Lightroom Classic slow with OS Mojave

[GC33]

Hey guys,

I've had Mojave installed for a few days now and I'm now noticing significant slowing down issues in Lightroom Classic.

Flicking between photos in the develop tab has slowed, but more importantly I'm noticing major lag when tweaking the adjustment sliders. The slider is unable to keep up with the speed of the mouse, and therefore I can't see my adjustments in real time, making the whole editing process much slower!

My overall machine performance hasn't suffered since OS Mojave. But I've seen a few other people struggling with similar issues on older machines than my own. Strange. I've tried enabling Smart Previews and "Use Graphics Processor" in the preferences tab. These make a slight improvement to the lag but still don't sufficiently fix the problem - adjustments are still delayed.

There is more info below, but I hope I've covered the bulk of it.

Important info:
Lightroom Classic CC (8.0)

Specs:

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014)
Processor: 2.2GHz Intel Core i7

Memory: 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

Graphics: Intel Iris Pro 1536MB

More Specs: (From Lightroom)

Operating system: Mac OS 10

Version: 10.14.0 [18A391]

Application architecture: x64

Logical processor count: 8

Processor speed: 2.2 GHz

Built-in memory: 16,384.0 MB

Real memory available to Lightroom: 16,384.0 MB

Real memory used by Lightroom: 2,594.5 MB (15.8%)

Virtual memory used by Lightroom: 4,947.6 MB

Memory cache size: 220.5MB

Internal Camera Raw revision: 61

Maximum thread count used by Camera Raw: 5

Camera Raw SIMD optimization: SSE2,AVX,AVX2

Camera Raw virtual memory: 1105MB / 8191MB (13%)

Camera Raw real memory: 1149MB / 16384MB (7%)

Displays: 1) 2880x1800

[Akash Sharma]

Hi GC33,

Sorry that Lightroom Classic CC 8.0 is running slower than expected on your Mac computer with OSX Mojave.

Flicking between photos in the develop tab has slowed, but more importantly I'm noticing major lag when tweaking the adjustment sliders. The slider is unable to keep up with the speed of the mouse, and therefore I can't see my adjustments in real time, making the whole editing process much slower!

As you've mentioned that unchecking the option "use graphics processor" under the Preferences> Performance menu helped a bit not improving the overall app performance. Please take a look at this article Optimize Lightroom performance and let us know if the steps mentioned help the cause.

Thanks,

Akash

[k2df]

Hi,

I have a similar experience, on an iMac (2017). Unchecking the "use graphics processor" slightly helps, however, as noted in the initial post, adjusting any slider is extremely slow.

Do you have any update to the situation ?

Thank you.

[davidb99024415]

Hi,

For me LR CC 8.0 on osx Mojave is absolutely useless ....   I edit 2000 to 3000 images in one catalog and LR CAN NOT BE USED LIKE THIS.....   Every thing crawls now.    If Adobe has a fix please let us know!   Going to reinstall older OX at this point.  

Please let us know what can be done to fix this.

Thanks

[anita_jolantas8103289]

I have not updated to Mojave yet and my LR works also much slower. Using any brush is a pain, the wheel keeps spinning whenever I touch any tool. I have plenty of space on my laptop and no issue with speed on anything else. The laptop is 6 months old. It is clearly an issue with your update, not my hardware therefore no point messing with setting that are good. When are you planning to fix it and issue 8.1?

[davidb99024415]

Ok, Adobe had great support and did what they could but it was Apples problem.  If you do the next system update to 10.14.1 It fixed everything.   Lightroom works great now! 

[___rafael___]

I've experienced similar issues on 2017 iMac with MacOS High Sierra 10.13.6 after upgrading to Lightroom CC Classic 8.0. Troubleshooting didn't help (disconnected attached devices, enabled/disabled graphics processor, etc). Sliders in develop module were painful to work with and importing new images would cause Lightroom to stop responding. Finally decided to downgrade back to 7.5 and after enabling graphics processor everything is back to normal. I'll wait until people confirm that LR 8.0 and Mojave play well together before upgrading either.

