Turn on and off workload/background

Stig

Hi, while working with photos, I see that the program is constantly working with images in the background. This slows down the progress for me working with the photos, adding text (CTRL+T) on the photos.
Would it be an option to make an advanced mode, so I can stop and start background work, or for that matter give the program as much CPU as it wants.. (maximize the software to work).

Andrey

Stig If program is really working with photos, that means that your archive is not yet completely indexed,. That will stop once it will be processed completley. After that program does net to do any heavy lifting, unless you add new photos. I will just quickly scan the entire archive for changes, but that should not affect your work.

Stig

Just wondering if there is possibility to have some of visualization (advanced mode) to see whats happening..
When working with 300k photos, and renaming them and moving around makes the system feel abit of “rework” to be done with reindexing etc.
The time indicator for me does not work enough.
Soltutions to..
Turn face recon on/off.
Progress of number of files not scanned..
Files been face recon by the face process..
Just putting out ideas.

And yes, the program runs every day, and I check in now and then to update when program is abit “quiet” 🙂

Andrey

Stig Just wondering if there is possibility to have some of visualization (advanced mode) to see whats happening..

The line on the bottom of the main application window is actually showing you what is going on, and even gives time estimation for the task.

Stig The time indicator for me does not work enough.

What additional information you would expect to see?

Stig When working with 300k photos, and renaming them and moving around makes the system feel abit of “rework” to be done with reindexing etc.

If you move files using Tonfotos command (Control+M) that would not trigger any additional indexing.

Stig

When in Tonfotos, I click on a new folder, and it starts to scan..on progress bar down to leftside and click another folder and it starts to scan..
Just wondered if there was a way to pause the scanning job until I’ve finished working with the folders, names and faces.

I have not testet putting all my photos on SSD drives, they are read from a NAS drive so I understand and expect som latency. But helping minimizing “waiting time” for photos to get zoomed/sharpen is useful.

Andrey

Stig When in Tonfotos, I click on a new folder, and it starts to scan..on progress bar down to leftside and click another folder and it starts to scan..

Obvously program is checking every change you do on disk, and it will refresh every folder you visit. Without that your index might get outdated and that could lead to all sorts of bad issues. However, that is happening very fast, literally less that 100ms per folder. I am very surprised you actually notice that in your status string, since status sring only get refreshed once per 300ms, scanning task should be finished by then.

You are probably right, the issue is with NAS deleays. I also use NAS, but I don’t have issues like that. Can you please check download speed between your PC and NAS? Is this gygabite connection or less?

Stig

I can see that the “information” on the left is blinking several times when the Tonfotos-system is working..
When this happens I have to wait a little before I continue working with the photos.
Thats why I would like to turn off the indexing to when i’m been idle for 60 seconds.. or that I can turn on/off the checking/indexing myself.

Its impossible to have so many photos stores on my machine, so I have to use a NAS. Its all 1Gb connections.
I’m going to try to install a separate network card that is more powerful and see if that makes a difference.

Andrey

Stig Its all 1Gb connections.

That is good, but can you please test actual download/upload speed? It’s easy if you are on Windows - just copy large folder, and Widnows will show you all the stats.

Stig

Downloading from NAS -> Workstation/PC

Upload from PC -> NAS

Andrey

Stig Not perferct, but not that bad too. On 1GB connection you can get up to 100MB/s stable upload/download, but here it looks like HDD on your NAS is a limitation.

I don’t think that network speed is the reason that causing delays for you. Lately several users reported that antivirus softwarte can cause all sorts of issues. Do you happen to use one?

Andrey

Andrey Also, based on experience, another reason for slowdowns could be huge folder. Such as one folder with 10K+ photos. Are your folders huge?

Stig

Andrey
I’ve turned off antivirus/scanning the NAS drive and also the Tonfotos process too. It helps but not enough..

Stig

Andrey
Yes several folder with 10K+, 20K+, and up.
So is there a technical advice to cut down into smaller folders, but at what limit/how many photos in one folder should be max ?

Andrey

Stig Yes it is strongly recommended to avoid such large folders and split them into smaller ones. There is not specific limit, but the large is folder, the longer some basic operations will take, and that can result in lags that you are observing.

Stig

@Andrey good advice, I will start splitting the files into smaller folders. Found that a combination with F6, and CTRL+M is useful. Found some good info here as well; https://tonfotos.com/docs/reference/hotkeys/

But can you change the software so…
I would like to use F6 and select a specific folder (on the same NAS), like “temporary”. This way I can select a large folder, and move all files into NAS:\ TEMPORARY \ YEAR/DATE
Then later I manually use CTRL+M and move all files into separte (manually created folders) with “YEAR-MONTH - description”.

Andrey

Stig I would like to use F6 and select a specific folder

Aren’t you already able to do that?

Stig

Andrey
No not possible to change anything. Using v1.14.3. I have not testet this F6 before..

Andrey

Stig Not sure I understand. You can chose here one of your current folders program is working with. If you need more folders there, you can add them in Library locations dialog (via main menu)

Stig

Stig
Folder structure: Year / Date is hardcoded, and I cannot change this.

Stig

Ah, I was scanning the whole root folder structure.. and when I do that, I cannot choose another folder on that same drive.
So I had to move all photo folders from root\MyPictures and then the system will not start. I tried changing the config.json file, and then the system really did not like it. And would not start. I removed the software and installed again, so now down another license.. but its okey, as long as it works. Now I have to re-read the folder structure again.

Andrey

Stig so now down another license..

Don’t worry about that, you did not lose your license. Tonfotos has built mechanism for license transfer, you will be fine. In the worst case write us to support@tonfotos.com and we will help. But most of the time even that is not needed.

Stig

A good advice is to never select a drive (R: ) for library location, but choose a folder.
And if the files are not in a subfolder on the R:\ drive, then move all files to a subfolder and select subfolder as library location.