Lightroom RAM usage climbs suddenly to over 15GB causing PC to lag and freeze

[steveisa054]

(UPDATE: Please also read my comment below as a reply. I have identified when this extensive memory consumption occurs).

The problem has started to occur, or at least be noticeable, in the last few days. When working in the Development module on an image, Lightroom's use of motherboard memory surges to over 15 GB. I have 32 GB on my Windows 10 stationary PC. But this grab of over 15 GB causes the PC to not respond anymore. I have to wait until I get control of my mouse again and then shut down Lightroom and restart it.

This must be a bug. Today, just now, this happened when working on an image from a Nikon D810 with a dng file size of around 45 megabytes. I ran the Lightroom denoise, and was editing a few masks (subject and background selections with a few adds and subtracts using a brush mask) when the PC stopped responding. Looking in Task Manager, I saw that Lightroom's memory usage was over 15 GB. After restart of Lightroom and continuing to edit, I see that Lightroom memory consumption is currently only 3 GB.

Background information: My Lightroom Classic is updated to the newest version now, but this problem also occurred before I performed the last Lightroom Classic update. I installed a new graphic card a few days ago, going from a GTX 1660 Super to an RTX 3060. Graphic card driver is fully updated with the Studio driver version from Nvidia. This freezing of the PC caused by high Lightroom memory consumption seems to have started after putting in the new graphic card, but I do not see why that should be. Lightroom performance tab is telling me my system is capable of full GPU utilization (it was listed as limited only with the GTX 1660). I have the setting here on "auto".

This must be a bug. It is happening consistently and often, and I have to shut down Lightroom very often to clear out the memory usage. Today's episode shows clearly something is wrong, because it happened while working on the very first photo, it happened quite suddenly (while working with a few masks), and the memory usage is now down again after a Lightroom restart.

App version: Lightroom Classic version 13.0.2, Camera Raw version 16.0

OS version: Windows 10, fully updated, stationary PC with 32 GB RAM and a 12GB graphic card (RTX 3060)

To reproduce: I just work in the Develop module for a while. I am not sure if this is happening only or because of working with masks.

Expected result and actual result: Using over 8 or 9 GB RAM becomes too much for my PC and certainly for many others. Using 15 GB or more RAM creates a show-stopper situation. There should be no need to take a hold of so much RAM. Expected result therefore is better memory management in Lightroom Classic.

[Callie253560770b53]

@D Fosse I just wanted to clarify because I was hastily typing my messages last night before I left dinner. You are correct and I agree. The system memory which is called "Real Memory" in Lightroom's 'system info' panel is showing that the program is reserving much more ram than the program is actively using.

The main issue as I see it is the program is calling for more vram that I have available: 12 gb+ in use vs. 8 gb on board. When the program does this the entire computer becomes unusable. The VRAM usage is usually around 5 gb at launch but once it climbs above 8 gb it will not come back down unless I restart the program. In that way it feels like a memory leak (vram) because I can't get it to drop by doing anything within the program.   

I think that this wouldn't necessarily be an issue with a igpu because you would have shared system memory and it could possibly manage. However, Lightroom leaves my GPU pinned at 8 gb and the computer becomes very laggy even when not locked down editing an AI mask. I think @steveisa054's suggestion to turn off hardware acceleration is my next option. However, I'm starting to wonder if this isn't somewhat of a windows problem. I believe that the 'Shared GPU Memory' is system memory that's made available to the GPU. So, I can image that Lightroom is seeing my GPU ram as 16 gb (or possibly 24gb = 8gb on card and 16gb shared?). I can imagine that the extreme stuttering that I'm seeing could easily caused by windows passing data between the vram and the ram.
(I included this image to show that the VRAM stays elevated even after switching off the photo that gives me issues, i.e. - it stays pinned, however it does drop down closer down to 10 gb with enough time).

[steveisa054]

What I noticed yesterday is that if I have Lightroom preferences configured to "Auto" for using the GPU for various tasks, then the dedicated GPU memory is being taken up to quite a large extent by Lightroom, as long as Lightroom is opened, even if I am not doing anything. To not have the GPU memory allocated by Lightroom, I need to configure Lightroom for the "Use Graphic Processer" to "off". I did this last night for the remaining of my editing session, and noticed that Lightroom was a bit slower with various tasks such as preparing previews when I navigate to other images, but the denoise AI feature of Lightroom was not slowed down by this at all. And for me this was a much better situation, because I no longer needed to shut down Lightroom if I wanted to use any of the Topaz apps. For the Topaz apps to be tolerably quick enough, I must configure them to use the GPU, but they will fail if Lightroom is holding on to so much of my GPU RAM. I don't know if this is a problem due to my older chipset, or if it is just a poor situation with Lightroom. It is great for Lightroom to use the GPU to make certain actions run quicker, but not if it is going to claim most of the graphic card RAM and hold onto it.