Specs:

Model: 2017 iMac 5k, 27in

OS: MacOS High Sierra 10.13.6

Processor: 4.2 GHz i7

Memory: 24 GB

Graphics: Radeon Pro 580 8 GB

Storage: 1 TB SSD

[etccdb]

I am having similar problems on an IMAC with 16GB ram

with half of my 1tb harddrive free.

Lightroom freezes when I try to import

[etccdb]

update did not work for me..I'm at 10.14.2

[Jollino]

Same here, on an iMac 5K (2017) with a quad i7 CPU, 24 GB of RAM and 8 GB of VRAM on macOS 10.14.2.

Tried creating a new catalog, tried deleting all preferences, etc.

I'm pretty sure that this is related to Apple breaking (and deprecating) OpenGL in Mojave (perhaps not everything was converted to Metal?) because it's EXACTLY the same issue I noticed with another, completely unrelated application called Slic3r PE (and to a lesser extent with OpenSCAD): it worked fine on 10.13, but became horribly slow on 10.14. That's because they use OpenGL extensively, and somehow Apple broke it on 10.14, so everything must be done by the CPU.

Especially on a retina (hi-dpi) screen, this puts a lot of strain on the CPU. Workaround with Slic3r include:

1) using the "Open in low resolution" checkbox on the app's info pane in the Finder, and/or

2) making the window smaller, and/or

3) moving the window to a non-retina screen (if you have one).

I tried doing all three with Lightroom and guess what? It gets better. Of course it's not a solution at all, especially since we get these big and high-res screen precisely to do proper photo editing, but it's proof that it's related to the broken implementation of OpenGL in Mojave. It's also why people using LR on MacBook Pros will be less affected: they simply have fewer pixels to deal with.

Why this affects Lightroom is beyond me, since it should theoretically replace OpenGL with Metal, but in practice the system info pane in Lightroom does show it's using OpenGL extensively still. To add insult to injury, Apple deprecated OpenGL so it's not clear if they're ever going to fix it. Adobe MUST be aware of the problem because all it takes is a hi-dpi screen on Mojave, be it an iMac 4K or 5K or an external monitor, and the problem shows up. Whether they'll fix it, or get Apple on board to relieve the issue on their end, is anyone's guess.

I sure feel disappointed: after months of not having had a chance to take photos I finally do, open up LR to edit them, and am faced with this mess.

——

Lightroom Classic version: 8.1 [ 1200465 ]

License: Creative Cloud

Language setting: en-IT

Operating system: Mac OS 10

Version: 10.14.2 [18C54]

Application architecture: x64

Logical processor count: 8

Processor speed: 4.2 GHz

Built-in memory: 24,576.0 MB

Real memory available to Lightroom: 24,576.0 MB

Real memory used by Lightroom: 2,592.3 MB (10.5%)

Virtual memory used by Lightroom: 3,595.1 MB

Memory cache size: 131.6MB

Internal Camera Raw version: 11.1 [ 112 ]

Maximum thread count used by Camera Raw: 5

Camera Raw SIMD optimization: SSE2,AVX,AVX2

Camera Raw virtual memory: 774MB / 12287MB (6%)

Camera Raw real memory: 791MB / 24576MB (3%)

Displays: 1) 5120x2880, 2) 1920x1080

Graphics Processor Info:

Metal: AMD Radeon Pro 580

Application folder: /Applications/Adobe Lightroom Classic CC

Library Path: /Users/jollino/Pictures/Lightroom Catalogs/…/….lrcat

Settings Folder: /Users/jollino/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom

Installed Plugins:

1) AdobeStock

2) Canon Tether Plugin

Config.lua flags: None

AudioDeviceIOBlockSize: 512

AudioDeviceName: Built-in Output

AudioDeviceNumberOfChannels: 2

AudioDeviceSampleRate: 48000

Build: 12.1x4

CoreImage: true

GL_ACCUM_ALPHA_BITS: 0

GL_ACCUM_BLUE_BITS: 0

GL_ACCUM_GREEN_BITS: 0

GL_ACCUM_RED_BITS: 0

GL_ALPHA_BITS: 8

GL_BLUE_BITS: 8

GL_DEPTH_BITS: 24

GL_GREEN_BITS: 8

GL_MAX_3D_TEXTURE_SIZE: 16384

GL_MAX_TEXTURE_SIZE: 16384

GL_MAX_TEXTURE_UNITS: 8

GL_MAX_VIEWPORT_DIMS: 16384,16384

GL_RED_BITS: 8

GL_RENDERER: AMD Radeon Pro 580 OpenGL Engine

GL_SHADING_LANGUAGE_VERSION: 1.20

GL_STENCIL_BITS: 8

GL_VENDOR: ATI Technologies Inc.

