Lagging zotero on iMac

redniall
I have a persisting issue with searches and other operations lagging severely on my brand new iMac, often taking several minutes. I encounter this when I first start Zotero, it takes several minutes to load files. It then proceeds smoothly for as long as I'm continuously working on it, but after I leave it for 5 minutes or so and come back - same issue. Searches take several minutes, moving to a new folder takes several minutes to load files. I'm using Zotfile with the storage file located in my Google Drive, but I doubt this is the issue, because I have the identical setup on my very old (2012) Macbook Air, and no problems there.

Any suggestions would be most appreciated! Have tried re-installing - no luck there.

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  • dstillman
    /Users/[…]/Documents/Zotero
    Do you have macOS set to sync Desktop and Documents via iCloud?

    Other things:

    - If this computer is really brand new, note that performance can be slow for 24 hours or more.

    - How much RAM?
  • redniall
    Hi, I'm using Backup and Sync (google drive) just to sync the storage folder. The Zotero folder is saved in Documents, which is not syncing. I followed the instructions here https://tomsaunders.co.nz/zotero-with-google-drive/

    Had the computer for a few months, so not actually "brand" new (my bad). 8GB ram, but again not having this issue on my very old 2012 Macbook Air, so can't imagine thats the issue.

    thanks for the help!
  • dstillman
    Just to be clear, Desktop and Documents are set to sync to iCloud by default on a new Mac. You should verify that that's not the case. We don't recommend moving the data directory to Documents for that reason — if that got turned on later by accident, you'd be risking corruption of your database.

    But the behavior you describe sounds mostly like a RAM issue, with it swapping to/from disk when it runs out of memory. 8 GB isn't a lot if you have a lot of programs open. What kind of disk do you have? Note that even a 2012 MacBook Air was entirely solid-state, whereas depending on the exact model of iMac it might have been possible to configure it with a Fusion drive, which can be much slower at times.
  • redniall
    edited December 8, 2020
    Thanks for the heads up, I didnt know that. I double checked and its set to not sync at the moment, but I will look into moving it in future to be sure.

    I'm not sure if this means anything, but when Zotero is lagging like this it doesn't show in the Activity Monitor as using a lot of memory or CPU. And no signs of slowing down anything else.
  • dstillman
    edited December 8, 2020
    You didn't say whether you have a Fusion Drive or an SSD, but note that it's not really about how much RAM Zotero is using (and it wouldn't be about CPU at all). If your computer is low on RAM, and you switch to another program, the working memory is saved to disk, so when you return later, it will be much slower until data is read back from the disk. On an SSD, that will remain pretty fast, which is part of why even old Airs have lasted so long. If you have a spinning disk (even partially, as in the Fusion Drive), it could be much slower.
  • redniall
    It is Fusion, yes! If what you're saying is correct, I'm guessing there is no work around?
  • DWL-SDCA
    You can install more memory in an iMac (I did, easily) and non-Apple memory isn't expensive.
  • dstillman
    edited December 8, 2020
    Yes, you can install more RAM — it's fairly cheap and makes a huge difference in performance. With more RAM, the OS will keep both programs and data from disk in memory. If you have two slots free (you can check in About This Mac), you can get another 16 GB for ~$70. (You could get another 8 GB instead, which would probably be sufficient, but at that price I'd just get another 16 GB, particularly with a Fusion Drive where you really want to avoid the spinning disk.)

    Start a large program or a program with a lot of data might still be slow, since that might get read from the spinning portion of the Fusion Drive, but once it's open it should stay fast.
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