Aperture running at a crawl since lion upgrade

The Aperture/Lion problem is not completely generic. For the last 10 days I have been using Aperture and Lion on a 4Gb MacBook Air (2010 model) processing some 2000 RAW images and I see no issues with speed. Naturally it is not as quick as my i7 iMac with 12Gb RAM but it is entirely functional. I installed 10.7.1 while on the road but honestly saw little difference either way compared with 10.7 or indeed Snow Leopard. I exclude Pictures from my Time Machine back up, because I hold the Aperture library with the RAW images on an external USB drive for obvious reasons, However I do make a copy of half size jpgs onto the internal SSD and have another library on there and that works fine too.

Yes, I would bet that the reason you aren't seeing it is that you have an SSD in that computer which is very efficient to begin with regarding addressing and retrieving data. Most of the people on here likely have 7200RPM drives and there is/was an issue with the speed of Lion moving data from drive to drive which I think was directly related to this issue as Lion 10.7.1 seems to have fixed this issue for most people. For a time there my personal situation was anywhere from 2-3 times longer with 10.7.0 to move data as it was in 10.7.1 with the exception of moving raw files off a CF card and writing them to an internal drive at which point what would normally take 3-4 minutes took literally 19 minutes to complete one 4GB card. Once I got the update to 10.7.1 I was back down to 3-4 minutes with USB2. So in a way you are right it's not generic some people have had the issue on machines with 4GB RAM and others have had no problems with upper configurations...I myself have seen it on a MacBook Pro with 4GB RAM and on a MacPro with 12GB RAM. The drive speed makes a huge difference in this along with the RAM. None of my machines have solid state drives in them which I know to be extremely fast compaired to other drives for reading and writing data and is likely the reason you are not experienceing the issue.

Good point though.

Eventhough I have a fairly fast Macbook Pro i5 with a fast 7200rpm drive and 8GB ram, I have experienced the same slow-down as many described here. My (temporary) solution was to run Aperture in 32-bit.

Ram use is now significantly less, and I can't say I'm seeing any speed-decrease either. So for now, this'll do. Hope Apple fixes Aperture real soon!

(to run Aperture in 32-bit mode, select the application, press command-i and you'll see an option to 'Run in 32-bit mode')

Tim,

Are you using A3 in 32 or 64 bit mode? After doing some RAW processing can you look at the Aperture process memory sizes in the Activity Monitor (or using the Terminal if you are comfortable with Unix command line) and share them?

Thanks

Sorin

While in 32 bit mode have you been doing any heavy adjustment processing? Have you experienced any crashes in 32 or 64 bit mode?

I am trying to understand whether there are any obvious patterns to the current problems.

Thanks

I was indeed experiencing crashes when in 64-bit mode. Eversince switching to 32-bit mode, not one single crash. And yes, I have been doing some very heavy adjustments!

I too have had problems with my iMac 7,1 with 4Gb since upgrading to Lion a little over a week ago running Aperture 3.1.3 using Referenced Images. Most of the "features" of the new Lion OS does not help my workflow. And everything on my iMac has slowed up not just Aperture.

So last night, I restored back to Snow Leopard using a Clone backup made a week earlier before I upgraded to Lion. Beyond the problems with Aperture treating all of my images on Macintosh HD drive as being OFFLINE, there were no problems with the restore.

Learning from the last time I did a restore from a clone, I remembered that when I reformatted the hard drive before restoring, that this messes up Aperture ability to recognize the reformatted Macintosh HD drive as being online. I just renamed my Pictures/Photos directory to something different, and then did the reconnect to reference files to be able to access the raw images again. After the 24K images were reconnected, I just renamed the directory back to Pictures, and all is good.

Then I used Time Machine backups to restore new images added in the last week. Restored the vault to what it was before going back to SL. Am happy to report that Aperture is now working again like it used to. Overall speed on my iMac has improved, and no longer have problems with slow response.