GL_VERSION: 2.1 ATI-2.4.9

OGLEnabled: true

GL_EXTENSIONS: GL_ARB_color_buffer_float GL_ARB_depth_buffer_float GL_ARB_depth_clamp GL_ARB_depth_texture GL_ARB_draw_buffers GL_ARB_draw_elements_base_vertex GL_ARB_draw_instanced GL_ARB_fragment_program GL_ARB_fragment_program_shadow GL_ARB_fragment_shader GL_ARB_framebuffer_object GL_ARB_framebuffer_sRGB GL_ARB_half_float_pixel GL_ARB_half_float_vertex GL_ARB_imaging GL_ARB_instanced_arrays GL_ARB_multisample GL_ARB_multitexture GL_ARB_occlusion_query GL_ARB_pixel_buffer_object GL_ARB_point_parameters GL_ARB_point_sprite GL_ARB_provoking_vertex GL_ARB_seamless_cube_map GL_ARB_shader_objects GL_ARB_shader_texture_lod GL_ARB_shading_language_100 GL_ARB_shadow GL_ARB_shadow_ambient GL_ARB_sync GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp GL_ARB_texture_compression GL_ARB_texture_compression_rgtc GL_ARB_texture_cube_map GL_ARB_texture_env_add GL_ARB_texture_env_combine GL_ARB_texture_env_crossbar GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3 GL_ARB_texture_float GL_ARB_texture_mirrored_repeat GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two GL_ARB_texture_rectangle GL_ARB_texture_rg GL_ARB_transpose_matrix GL_ARB_vertex_array_bgra GL_ARB_vertex_blend GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object GL_ARB_vertex_program GL_ARB_vertex_shader GL_ARB_window_pos GL_EXT_abgr GL_EXT_bgra GL_EXT_bindable_uniform GL_EXT_blend_color GL_EXT_blend_equation_separate GL_EXT_blend_func_separate GL_EXT_blend_minmax GL_EXT_blend_subtract GL_EXT_clip_volume_hint GL_EXT_debug_label GL_EXT_debug_marker GL_EXT_depth_bounds_test GL_EXT_draw_buffers2 GL_EXT_draw_range_elements GL_EXT_fog_coord GL_EXT_framebuffer_blit GL_EXT_framebuffer_multisample GL_EXT_framebuffer_object GL_EXT_framebuffer_sRGB GL_EXT_geometry_shader4 GL_EXT_gpu_program_parameters GL_EXT_gpu_shader4 GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays GL_EXT_packed_depth_stencil GL_EXT_packed_float GL_EXT_provoking_vertex GL_EXT_rescale_normal GL_EXT_secondary_color GL_EXT_separate_specular_color GL_EXT_shadow_funcs GL_EXT_stencil_two_side GL_EXT_stencil_wrap GL_EXT_texture_array GL_EXT_texture_compression_dxt1 GL_EXT_texture_compression_s3tc GL_EXT_texture_env_add GL_EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic GL_EXT_texture_integer GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias GL_EXT_texture_mirror_clamp GL_EXT_texture_rectangle GL_EXT_texture_shared_exponent GL_EXT_texture_sRGB GL_EXT_texture_sRGB_decode GL_EXT_timer_query GL_EXT_transform_feedback GL_EXT_vertex_array_bgra GL_APPLE_aux_depth_stencil GL_APPLE_client_storage GL_APPLE_element_array GL_APPLE_fence GL_APPLE_float_pixels GL_APPLE_flush_buffer_range GL_APPLE_flush_render GL_APPLE_object_purgeable GL_APPLE_packed_pixels GL_APPLE_pixel_buffer GL_APPLE_rgb_422 GL_APPLE_row_bytes GL_APPLE_specular_vector GL_APPLE_texture_range GL_APPLE_transform_hint GL_APPLE_vertex_array_object GL_APPLE_vertex_array_range GL_APPLE_vertex_point_size GL_APPLE_vertex_program_evaluators GL_APPLE_ycbcr_422 GL_ATI_blend_equation_separate GL_ATI_blend_weighted_minmax GL_ATI_separate_stencil GL_ATI_texture_compression_3dc GL_ATI_texture_env_combine3 GL_ATI_texture_float GL_ATI_texture_mirror_once GL_IBM_rasterpos_clip GL_NV_blend_square GL_NV_conditional_render GL_NV_depth_clamp GL_NV_fog_distance GL_NV_light_max_exponent GL_NV_texgen_reflection GL_NV_texture_barrier GL_SGI_color_matrix GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap GL_SGIS_texture_edge_clamp GL_SGIS_texture_lod

