Posted on 02/14/2012 2:23:58 PM PST by Tuscaloosa Goldfinch
We are new to apple/macs, and our Lightroom software has gone a bit glitchy. Apparently I have the dreaded beach ball spiral of death or something like that. When we try to edit photos we get this beach ball spiral symbol in our software window. It almost acts like it needs reinstalling but some blogs I've read said that does not work. Any suggestions? Thanks.
Get rid of the Apple and get a real PC. (Stated for the benefit of those Apple users that always visit the PC threads and suggest dumping the PC for an Apple.)
Just kidding of course, I have no idea what Lightroom is. =) Just thought I'd beat the Linux people to it for a change.
I know nothing of Mac, but the SBBOD (spinning beach ball of death) seems to be the same kind of bane as the Windows BSOD (blue screen of death).
Thank you!
More memory (at least 4gb) and 10 percent or more FREE hard drive hard drive space will help. Also, run the Disk Utility program to repair permissions. If your images are really big that may be a factor.
Ouch. Now that I know about, unfortunately.
Big Ditto!
Yep. Spinning beachballs are timeouts, and on the Mac that usually means data shuffling in limited memory space, either RAM or HD. The other thing that can bring about the same problem is lack of proper memory clearing, either by a buggy program, or a collision with another program that's either dirty, or a memory hog.
Use Dogpile dot com and the ampersand (&) with the query “mac lightroom & spinning ball” and you’ll get more specific posts and entries from other Mac specific sites and “users” with the same issue.
The reply that included “ram” as a possible answer might be right on target. Lightroom is ram hungry and with a Mac being used for graphics there’s no such thing as too much ram. I have 32GB installed in my 8 core and there’s times I wish I had gone to 64gb.
The spinning ball (unlike the blue screen of death) does not mean your hard drive has problems. It means your Mac is stuck trying to open the program or open the image. Ram could be the reason in both cases. Repairing permissions is among the first things to do to eliminate that possibility as the culprit.
BTW: Dealmac dot com has a nice “user’s forum” that covers the gamut. Talking with a group of Mac users will be beneficial. Look for the forum link on the right side of the page under “helpful links”.
OWC or Newegg sell memory at reasonable prices.
Mel
I use Macs, and hadn’t heard of Lightroom. Is this a program that came on your Apple computer, or is it something you purchased and installed yourself? A search shows Lightroom is an Adobe Photoshop program. You might want to contact them if you can’t find an answer to the beachball problem. Anytime the beachball comes up, it means the computer is thinking, or working. If it’s lasting a long time, you may need more RAM, especially if you run several programs at the same time.
I've had a Mac for years, but I finally bought an instruction book for it - Mac OS X Lion: The Missing ManualAnd that book agrees that cleaning up permission problems by using the Disk Utility - go to launchpad, and click on "Utilities" - can cure a multitude of sins. I had a different problem - a new hard drive had an installer which wouldn't run, and the drive didn't even show up on the desktop - but Utilities found it and formatted it snic-snac (it was helpful to know that the "Erase" command formats a drive). I've enjoyed reading the book, and would recommend it. $35 list, tho . . .
What you have described is IMPOSSIBLE as MACS are literally perfect.
Mac advice
Are you using Safari? If so, on occasion, I get the spinning wheel when Adblocker stops and ad from popping up and “fights with it.” Sort of a hiccup/stumble. Then it clears up. However, it doesn’t seem to be doing this after an update several months ago.
The larger the catalog one is working with, the more RAM needed. A high end graphics card also helps.
For large catalogs, either use the high-end iMac with the best card available and max RAM, or a MacPro also trickled out.
Look here
Optimize performance | Lightroom
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/400/kb400808.html
Thanks for the info.
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