C1 5.1.1 SLOW, performance and other bugs

Version 5.0.x had some odd bugs but V 5.1.1 has become almost unworkable. I use a MB Pro and a pal uses a tower and they are both a cludge.

Ingesting Canon files from a card, no matter how we try to do it, takes about 6-10 seconds per file for V5.1.1 to load. Once the beach ball stops spinning it's not finished, Nope... C1 pauses for a time (a long time) then the activity window pops up and appears to be on some other schedule. A folder might contain 100 images and after 10 minutes or more the activity window pops in and might show 8 of 27 or something unrelated.

I used V 4 and got accustomed to the speed of previews building and V5.0.x was certainly no improvement. To speed the preview building (and know when they were done), we made them tiny, filled the screen with them and it would chug along. It would seem like forever, certainly wasn't ideal, but it was always less than 5 min. Once finished, C1 worked as expected. It needed to rebuild the thumbnails each time you changed folders. Stupid? Yes considering the thumbnails were there.

Now in V5.1.x the SLOWwwwwwwww file loading is approaching an unworkable situation. If you expect to show images to a client immediately after copying them off a card, forget it. Nobody has that much time and the photographer looks like a fool.

A few nights ago I arrived at my studio at 9PM expecting to leave around 11PM with files processing for the morning. NO WAY! I was certain after 30 minutes of loading C1 had hung, It was 100% unresponsive. The Force Quit window didn't say not responding. I waited another 5 min and Forced it to quit. Restarted the computer, turned off the wireless, nothing else running. All the usual tricks. Maybe if I was working right off the card(s) but I don't. Always off a partition or HDD dedicated to jobs, with tons of free space. Even tried a brand new external HDD.

Did I have a corrupt file? First I restarted the computer and tried the 80 files per folder trick. Same thing. I left it for 15 min and it finished. Tried random numbers of files in each folder and it didn't make much difference. More files, more time. Just DON"T CLICK ANYWHERE till it's done. It only slows it down more.

Somewhere in the upgrade chain UNDERSCORE was not an available character in the file browser and capture naming boxes. A bit of an issue for images destined for the web. One or two renames are ok but 100's are a pain. Our work-around of renaming outside C1 was operable but a total waste of time. Underscore works now.

COPY LOCAL button changes all the settings not just the one indicated in the pop-up window. At least in the White Balance tab. Maybe this is just my misunderstanding that the adjustment pasted would be the one indicated in the pop-up.

I usually tether the camera but haven't much since this upgrade. I'll need to test that out to see if it's ok.

I'm going to try Photo Mechanic as someone suggested. Let's see, I bought 'A Better Finder Rename' to overcome the UNDERSCORE issue and now I'm buying PM to view shots with a client.

The first 12 months of any C1 version seems to be a 'beta' phase and results in a colossal waste of our collective time.

I feel better having ranted and I hope the Phase people read a few of our messages and understand the frustration. For very message here there are many more who say nothing and others who just move on. LightRoom has come a long way and might be worth another close look.

By the way, 'A Better Finder Rename' is the odd but descriptive name of the software and it's totally amazing. Never fails. Lots of remove, replace and add character options. Set it up, click ok and blink it's done.

Keep the pressure on Phase One and hopefully it will be workable again soon.

Regards
Tom Szuba