using a custom sort?  Or any sort besides the Filename sort?  All other sorting methods are slower than Filename sort and some are very slow since the metadata of each file needs to be read before sorting can complete.

-Kirk

[Radek]

Are you using a custom sort?  Or any sort besides the Filename sort?  All other sorting methods are slower than Filename sort and some are very slow since the metadata of each file needs to be read before sorting can complete.

Yes, I am using sorted by 'Capture Time'

                              Radek

[hilmartor]

Hi,

I think I can actually answer this. When you have "Capture time" as the sorting method it takes time since it has to read the Metadata of each file. I had this problem and switched to "Filename" which does not need Metadata information and everything is faster. I switch to "Capture time" if I need it for some reason.

This can be set in Preferences.

-Cheers

[norby]

I ran into this recently on my MacBook Pro as well (including the notifyd spikes).  Neither of the suggested options above are turned on (show full path, or rescan folder for changes).  I thought "Aha, Capture Time", so I switched back to filename to test, but it's still spinning.  Happens all sorts of times/places.  Happens when closing the Preferences window.  Happens when starting PM with no folder selected.

To generalize, it definitel seems to have something to do with switching away from the application.  I was able to open/close the Preferences window several times in a row.  Then I switched to Firefox to write that down here, and went back to find a beachball party.  If I'm careful and don't do anything funny, I can double-click an image and scroll through handfuls of photos without issue, even hitting "esc" to return to the contact sheet.  If I delete an image though, I get a beachball.  Even switching back from Firefox to hit cmd-Q gives a beachball before it quits (about 30 seconds).

I'd be happy to provide a sample from System Activity if that would be helpful.

OS: 10.5.7, 2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM.  PM Version: 4.6.1
Folder contains about 1400+ CR2+JPG images (almost 3000 actual files) from Canon 5D Mk II and 30D.  I can open the same folder on my mac mini without any problems.

-/\/

[Kirk Baker]

I ran into this recently on my MacBook Pro as well (including the notifyd spikes).  Neither of the suggested options above are turned on (show full path, or rescan folder for changes).  I thought "Aha, Capture Time", so I switched back to filename to test, but it's still spinning.  Happens all sorts of times/places.  Happens when closing the Preferences window.  Happens when starting PM with no folder selected.

To generalize, it definitel seems to have something to do with switching away from the application.  I was able to open/close the Preferences window several times in a row.  Then I switched to Firefox to write that down here, and went back to find a beachball party.  If I'm careful and don't do anything funny, I can double-click an image and scroll through handfuls of photos without issue, even hitting "esc" to return to the contact sheet.  If I delete an image though, I get a beachball.  Even switching back from Firefox to hit cmd-Q gives a beachball before it quits (about 30 seconds).

I'd be happy to provide a sample from System Activity if that would be helpful.

OS: 10.5.7, 2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM.  PM Version: 4.6.1
Folder contains about 1400+ CR2+JPG images (almost 3000 actual files) from Canon 5D Mk II and 30D.  I can open the same folder on my mac mini without any problems.

-/\/

It sounds like you may be running into a lack of RAM so Virtual Memory paging is happening so often as to slow things down enough that the main event thread of Photo Mechanic is being blocked long enough that the busy cursor appears.  Run the Activity Monitor and see if you're low on RAM.

You may have set Photo Mechanic's Memory Cache too high.  We don't ever recommend more than 1024MB, no matter how much memory you have on your system.

-Kirk

[norby]

That doesn't seem to be the case.  I saw this on both of my machines previously (which is what prompted me to upgrade to 4.6), but it went away (I couldn't pin it down to anything specific).  On my MBP, Activity Monitor reports:

2.11 GB Free
651 MB Wired
1.20 GB Active
42 MB Inactive

1.88 GB Used

Memory cache is set at the default of 64 MB.  The last time this happened, I was able to wipe out the .plist file and still reproduce the problems, though I haven't tried it this time (yet).  Even just starting Photo Mechanic out of the box takes 50 seconds between when the logo first shows up, and when the Ingest box shows up.

For comparison, the mac mini only has 2GB of RAM (plus a ton of other stuff running).

-/\/

[norby]

A handful of other information, if it's useful.  When opening a smaller directory (323 images, 626 files), the hang when switching applications is only about 6-8 seconds (vs. almost 30-40 seconds).  After opening the contact sheet for this directory, about 450 MB of the Free memory moved into "Inactive".  When opening the larger directory, the entire 2+ GB of Free memory moved into Inactive.

RSIZE remains @ 102.69 MB, and Virtual Memory @ 1,003.98 MB (when opening the smaller directory).

Re: swapping in, I'd like to think it was along those lines, but all it takes is clicking in and out of activity monitor to trigger this behaviour - I can't see how AM could have kicked it out of core memory when there are 1.6 GB of Free memory at the moment.  This is the stuff bugs are made of.

-/\/

[Kirk Baker]

A handful of other information, if it's useful.  When opening a smaller directory (323 images, 626 files), the hang when switching applications is only about 6-8 seconds (vs. almost 30-40 seconds).  After opening the contact sheet for this directory, about 450 MB of the Free memory moved into "Inactive".  When opening the larger directory, the entire 2+ GB of Free memory moved into Inactive.

RSIZE remains @ 102.69 MB, and Virtual Memory @ 1,003.98 MB (when opening the smaller directory).

Re: swapping in, I'd like to think it was along those lines, but all it takes is clicking in and out of activity monitor to trigger this behaviour - I can't see how AM could have kicked it out of core memory when there are 1.6 GB of Free memory at the moment.  This is the stuff bugs are made of.

-/\/

Are the photos you're browsing on a local hard drive or on a network or some other slow device?

What kind of files are you browsing?  Do the files have XMP sidecar files?

-Kirk