[steveisa054]

And maybe I have solved the problem with the Lightroom memory surges and associated PC freezing up? I am not 100% sure, but perhaps. I replied yesterday to one of the comments on this thread, that I decided to try turning off the option to have Lightroom use the GPU for various tasks. This is where I set the Edit->Preferences Performance tab setting "Use Graphics Processor" to "Off". I do not know for certain yet as I haven't worked enough with edits since yesterday, but it sure looks like it fixes things for me. I noticed yesterday that Lightroom was laying claim to most of my GPU memory, even when I was not actively editing in Lightroom. If I had the "Use Graphics Processor" set to "Auto" and just had an image opened in the Develop module, a lot of my GPU memory would be taken by Lightroom. Because of this, Topaz apps would fail if I tried to use them while Lightroom was opened. After setting the "Use Graphics Processor" to "Off", Lightroom would no longer lay claim to the GPU RAM, and I could again use Topaz apps without shutting down Lightroom, saving me a lot of work. But there also seems to be another benefit for me to have Lightroom not use the GPU: when working with the complex masks in Lightroom, the memory used by Lightroom seems to no longer climb over something like 8 GB. The sudden memory surge to over 15 GB doesn't seem to happen. I still think this mismanagement of memory comes from my older motherboard/chipset, an incompatibility somewhere. But it seems to make sense. My system is letting Lightroom use the GPU RAM and perhaps not releasing it again, and so running into a situation that it cannot handle. Anyway, if others are experiencing what I am, try turning off the use the graphics card setting and see it that helps. Of course the downside for me is that rendering previews has become noticeably slower, but it is better than having to deal with the freezes and having to shut Lightroom down again and again.

[steveisa054]

An update. Over the weekend I migrated to my new PC. I am using the same RTX 3060 graphic card with 12 GB RAM, but I have an MSI MAG B360 motherboard, Ryzen 7900 CPU and 64 GB DDR5 RAM. And a really pretty Corsair case. I have only had a few days experience with it using Lightroom, Photoshop and Topaz but what I observe so far is this. Lightroom, when I have it set up to use the graphic card for processing (Auto setting), still uses a lot of memory. I still see the memory usage in Task Manager creeping up to 15 GB when I am working with a few pixel-based masks (subject, background, brushes). And I still see that Lightroom is laying claim on most of my 12 GB GPU dedicated RAM (according to Task Manager). I had thought that this sudden high memory usage, and hogging the GPU RAM, was maybe due to my older chipset and BIOS, but apparently not. However, performance is amazingly better. So far I have not had Topaz apps fail on me despite Lightroom still being open and laying claim to so much GPU memory, and everything is working quite a bit faster. In fact, defining a subject or background mask is far quicker than I had gotten used to. I am guessing that it definitely could be a good idea to have more than 32 GB CPU RAM, and it looks like it was a good move to purchase 64 GB for the new PC. Installing Windows again was a pain of course, but I managed to transfer all my LR and PS settings, brushes, actions, presets, LUTs without too much effort.

[steveisa054]

This is an update to my post, as of 11th of March 2024. I now have my new PC up and running, with Windows 11, an MSI MAG B650 Tomahawk motherboard, 64 GB DDR5 ram, AMD Ryzen 7900 CPU, oodles of internal SSD storage, and the RTX 3060 graphic card from Gigabyte with 12 GB ram. My situation has improved remarkably, except for the one issue with Lightroom memory allocation surges. In fact, this has now gotten worse. Since I now have 64 GB instead of 32 GB on my older PC, Lightroom has now been seen to surge to over 20 GB ram usage looking at my Task Manager.

I had hopes that with the new PC, meaning new chipset, motherboard, BIOS, that memory allocation issues might subside. My new PC does perform much better than my old one due to the more modern and newer components. However, when working with Lightroom masks that are of the pixel based type (subject, people, background, brush), I find I need to restart Lightroom often. I do not run out of memory now, as 64 GB is a lot, but things start to get laggy, and then I know if I open up Task Manager I will see Lightroom's memory usage is up over 15 GB. At this point I restart Lightroom to bring that memory usage back down under 6 GB and let me work quickly again.

I am wondering if this is a memory leak problem within Lightroom. Memory being allocated to work on these complex masks is not being released. I am working with 45 MB RAW files which become 200 MB in size after denoise enhancement or upon converting to TIF after a tour through Photoshop or Topaz. One file that is 200 MB in size causes Lightroom to grab 15 GB to more than 20 GB of ram. This seems absurd.

By the way, I find myself now trying to avoid pixel based masking in Lightroom when possible. I am reverting back to the old ways of working, where I create several radial gradients to adjust exposures instead of creating a subject or people based mask.

[D Fosse]

One file that is 200 MB in size causes Lightroom to grab 15 GB to more than 20 GB of ram. This seems absurd.

By @steveisa054

Why is that absurd? 20 GB of 64 total? That sounds perfectly normal to me, and nothing to call "memory leak".

Memory is supposed to be used. Free memory is wasted memory! Ideally, all of it should be in use all the time. That's when you get real payoff.

The weakness in Lightroom Classic now is that it doesn't have a scratch disk like Photoshop has. If needed, it still has to resort to OS paging. Previously, the memory requirements have been modest and it hasn't been necessary, but with all the new advanced ai-based functions, memory usage is bound to go up.