Apple should limit Lion to be for IOS devices, or small screen laptops. To me it was a big step backwards when operating on a device that is 24-27 inches.

Once the dust settles, I plan to restore my mid-2010 MacBook Pro to Snow Leopard. I don't use Aperture on it, but Lion caused other problems on it. Some of the problems got better with 10.7.1, but still not operating with proper speed for the past 30 days since upgrading from SL.

I wouldn't go to such extremes. Apple engineers are currently looking at the Aperture performance and stability issues. I can't tell exactly how long before a fix, but it shouldn't take too long. At the very least I expect them to fix the crashes that many users with 4 GB of RAM are experiencing when running in 32 bit mode. Once that is done, Aperture should work just fine on 4 GB systems, albeit a little slower than on 12 GB systems in 64 bit mode.

And for those cringing at the thought that any Apple software might need a fix, get over it. Fixing software problems with new versions is part of the normal SDLC just as increased resource requirements are part of the normal platform cycle. A3.1.3 needs a maintenance release to address a number of issues. No religious war needed here.

By the way, based on testing I have been doing, in order to get the best performance out of the current 3.1.3 version in 64 bit mode you need AT LEAST 12 GB RAM. Anything less and you will end up swapping.

AT LEAST 12Gb of RAM is unacceptable.

I was working well on SL with my iMac 7,1 with 4Gb, after a system upgrade, i must triplicate RAM?!!?

I hope Apple fix both Lion and Aperture, because now the performances are too low.

agreed. unfortunately, there is near zero MSM press coverage of Apple's bugs, so there is no pressure on Apple to respond.

Oh so slow! I am running Lion 10.7.1 on a 4Gb 15" MacBook Pro (6,2) with a 7200/750GB HD and a 2.53 GHz processor. I recently downloaded Aperture 3.1.3 and am really disappointed in the slowness when I start up the app. I initially imported my 6000+ iPhoto library as "referenced" and later as copies into the A3 library. The problem I have is that the app keeps updating the library every time I start up. If I cancel the "processing", the app works as it should. If I don't, I have to wait about 10-15 minutes for the updating to finish (always the same pics and usually about 4604 of them). I have tried all the Aperture "Trouble Shooting Basics" (repair permissions, repair database, etc.) and have even reinstalled A3 but still I get the processing activity "spinning wheel". Any ideas about what is going on???

I'm so excited! I figured it out! Unless you're running more than 16GB's of Ram, you need to switch Aperture to 32Gig mode!! My mid-year 2007 iMac (with 4GB max... Ram) is use AII 4Gig's of Ram in Lion, leaving no memory for core applications. I posted how to switch it from native 64bit mode back to 32bit mode here: http://froknowsphoto.com/froknows/forum/33-aperture/69996-aperture-performance#9 4213

I promise you.... this will restore you pre-Lion performance.

Switch Aperture to start in 32 bit mode and remove the folders with your Library and referenced photos from Spotlight. Read this thread for more instructions.

Thanks. It appears that's some 4 GB configurations are the most likely to crash in 32 and 64 bit mode. In some cases I see the core graphics framework thread crashing on memory access violations or exceptions. Let's wait and see what Apple fixes. Could be a core graphics framework piece that in turn will address A3 problems and possibly other issues.

I'm not sure of your configuiration but what youre describing is typical of some or all of the following effects...

1. Hard drive too full.. causing poor performance.. 70% full is considered 'full' and will slow your mac down.

2. Not enough Ram... 4gb would be a minimum.. more would be preferable

3. Have you performed a 'consistency check' on your library recently http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2945

4. Have you tried re-building your library

5. If you store both your Aperture library and all your RAW/ Jpeg images on the same hard drive (internal) this will slow it down... Try storing your Aperture "Library" only on your internal hard drive and all your Masters (RAW & Jpeg's) on a seperate external hard drive... This is called a 'Referenced masters" set up.

Hope you find something useful here... Regards..... Gerry