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wirrah
Known Participant
March 21, 2026
Answered

Addition to /etc/hosts file

Found this in my /etc/hosts file dated 17th March

## Adobe Creative Cloud WAM - Start ##

166.117.29.222 detect-ccd.creativecloud.adobe.com

## Adobe Creative Cloud WAM - End ##

On both my Macs running Creative Cloud.

I use Lightroom Classic daily as part of a “Creative Cloud” subscription.

Just want to confirm what this is for. I’ve done some research and others have reported it as well.

Thanks

    Jeff_A_Wright
    Jeff_A_WrightCorrect answer
    Community Manager
    September 28, 2026

    Thread summary
    A poster noted a March 17 entry in the /etc/hosts file on their Mac and, as a regular Lightroom Classic user, expressed curiosity about its purpose. This inquiry aligns with similar questions raised by others concerning their experiences with Creative Cloud.
    Suggested solutions by Adobe
    1. To review, restore, or remove an entry in your hosts file, you can reset it to the default state by following Adobe's instructions for both Windows and macOS.
    Reset the hosts file
    2. If you want to understand what data is shared with Adobe during subscription or activation validation, please review the details of the communication that occurs during activation.
    Information sent to Adobe during activation

    22 replies

    Jeff_A_Wright
    Community Manager
    Jeff_A_WrightCommunity ManagerCorrect answer
    Community Manager
    September 28, 2026

    Thread summary
    A poster noted a March 17 entry in the /etc/hosts file on their Mac and, as a regular Lightroom Classic user, expressed curiosity about its purpose. This inquiry aligns with similar questions raised by others concerning their experiences with Creative Cloud.
    Suggested solutions by Adobe
    1. To review, restore, or remove an entry in your hosts file, you can reset it to the default state by following Adobe's instructions for both Windows and macOS.
    Reset the hosts file
    2. If you want to understand what data is shared with Adobe during subscription or activation validation, please review the details of the communication that occurs during activation.
    Information sent to Adobe during activation

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    Participating Frequently
    April 4, 2026

    Adobe, fix this immediately and apologise or I’m pulling my subscription. This is unacceptable.

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    kglad
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    April 4, 2026

    you’re not addressing anyone here that can influence this.

     

    write to adobe’s corporate hq.

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    Participating Frequently
    April 4, 2026

    How very Adobe to have an entire community and then commit to not reading it.

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    250dadafink
    Participant
    April 3, 2026

    Found this also in my hosts file. This is a very bad move. Circumventing a users choice of DNS server of choice without any information or request of confirmation is plain evil.

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    kglad
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    April 3, 2026

    everyone has it, if they install the cc desktop app.

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    250dadafink
    Participant
    April 3, 2026

    Yes, (almost) every computer has a hots file. If you like to say that having installed the cc desktop app created the additional and unwanted entries in the file than that is only partially right.
    I am using the cc-subscription since it became mandatory to further use LrC. 
    So, the cc desktop app was installed all the time without any additional entries in my hosts file.

    The entry must have happened on March 15th this year. Older versions of my hosts file are without this entry by Adobe.

    And that is what is not acceptable by me.

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    Community Expert
    March 30, 2026

    Moderators, ​@Rikk Flohr_Photography, please move this thread to the Creative Cloud Services forum:

    Creative Cloud Services | Adobe DME

     

     

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    My System: Intel i7-8700K - 64GB RAM - NVidia Geforce RTX 3060 - Windows 11 Pro 26H2 -- LR-Classic 15 - Photoshop 27 - Nik Collection 9 - PureRAW 6 - Topaz Photo AI
    Community Expert
    March 30, 2026

    I’am seen this also on my Windows system.

    I have commented out this entry and will see what happened.

     

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    My System: Intel i7-8700K - 64GB RAM - NVidia Geforce RTX 3060 - Windows 11 Pro 26H2 -- LR-Classic 15 - Photoshop 27 - Nik Collection 9 - PureRAW 6 - Topaz Photo AI
    johnrellis
    Legend
    March 22, 2026

    According to this thread, the Creative Cloud has started adding this entry to the “hosts” file to allow Adobe web pages to detect whether the Creative Cloud is installed:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/Adobe/comments/1rv5ehc/hosts_file_changes_due_to_adobe_themselves/

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    wirrah
    wirrahAuthor
    Known Participant
    March 22, 2026

    Thanks, yes I found that while researching but it would be good to get confirmation from Adobe. I frequently view/edit my hosts file so was a bit surprised to see it there. Cheers.

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    Community Expert
    March 21, 2026

    Likely to ensure that the creative cloud app can reach it’s servers in conditions of bad network connection even when there is no active dns or to prevent man in the middle attacks where the wrong ip is resolved for creativecloud.adobe.com ?

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    informa-tique
    Participant
    March 29, 2026

    Hello, 

    we found exactly the same lines in a hosts file of a licenced creative cloud user, too :

    # Adobe Creative Cloud WAM - Start ##
    166.117.29.222 detect-ccd.creativecloud.adobe.com
    ## Adobe Creative Cloud WAM - End ##

    As we monitor hosts file modifications, it triggered an alert.

    I agree with wirrah, I would like to know from Adobe if this is really a legitimate IP address and domain and what it’s for.

    Assumptions are not enough for a modification in a system file that’s only accessed with Admin rights. Our users don’t not have Admin rights on the machines.

    Best regards

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