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ezucker1
Participating Frequently
October 24, 2026
Open for Voting

Lightroom Classic 15.6 on Windows 11: Severe hangs, excessive memory and CPU usage, even with a new catalog

System

  • Windows 11 desktop built by Puget Systems

  • 32 GB RAM

  • NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti, 8 GB VRAM

  • Current Lightroom Classic 15.6 release

  • Catalogs and previews on internal SSD; original photographs on internal drives

Problem

Lightroom Classic has become extremely sluggish and frequently hangs on my Windows 11 desktop. Operations that should be nearly instantaneous can take many seconds or longer. The problem occurs in Library and Develop and makes Lightroom impractical to use.

The same photographs and edits perform substantially better in Lightroom Classic on my MacBook Pro Max.

Reproduction with a new catalog

My principal aurora catalog contains approximately 76,000 photographs. Initially, I suspected a problem with that catalog or its previews.

However, I created an entirely new Lightroom catalog on the Windows desktop and imported a small selection of DNG photographs. Import completed in less than one minute, but the new catalog exhibited the same sluggishness and hangs.

A separate, approximately 25,000-photo catalog also performs more slowly than expected.

CPU and memory observations

Using Windows Task Manager and Resource Monitor, I observed:

  • Lightroom consuming approximately 15–16 GB of physical RAM and committing approximately 19–23 GB.

  • Overall system memory utilization reaching approximately 90–93%.

  • On one occasion, Lightroom's memory consumption increased from approximately 1.2 GB to 16 GB within seconds of opening the new test catalog, without any user interaction.

  • Lightroom consuming approximately 40–58% CPU during periods when I was not interacting with it.

  • Lightroom also hanging when overall memory utilization was considerably below 90%, so the problem does not appear to be solely a shortage of available RAM.

  • Lightroom sometimes taking an unusually long time to terminate after being closed.

Additional Windows observation

Resource Monitor itself became unresponsive for approximately five minutes while Lightroom was running. After I exited Lightroom, Resource Monitor operated normally.

Windows Task Manager's Analyze Wait Chain function repeatedly showed a Lightroom thread waiting for network I/O. However, temporarily disabling the desktop's network connection did not improve Lightroom's performance.

I do not use network drives for the Lightroom catalog or photographs.

Troubleshooting already performed

  • Created a brand-new catalog and imported a small selection of photographs — problem persisted.

  • Disabled GPU acceleration — no improvement.

  • Disabled the Excire Search third-party plugin — no improvement.

  • Reset Lightroom preferences — no improvement.

  • Rebooted Windows — no improvement.

  • Temporarily disconnected the computer from the network — no improvement.

  • Examined CPU, RAM, and disk activity in Task Manager and Resource Monitor.

Questions for Adobe

  1. Is this consistent with any known Lightroom Classic 15.6 performance or memory-management defect currently under investigation?

  2. Are there confirmed workarounds for this behavior?

  3. What specific diagnostic logs or other information would Adobe engineering find most useful in identifying the cause?

I am willing to provide Lightroom System Info, screenshots of Task Manager and Resource Monitor, and additional diagnostic data if requested.

 

      2 replies

      CORCTON34033231
      Community Expert
      CORCTON34033231Community Expert
      Community Expert
      October 24, 2026

      Hi, and thanks for the exceptionally thorough report — a fresh catalog, GPU off, third-party plug-in disabled, and a preferences reset already cover several of Adobe's official first-line steps, so that isolation work is genuinely useful.

       

      For this kind of symptom (hangs with very high CPU and memory use), Adobe's official troubleshooting steps are the following — worth trying in the order the performance guide lists them:

       

      1. Update the graphics driver — install the latest driver directly from NVIDIA (clean install), then retest.

      2. If sync is enabled, pause 'Sync With Lightroom' while testing (syncing consumes CPU and system resources).

      3. Optimize the catalog: File > Optimize Catalog.

      4. Purge the Camera Raw cache (Edit > Preferences > File Handling > Purge Cache); the guide also suggests trying a larger cache size (10 GB or more).

      5. Confirm "Automatically write changes into XMP" is off (Catalog Settings > Metadata).

      6. Close unnecessary applications/startup items and temporarily disable real-time antivirus/security scanning, then retest.

      7. Install any pending Windows OS updates.

       

      Full guide: https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/desktop/technical-support/performance-guidelines/optimize-performance-lightroom.html

       

      I can't confirm whether this matches a known 15.6 defect or promise a fix, but your report is filed in the right place (Bug Reports) for the Lightroom team to pick up. If you work through the steps, noting which ones you've tried will help anyone following along.

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        ezucker1Author
        Participating Frequently
        October 24, 2026

        Thank you for your response and suggestions.

        Several of the recommended troubleshooting steps have already been addressed:

        1. Graphics acceleration: As noted in my original report, I disabled Lightroom's GPU acceleration without improvement. I have not performed a clean reinstall of the NVIDIA driver.

        2. Lightroom Sync: I do not use Lightroom Sync.

        3. Catalog optimization: I have optimized my existing catalogs repeatedly. More importantly, the problem also occurs with a brand-new catalog containing a small number of photographs.

        4. Camera Raw cache: My cache is already configured for 50 GB, substantially exceeding Adobe's recommendation. I have not purged it, although I understand that doing so could rule out corrupted cached data.

        5. Automatic XMP writing: I reset Lightroom's preferences and created a new catalog. Since automatic XMP writing is disabled by default, it should not be enabled in that catalog.

        6. Background applications and security software: I have not yet systematically tested Lightroom with real-time security scanning and other background applications disabled.

        7. Windows updates: Windows 11 is fully updated.

        The most striking finding remains Lightroom's behavior with the new catalog. Without any user interaction, Lightroom's memory consumption increased from approximately 1.2 GB to 16 GB within seconds, accompanied at times by substantial CPU activity. This seems difficult to explain through ordinary catalog maintenance, cache sizing, or synchronization.

        I also understand that Adobe is investigating reports of excessive memory consumption and unresponsiveness in Lightroom Classic 15.6, although those reports may involve different triggering operations.

        Given the troubleshooting already performed, I would particularly appreciate knowing whether Adobe engineering recognizes these symptoms as a possible software defect and whether there is a specific diagnostic procedure that could help identify the underlying cause.

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