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L
Lufthansen
Known Participant
July 18, 2025
Question

Heap Corruption Crash

  • July 18, 2025
  • 1 reply
  • 238 views

System Specs:

  • Lightroom Classic: 14.4 [202506051112-5918896a], Creative Cloud license

  • OS: Windows 11 Pro (Version 11.0.26100, x64)

  • CPU: 16 logical cores @ 3.6GHz

  • RAM: 128 GB DDR4

  • GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti, 6GB VRAM (GPU acceleration disabled in Lightroom)

  • Drives:

    • OS and Lightroom: Separate internal NVMe SSDs

    • RAW images: Internal SATA drives (6 Gbit/s read/write)

    • Network: Used only for catalog backups to NAS and remote desktop; not involved in active Lightroom operations

Crash Summary:

Lightroom Classic repeatedly crashes with:

Exception code: 0xC0000374 — Heap corruption (double-free)
Faulting module: ucrtbase.dll!free_base

This indicates a double-free or corrupted heap block within Lightroom’s memory handling — a severe memory violation typically caused by mishandled memory deallocation in unmanaged C++ code.

Conditions Tested:

  • GPU acceleration disabled (verified)

  • All plugins disabled

  • Occurs on fresh and long-term catalogs

  • Happens across different machines and Windows versions

  • Catalog and media files on high-speed internal drives

  • No external interference from cloud sync, clipboard tools, or antivirus

Reproducible Since 2014 — Across Multiple Lightroom Versions

I have reported variants of this issue since Lightroom 5, and it has persisted through Lightroom 6, Classic CC, and now into version 14.4.

Over the past decade, Adobe has:

  • Failed to isolate or patch this crash

  • Ignored or closed bug reports without resolution

  • Released new versions that continue to include the same unhandled memory violation

Despite extensive system testing on my part, and despite Adobe having the engineering tools to detect double_free bugs (e.g., static analysis, address sanitizers, heap validation), this crash still occurs — even in a default configuration, and now with all third-party elements removed.

This suggests either systemic failure to investigate, or intentional avoidance to prevent acknowledging a known flaw with potential data-loss liability.

Request to Adobe:

This is a core architectural bug in Lightroom’s memory model. It is:

  • Reproducible

  • Longstanding

  • Hardware-independent

  • Plugin-independent

  • And now easily traceable using modern debugging tools (!analyze -v in WinDbg clearly shows HEAP_CORRUPTION_ACTIONABLE_BlockNotBusy_DOUBLE_FREE in ucrtbase.dll!free_base)

After more than a decade of professional use, I can say with confidence that Lightroom Classic has never achieved consistent memory safety, and that this particular bug must now be escalated.

Attachments Available:

  • Crash dump analysis (WinDbg)

  • System Info

  • Catalog environment details

If you’ve encountered similar instability or heap corruption under otherwise clean system conditions, I encourage you to respond and/or upvote. Adobe must stop pushing version updates while silently carrying forward this latent defect.

1 reply

AxelMatt
Community Expert
AxelMattCommunity Expert
Community Expert
July 18, 2025

I've never had this issue since I'm working with Lightroom (beginning with Lightroom version 3.3).

So I'm not sure if that's a general issue of Lightroom. The appropriate DLL is part of the Windows SDK.

 

See here:

https://www.solvusoft.com/en/files/missing-not-found-error/dll/windows/microsoft-corporation/windows-10-operating-system/ucrtbase-dll/

https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-discussions/photoshop-keep-crashing/td-p/14432120

 

Do you have send the crash report to Adobe?

 

 

 

My System: Intel i7-8700K - 64GB RAM - NVidia Geforce RTX 3060 - Windows 11 Pro 25H2 -- LR-Classic 15 - Photoshop 27 - Nik Collection 8 - PureRAW 6 - Topaz Photo AI
L
LufthansenAuthor
Known Participant
July 23, 2025

thanks for your feedback. I don¨t use this driver in any of my peripherals or software (logitech famously don¨t run very nice with Lightroom, according to several Adobe tech supports). It is very much possible that there is an interaction that does not work, but I have taken pains to have everything set up with parts and plugins that work with Liightroom, so the frustration is continuing when Adobe drop the ball every time I talk to them. Typical scenario: I spend 40 minutes explaining all the troubleshooting steps already done, and no, I do not want to try Lightroom elements and no, I do not want to use the cloud version to manage my 800000 images. After 40 minutes of this, the customer rep usually agrees that yes, indeed, the case should be elevated to a senior level engineer (usually my initial request before having to rehash all the troubleshootnng steps). There are many skilled and wellmeaning technicians in the Adobe suppoprt system, but the user experience (for me) is at the very least inaccessible: If you have a more complex issue than simple installation, gpu issues or how-to¨s, you are doomed. Case closed, or rather, cases closed ... numerous of times, without even touching the real troubleshooting.

Sorry for venting my frustration, but it has been 11 years of this and I am not amused. It is a great program for dam when it works, but when it fails it is a disaster.

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