Snow Leopard ingest problems with Lexar Reader

[unsharpmask]

I am using PhotoMechanic 4.6.1 with Mac OSX 10.6.1 (Snow Leopard) on an intel MacBook Pro and when I use a Lexar Pro Firewire 800 reader while ingesting with various CF cards, I sometimes get an ultra-slow ingest (15-20 minutes for a 2gb card). If I copy the files directly to the Mac, bypassing PhotoMechanic ingesting, the files copy super fast. I had no issues before the upgrade to Snow Leopard. I've  talked to another photographer who upgraded to Snow Leopard and he had similar problems with similar equipment. Thanks for your help!

[Kirk Baker]

I am using PhotoMechanic 4.6.1 with Mac OSX 10.6.1 (Snow Leopard) on an intel MacBook Pro and when I use a Lexar Pro Firewire 800 reader while ingesting with various CF cards, I sometimes get an ultra-slow ingest (15-20 minutes for a 2gb card). If I copy the files directly to the Mac, bypassing PhotoMechanic ingesting, the files copy super fast. I had no issues before the upgrade to Snow Leopard. I've  talked to another photographer who upgraded to Snow Leopard and he had similar problems with similar equipment. Thanks for your help!

We've had similar reports and believe it is a bug in Snow Leopard and/or incompatibility with Lexar's drivers.

Please get the 4.6.2 beta since version 4.6.1 and earlier of Photo Mechanic is known to have severe reliability issues when running on Snow Leopard.  You can get the beta version of 4.6.2 in the Announcements section of the forums.

-Kirk

[unsharpmask]

Thank Kirk for your quick response. I am wondering if it is a bug in Snow Leopard because I can copy directly from the card reader to my hard drive with no issues. My only problem with copying is with PhotoMechanic. I ran the beta 4.6.2 and faced similar problems. The biggest problem with the beta is the short license, I can't re-download betas every week, have you thought of longer beta trials? The beta did fix the issue with the photoshelter uploader that I had with 4.6.1 and Snow Leopard.

[Kirk Baker]

Thank Kirk for your quick response. I am wondering if it is a bug in Snow Leopard because I can copy directly from the card reader to my hard drive with no issues. My only problem with copying is with PhotoMechanic. I ran the beta 4.6.2 and faced similar problems. The biggest problem with the beta is the short license, I can't re-download betas every week, have you thought of longer beta trials? The beta did fix the issue with the photoshelter uploader that I had with 4.6.1 and Snow Leopard.

Sometimes even the Finder is slow.  You just haven't experienced it yet.

The current beta is good through the end of November.  They aren't weekly betas.

-Kirk

[unsharpmask]

 I downloaded the last beta toward the end of October, so it seemed like a really short beta. Thanks for all your help, I have been using the product since it was called Iron Mike software.

[Lars]

Hi Kirk,

ingest ist still very slow on 4.6.2 with a Hama-Reader. Do you have any idea, how to fix this ?

regards,
Lars

[Kirk Baker]

Lars,

ingest ist still very slow on 4.6.2 with a Hama-Reader. Do you have any idea, how to fix this ?

No idea on a permanent fix.  It is likely a bug in Snow Leopard.  I made changes in 4.6.2 to increase our copy buffer size and I was able to make my SanDisk Firewire 800 card reader with a Lexar 300x card read at nearly the same speed as the Finder.

I have heard that restarting the system when copy speed is slow improves copy speed after the restart.  Because this seems to help, my conclusion is that there is some sort of bug in the OS that causes the card reader to transfer data slowly.

The same version of Photo Mechanic on 10.5.x and 10.4.x does not have any speed issues on Ingest or Copy.

-Kirk

[Hydester]

FWIW I have just bought the ultra fast 16GB Sandisk CF Cards http://www.sandisk.com/products/dslr/sandisk-extreme-pro-compactflash-card.aspx   I mentioned in a previous post.

Did a test downloading 20 Nikon D3 raw files 640mb

With Lexar Firewire 800 it took 2 mins 25 seconds

Then tried with a regular Sandisk reader  http://www.sandisk.com/products/readers-accessories/sandisk-extreme-firewire-reader

Thought my dreams were answered when the same amount took just 27 seconds !

However, subsequently anecdotally (ie not recorded but just noticed by me) it has been variable, but still faster than the Lexar reader.

I agree with Kirk it is probably a Snow Leopard problem

Am pinning my hopes on the new Lexar reader highlighted by Rob Galbraith here:  http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/content_page.asp?cid=7-10044-10297

and soon available here:

http://www.lexar.com/readers/pro_eccf.html

Steve

[Lars]

Hi Kirk,

thanks for your answer. I know that when it is a bug in Snow Leopard you will nothing can do.
BTW: I made some "field tests" by meaning I used PM without closing an entire day. The strange thing is that sometimes the same card with the same reader is ingested very fast and the next time it is slow again. But the system and/or PM were not restarted in between (only the lid was closed between the ingest sessions). I also tried to restart the finder when it was slow - but without any effect. The only difference (I guess) was sometimes I had a network connection and sometimes I didn't. I cannot imagine that network has something to so with ingest but I will check this today again. Hopefully, you will look further for a permanent solution. ??! PLEASE

regards,
Lars

[tte]

Hi,

I had that same problem. Resetting PRAM and NVRAM fixed that issue.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379

OSX 10.6.2
MBP17" (late 2009)
PM 4.6.2

-Tuomo

[unsharpmask]

It looks like re-setting the PRAM is the solution, no problems since I did that. Thanks!!!

[djohnston]

I'm having the same problem with a Sandisk firewire reader and Sandisk extreme III and IV cards. Problem seems random. Most ingests are normal but occasionally extremely slow. Also tried a Sandisk USB 2 reader with the same occasional results.

I can stop the ingest / quit PM / restart PM and it will usually fix the problem.

Intel MacBook pro with 4g RAM, OSX 10.6.2  PM 4.6.2.1

[andrewross]

I'm just adding myself to the list in experiencing these issues regarding ingest and Snow Leopard - I never had an issue prior. It seems to be a completely random occurrence and sometimes ingest will crash the card too, resetting PRAM or the recent PM version 10.6.2 update failed to help. Using other software ingest methods like Lightroom or Aperture, I do not have this problem at all.

Hardware: Intel MacBook Pro + Lexar Firewire and/or USB 2 card readers.
RAM: 4GB
OS Version: 10.6.2 
PM Version: 4.6.2.1

[Hydester]

Have re-set PRAM & this did not cure the intermittent problem with me.
What did help is physically disconnecting the reader between ingests.
As far as I can tell this stops the painfully slow ingests, but still have some slow-ish ones.

Steve

[soren steffen]

I have found both USB and FW800 slow in SL.
I had a scary experience the other day when  I should ingest. The dialog box showed 1,4 gb of pix on my Sandisk CF card and when I hit Ingest, the box just showed for a second and then the card was empty !!

No pictures on it when I put it into camera, but it said 1,4 gb used info
Had to use Photorescue.