Searched for answers on this yesterday but haven’t found anything useful.
I recently upgraded to Photolab 8.2.1 and am finding it quite slow to use for one reason:
EVERY time I navigate to a different photo in my selection, it will freeze and show “Full preview in progress…” in place of the image for a second or two. I’m fairly sure previous versions were never this slow.
Also… I do have a cache? I even tried expanding it, clearing it, restarting Photolab… and still I get the delay.
Is the cache not being used? Is there some setting I’ve accidentally messed up?
I can’t believe it’s normal to need to generate a new preview just because I navigated from one photo to another… and then back again… without having made any changes?
For me the photos and the program cache are on a fast drive (an SSD - same drive as Photolab is installed on to).
It’s weird as I haven’t changed anything in terms of installation or settings but I’m fairly sure I wasn’t getting this in previous versions of 8, or PL7…
The (small) delay happens too with PL8.2.1 on my strong PC (Win11pro 24H2+latest drivers/patches+i7-14700KF+RTX4070+32GB RAM+M.2 dedicated disks) while working with 45mpx photos (Nikon Z8). With 12mpx or 16mpx it does not happen, whether ‘Always prefer high quality previews’ is ON or OFF (I have it OFF by default). My auto-apply preset is ‘No Corrections’ but otherwise I use DP XD2s 99% of the time. My PL8 DB (currently about 1.5GB) was automatically migrated from PL7 during upgrade, my PL8 cache is currently about 3GB (with 20GB limit), on PL7 it was over 10GB.
EDIT: In my case, the delay happens only in about 10-20% cases (with 45mpx).
Also opening a new directory in PL8.2.1 seems to be somewhat slower than in PL8.0 (where it was much faster than some older PL7 version), but I’m not sure of that and did not measure it recently.
My system is less powerful than yours, but I’m working with Canon R6 RAW files which are 20mpx so less strain than your 45mpx too!
I also have high quality previews “off”, and apply no corrections on load, BUT…
…I’m finding this slowdown problem occurs even with files already loaded into Photolab. It’s not only on import or “first open” but every time I change which photo I am viewing.
If it only happened on start/import, I’d let the system do its thing and make a cup of tea!
Agreed. There seems to be a caching problem indeed. It looks like it was fixed some time ago and it’s back again. Maybe they have “overtuned” someting and had to revert back? We can only speculate, as there is absolutely no feedback from DxO for some two years now.
DxO seems to monitor this forum, albeit quietly.
If you have a real problem, then open a ticket.
With 0.5sec preview delays on 45mpx photos in my case, I don’t see it as a problem, so I’ll not escalate.
I also have noticed a remarkable delay occationally appearing during PL operaations. The delay is remarkable long but does not appears every time. I will study the matter more closely to be sure how and when it appears.
