Lion and Keynote Problems

I know Apple doesn't read this, at least officially, but I really wish it would release a downgrade patch for Keynote users who are having trouble. I recognize that not all Keynote users share in this problem, but this list has enough views to suggest that this is a fairly widespread issue. I also recognize Apple's reluctance to admit publicly that something is wrong with their software. But a downgrade patch would allow people who have purchased iWork 9.1 through the App Store or those who had iWork packaged on their computer at purchase to downgrade to 9.0.5 which works perfectly on OS 10.7.

Keynote 5.1.1 update just came out this afternoon, and it mentions working with large files on Lion. Maybe it addresses the issue everyone has been running into on this thread. Haven't had a chance to try it out yet.

There is another thread. Some users have tried the most recent "upgrade" and they report that it has not helped.

One reason why Keynote 5.1 is suffering from prolonged periods of a spinning beach ball is related to how "Auto Save" and "Versions" works on large (i.e., > 100 MB) Keynote files. With iWork '09, Apple switched from folder-like bundle format (i.e., a format that contained readily accessible individual files) to a container format (i.e., a zipped version of the folder that contains all the files). This was probably done to make emailing iWork '09 documents easier, as most email programs are not aware of the folder-like bundle format. The downside of this is, that every time an iWork application saves a document, a completely new zipped version of the folder has to be created. Since most people were not using large iWork documents (e.g., Keynotes) or saving them frequently, this downside remained mostly unnoticed.

With OSX Lion "Auto Save" and "Versions" was introduced. In Lion, with every little change to your document, Keynote 5.1 saves the document, for which it has to zip the whole folder-like bundle over again, which takes quite some time for large documents. Then “Versions” copies the zipped bundle into a subdirectory in “/.DocumentRevisions-V100”, which takes disk space and time resources. Finally “Versions” performs a binary comparison with the previously saved versions of the Keynote to only retain the difference and to release the remaining disk resources. One can easily see, that in this process the whole document is saved and read multiple times to and from the hard disk, while the user sees a spinning beach ball.

Interestingly, this problem can be easily mitigated, as Keynote 5.1 allows the use of the legacy folder-like bundle format. For this you need to check “Save new documents as packages” and uncheck “Back up previous version” in the preferences. You then need to create a new Keynote document and copy/paste your old slides into this new document. This new Keynote document will be saved in a folder-like bundle format. Now every “Auto Save” only triggers the change of a few very small files within the bundle. These files are then handled by “Versions” in very short time and almost without a spinning beach ball.

In summary, “Auto Save” and “Versions” are a welcome addition to OSX, but require some consideration and sufficient hardware resources. I therefore typically recommend upgrading to at least 6GB of RAM and a larger and faster hard disk, before considering upgrading to Lion.

Thanks St Peter at the gate of Apple.... I think you used a loong time to come around.

The spinning ball problem is not solved by 2,7 GHz, 8 GB of RAM and a large 750 disk. No need to demand more of Apples users, the problem is in the programme!

If your description of the cause of the problem is the correct one I can see a parallel to the databaseproblems of Aperture and iPhoto. There are so many demands from the program that any machine will run slower and slower as the amount of data is increasing. With more than 100.000 files in my library I have had to switch to Adobe to get around this architectural trap. Maybe Apple should rethink the fundamentals of its applications?

I just got a software upgrade that claims to fix this problem! Fingers crossed. (I managed to get rid of the beachball issue myself - but was still having crashes and files not opening.

Olav, not all spinning ball problems are not solved by better disk, memory and CPU resources, however those lags that are related to the before mentioned issue of “Auto Save” and “Versions” with large Keynote files will be mitigated especially if you change your Keynote documents to the folder-like bundle format.

As you’ve correctly observed, an excessive number of blocking I/O is often the reason for a spinning beach ball. In theory saving and copying a 300 MB sized Keynote in the container format should not take that long, as this is sequential read and write for a conventional hard disk which it can perform with 30+ MB/sec. In reality, people that typically use large files will soon run into a situation where they have very little disk space left. In this situation, the written file will be fragmented, as there is probably are no 300MB of consecutive disk space left. As OSX only performs automatic defragmentation on files smaller than 20MB, this file will be left fragmented which now slows down the read/write of this file.

However, if you upgrade and clone your hard disk (e.g., using carbon copy cloner or super-duper at the file level) you will defragment all files on the disk and you will probably have excess free disk space, so that new fragmentation is not that likely to occur. Alternatively if you have sufficient disk space, you can just backup and restore your disk. All of this is of course only relevant if you are using large files and not already having a SSD hard disk that does not suffer from this I/O bottleneck.

I've been waiting to read some feedback here on how the latest upgarde patch has performed. In my previous posts you will see I have Snow Leopard on my laptop and Lion on the desktop. I have downloaded the patch on my desktop iMac. Regrettably I see little improvement. Putting a heavy video into my keynote just results in a spinning beachball and a long wait. Reality for me probably leaves me migrating to powerpoint - I don't see Apple resolving this anytime soon. I know a downgrade to the previous version of Keynote is a reasonable option but we shouldn't have to do this. Interested to hear the views of others.

Having patched my Keynote with the latest software update I am having no problems. Beachball gone and no crashes, freezes or files refusing to open (so far). Basically all back to normal and presentations running smoothly (Keynote seemed to try and autosave in the middle of a slide transition or animation previously - unless "save a version" had just been implemented) Now all is back to the way it was.

I likewise have checked out Keynote 5.1.1 running on OS 10.7.2. I opened my two most troublesome files with no problem and tried my best to bring on the beachball. It seems to be working fine. Let's see how it goes.

Cal Man, which thread are you talking about?

So guys !! Did Keynote 5.1.1 solve all the issues ?!?!!

I am not willing to reformat my machine once again !!!

I have tried the upgrade on a large Keynote presentation (4.3 GB). Everything seems to work fine now.

At last!!

So far so good. See the following post. Short summary - works fine on 10 gig Macpro and 4 gig iMac. Created new file and copied slides from problematic file.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3208515?answerId=16935381022#16935381022

I've upgrade both my iMacs (one with 8 MB, the other with 6 MB) to Keynote 5.1.1. I've opened and manipulated four of my most problematic files with deliberate attempts to induce the beach ball of doom (ie rapid alterations, switching between play and edit modes, running video segments, etc.) The problems I've been having seem to be solved.

Thanks again to fuzzydog for the valuable temporary workaround until Apple got its act together. It saved a major presentation.