Adobe CC background tasks waste significant power

Report · Oct 30, 2021

On my Windows PC (AMD 5900X CPU), I found that with Adobe CC Desktop and the "CEF Helper" apps running in the background, the CPU will "idle" at 17 Watts. This is with no Adobe applications running. If I kill CEF Helper and all the other Adobe CC and updater background apps, my idle power drops down below 3 Watts. (This is CPU power as reported by the Ryzen Master software)

Looking at Task Manager, Adobe CEF Helper is always using at least 1% CPU even when everything is idle. That also means that software like Ryzen Master and Windows Tasks manager, which are monitoring resource usage and updating graphs on screen a couple times a second, are using much much less CPU than the Adobe "background" tasks!

14W may not sound like a lot, but multiply that by a million PCs running this software and what a waste of power!

Report · Nov 12, 2021

I noticed the same thing starting happening a little over a month ago.. After boot, Adobe CEF Helper bounces between 1.5% to 2.6% of CPU usage, even wihen I'm not doing anything with the computer.

However, I can stop it if I do this:

Click on the Creative Cloud icon in the system tray (it looks like a pair of interlocked rings)--the Creative Cloud Desktop Opens
Click the "Files" tab
Exit Creative Cloud Desktop

At this point, Adobe CEF Helper normally reverts to using nearly 0% CPU time.

@Adobe, what is Creative Cloud doing prior to my clicking the "Files" tab? Can you please stop this?

While it may sound trivial, the 1.5-2.6% can be enough to put total CPU usage over 5%, which is the point where my notebook computer's fan starts running.

Report · Feb 02, 2022

This is stupid. I belive adobe has no right to run in the background without user permission. What if I do not want any Sync or any font sync or any automatic update. I am paying $600 a year and I should have the rigt to run the software when I needed and stop it anytime; but it seems Adobe runs process in our computers whenever they wants and takes control of our devices. runs a lot of processes in the background... I disabled all startups, all fonts and sync ind updates in creative cloud app but still 13 processes is running in the background. Why?

Report · May 20, 2023

Is this situation any better these days in 2023. I have a choice now of installing CC on my new but older Mac and I don't want to hinder my performance. I found on my PC that these tasks (background processes) were so bad my mouse would start to lag. Crazy and admittedly I'm a mizer and run older systems, but it should just not be something that any of us should have to monitor or worry about.

Report · May 20, 2023

For my Windows 10 PC (now updated to Windows 11), the problem resolved itself about a month or so later. I did not get any announcements or alerts from Adobe (and no updates in this forum), but I no longer have the issue.

Report · May 20, 2023

an overwhelming majority of adobe users don't have this problem. and it's usually (or always) caused by the interaction among the os, adobe and something else (often av).