Hi Gunther,

I am not sure if this is related to the big bug in the export module of Lightroom 11.4, or that it is something else.

I am running the latest LRTimelapse, updated all the other programs, DNG converters, etc. Updated Lightroom to 11.5. Mac OS X is 11.6.8.

I was trying to export a very large sequence (around 5500 images). The sequence consists of DNG files that were originally JPG-files from a long-term timelapse system. So when trying to export this large DNG sequence on the above mentioned system, the export starts as normal, but when it actually starts writing files in the LRT folder, you immediately see something is off. The speed of export is low, it only uses half of the normal CPU power available (running on fast SSD, so the bottleneck is the CPU), and after a certain number of files, it just stops and either crashes Lightroom, or gives me an error message in a window which says:

Unable to Export: An internal error has occurred: bad argument #1 to '?' (string expected, got nil)

Just to see what would happen, I downgraded Lightroom to 11.3.1 and exported the exact same sequence: So far, no issues and the CPUs are running at its expected and normal level of around 90%.

Could it be that they only fixed the bug in the Windows version of Lightroom, or did you check the Mac version as well? Thanks for your efforts en insight.

Regards, Jorrit

This post was last modified: 2022-08-19, 13:00 by Gunther.

That sounds bad... :-( Actually I didn't test it on Mac, since that's not my primary platform.

Could you please try to reproduce this as I explained in the original post with my test-plugin?
https://forum.lrtimelapse.com/Thread-lig...ort-plugin

This post was last modified: 2022-08-19, 14:48 by lightatwork.

I updated Lightroom back to 11.5, installed the SimpleExport plugin and exported the same sequence of 5500 images.

It has not completed exporting yet, but we are now at around 3800 images and has not crashed or stopped yet. However, I see a clear difference in how the computer is handling the export from a CPU point of view. In the 11.3.1 version, it used around 90% of my total CPU capacity. With the 11.5 it stops at 20% total capacity. I am running an iMac Pro 10-core, so 20 virtual cores. I see in my Activity Monitor that Lightroom is not even touching half of the cores.

Here are some screenshots of the CPU usage:

End of export in 11.3.11: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2d3l3ex1spzr35...2.png?dl=0
Start of export in 11.5: https://www.dropbox.com/s/jd3ry9zyvl2glw...4.png?dl=0
Start of export in 11.5 per core: https://www.dropbox.com/s/qbo8sd5oscztqa...5.png?dl=0

So using the simple export plugin works without the error, but compared to using the full plugin in 11.3.1, it takes around three times as long to export.

Is there anything else I can check, share or upload with you?

Regards,

Jorrit

Also please check, if you have an option in the Lightroom Preferences (Performance Tab) to turn off Graphics Acceleration on Export, it might be worth trying to turn that off. This option doesn't appear on all computers.

This post was last modified: 2022-08-19, 14:59 by lightatwork.

I only have a general option for Camera Raw to auto/custom/off use of Graphics Acceleration. It is currently set to "Auto" and says my system supports full acceleration.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/uekj9gcue0p3gy...6.png?dl=0

EDIT:
One other thing I noticed was that using the full export plugin, my exported jpg's are about 3 times as large (file-size, not resolution) as using the Simple Plugin. But that could just be the export settings for the JPEG quality under the hood of the plugin.

Yeah image sizes differ because of the compression, that's not the point.

Can you reproduce the issue? Does it happen with and without Gfx Accelleration?

I've just tested on my Mac M1 and couldn't reproduce any problems. Make sure that you are on Lightroom 11.5.

I upgraded again to 11.5 and set the Gfx Accelleration to "off". I started another export with the full LRT Export Plugin.

First off, I thought that fixed the issue, since my CPU's usage was back at the expected 90+% on all cores. But unfortunately, after 1500 and few images, I got the same error message:

Unable to Export: An internal error has occurred: bad argument #1 to '?' (string expected, got nil)

So something in the full version of the Export Plugin seems to trigger the issue. The simple plugin completes without error, but runs at less than a quarter of the CPU's capacity.

Could you please send me the LRTExport.log from the folder Documents/LRTimelapse after you get this message with the LRTExport plugin:
An internal error has occurred: bad argument #1 to '?' (string expected, got nil)

Update on above:
I am on LR 11.5 with the Graphics acceleration to "off".
Using the full export plugin, I tried exporting a different, but equally big sequence. To my surprise it finished without issues.
Next I opened the sequence I used before which gave the problems in LRTimelapse, and hit the "Save" button again. Not sure if that did anything, since I did not change any parameters in LRTimelapse. I then opened LR and re-read all the metadata for all the files of that sequence. When that completed I tried another export with the full plugin. That export completed as well without any issues.

That would indicate perhaps an issue with the metadata of that unique sequence, OR still issues with the GFX acceleration.

Just to check, I will try one more time with the same "problem" sequence but now with the graphics acceleration to "auto" and see what happens. If that runs smoothly as well, there might have been a weird problem with the metadata of the sequence itself.

I'll report back as soon as that test is done.

This post was last modified: 2022-08-21, 15:09 by lightatwork.

Update 2:

I've tried to export the same "problem" sequence in LR 11.5 with Graphics Acceleration to "custom" with all the checkboxes marked. In other words: full graphics acceleration.
This again triggers the error and fail of the export. In this case after 333 images.

On other thing I noticed. I had the CPU history and GPU history open when exporting this "failed" export with GFX acceleration turned on. The history graph of my CPU shows that only half of the CPU cores are used and my GPU history shows hardly any activity. If I would have to guess, only 5% or less of the full capacity. I don't know if that is to be expected, but just wanted to note.

I've sent you the LRTExport.log file by email.

Just to doublecheck, I'll try the exact same export once more. If I can reliably reproduce the fail/error, it seems to me that somehow the Graphics Acceleration is involved.