——

[GoldingD]

As to DirectX vs OpenG see solution 3 in Adobe Lightroom GPU Troubleshooting and FAQ

Also, apparently LR does not behave well at resolutions of 3K, worse at 4K, absolutely dreadful at 5K, if you are stuck with scalability only as opposed to actually dropping resolution diwn, try not using a full screen.

[Jollino]

That's the odd part: my GPU does support both Metal and OpenGL, and until a few months ago LR was blazing fast even using the full 5K screen at its native resolution.

I don't know at what point something changed because unfortunately life got in the way, but when I used it the last time before now it was around the lunar eclipse of June 2018, and it was still good. It was either 7.3 or 7.4, so I don't know if the watershed moment was upgrading to 8.0 or to Mojave.

I guess the only test is trying to reinstall 7.5 to see if it changes anything.

In the meantime it would be nice to hear from Akash Sharma​ or one of the other developers, considering we're all paying for this...

[GoldingD]

One thing I forgot (other than DirectX is a Windows thing, not MAC).

And I do not know if you changed this way back, and the OS update changed it back.

But if in finder you navigate to the "Adobe Ligtroom Classic CC.app" and select Get Info, you can check a box to run in low resolution.

[Jollino]

Yes, that's one thing I had mentioned in my message Re: Lightroom Classic slow with OS Mojave  but it's hardly a solution. While it works with other apps affected by similar OpenGL woes, running an image editor at lower resolution or in a smaller window defeats the purpose of getting a big, high-resolution screen in the first place. This is somethig Adobe needs to address.

[philkdc]

I updated to Lightroom 8.3. The clone/healing brush has slowed to a crawl. It's impossible to edit in real time because of the lag. I have an iMac with a 64 bit processor, 32GB of RAM, running macOS 14.4. No issues with other programs including Photoshop. Any further suggestions?

[jthayer]

I'm having the same problem.  The healing brush and adjustment brush are almost useless to try.  Adobe is really not delivering a good product in Lightroom at the moment.  It may be time to abandon LR and stay completely in Capture One which is a bit of a shame as LR is definitely nicer when working on skin texture with a brush.

[GoldingD]

Well, my comment about DirectX is just crap. In MAC OS, Metal is called for not DirectX

[francoisv94339975]

Did you active FileVault ?

And before Mojave was it actived ?

I deactivated it on Mojave and I think mine is much faster now.

[Jollino]

No, I didn't have FileVault enabled in High Sierra and I don't have it enabled in Mojave.

However earlier today I downgraded to LR 7.5 and it seems to be faster. I didn't have much time to run any detailed tests, but I'll do more in the coming days, and report back. Hopefully that can help the devlopers figure out what's causing this.

[viktors13477553]

Same problem here, sliders are slow and changes need 1-2 seconds to be visible.
MacBook Pro 15", 2018.

Any help Adobe? Or are you waiting til everyone is using Capture One?

[SkyDiary]

I'll add to the chorus. My eight-year-old Mac Pro died (actually, I think the graphics card died), so I just got an iMac Retina 5K, with 16GB RAM, Radeon Pro Vega 48 8 GB and 3.6 GHz Intel Core i9, running Mojave. The old Mac running High Sierra was MUCH faster at importing. This is especially frustrating since I wanted a "faster" Mac for photo editing.

[GoldingD]

And to bring back up (or maybe missed) create Smart Previews and force LR to use them. Smaller images pixel wise, fewer pixels to display, fewer to work on.