If you use Photoshop, you'll se memory usage can go up to several hundred GB. That's perfectly normal, and that's why Photoshop has a scratch disk. I'm not sure about LrC, but in Photoshop, memory is by design not released when the file is closed. Instead, it is recycled and reused as long as the application is open. I would assume something similar for LrC.

[steveisa054]

Hello D Fosse,

you have answered several times with the same opinion that huge amounts of memory usage is normal and ok. Sorry to say, I do not agree with you. This, I consider poor programming or an error. I have a new PC and its performance degrades incredibly when Lightroom grabs 15 to 20 GB of memory for itself. On my older PC, it became impossible to continue as memory was used 100%. On my new PC, I have 64 GB memory so I am not running out of memory yet, but things run so much more slowly, that a very often restart of Lightroom becomes necessary.

Yes, this is absolutely absurd. Working on a 200 MB file and Lightroom requires 20,000 MB?

[D Fosse]

What you're missing is that this goes far beyond the static nominal starting file size. Every operation requires storing additional data somewhere.

Do you get crashes, stalls or freezes? If not, it's working as it should and there's nothing to worry about.

I have 32 GB system RAM and 16 GB VRAM. I normally work with LrC and Photoshop in parallel, both open and both very busy. I've never had any performance problems whatsoever - but yes, most of my memory is used. As it should.

[Mitkó]

@D Fosse , you're not understanding something buddy... Last year in March LR was working quite fine without any freezes and taking up memory 95% of your memory. However, at the end of 2023 they started inteoducing some AI nonse "technology" and then this "normal usage" began. Is it normal to use a software and by default to expect it to lag and slow down your enitre PC? Haha, I am not so sure about that. It's like buying a new car and the seller tells you "It may be slow and overheat and even sometimes freeze but there ain't any smoke coming from the engine, so all is fine." 😂

[steveisa054]

Do I get crashes? Yes, when attempting to use Topaz apps occasionally.

Do I get stalls? Yes, most definitely, causing me to have to restart Lightroom, and needing to wait patiently for my PC to respond so I can do this.

Do I get freezes? Yes, most definitely, same as with the stalls.

What I am experiencing is not normal. Nor is it a desireable situation.

You write as if it normal for a software to grab as much memory as it thinks it might need and then hold onto it for all time to come until the software is shut down and restarted. Hey, in the old days, this was called "memory leak" and today, if a software is doing just this, then it is also a "memory leak" because the memory taken up by Lightroom or Photoshop is no longer available for the many other tasks that my PC needs to perform as well. And having one software needing to page its huge memory allocation to disk for another software to have room to work means degradation of performance overall.

[Lumigraphics]

That's not a memory leak. And modern operating systems page to disk constantly. They also use files on disk sometimes instead of reading them all into memory.

Honestly, this whole thread is crazy. I have a US$800 Mac mini with 16GB RAM/256Gb internal drive (yeah, i know) that runs Photoshop and Lightroom Classic 24/7 and don't have memory problems. Now, there might be OS-specific issues but there is no core memory leak going on. I typically only reboot to install system updates.

[steveisa054]

I also agree the situation is crazy. Since there are not thousands of users complaining about the situation I am experiencing, this must be a software or hardware quirk which might only be affecting a few of us. But why would the Windows Task Manager report that Lightroom is using 15 to 20 GB of ram when I am editing a single raw file, and why is this climb from about 6 GB to over 15 GB happen quite suddenly when I create a pixel-based mask? And why does a restart of Lightroom in this situation result in an initial ram usage when editing the same image of only 2 to 3 GB? It is just strange and a bit frustrating.

[Lumigraphics]

Complaints about Lightroom performance have been floating around since it was introduced. Adobe keeps tweaking the operation, throwing RAM at the problem is certainly one way of doing so.

Have you tried running in Safe Mode to see if its a software conflict?

[JoeFish2]

Steve, 

i have the exact same problem you're having. 

I increased my memory from 32Gb to 64gb.  

While monitoring my memory usage in Task Mgr, I see LR Boots up with a base amount of 8gb used. 
As i begin to process photos memory usage climbs to about 30gb and my LR bogs down to a crawl. I have to reboot to reset memory so I can do a few more photos. i can then process a dozen or so more before it bogs down again. 

Even though I have 60gb memory available, it never uses it before stalling at around 30-32GB. 

i originally thought adding another 32 gb memory would solve my problem but it didn't. Strange that none of the memory above 32GB never shows usage before the system bogs down. Same issues like mouse movements, slow loading, slow Denoise processing, masking , etc. 

Can't get any work done. 

I'll work through your suggestions to see if I can improve performance. 
I have a similar high performance computer. 

[steveisa054]

Perhaps it is the same situation. I have not seen LR use more than around 22 GB ram but most likely because I restart LR when I notice LR begins to get laggy, which for me is when LR is using 14 or more GB (this is not exact, perhaps LR starts to be noticeably slower earlier). And for me, I can reach this >15 GB ram utilization working on only a single photo (35-45 MB raw from a Nikon D850). All I need do is create a mask or two which is pixel based (background, subject, brush etc) and adjust a few of the mask's sliders. I have just gotten used to having to restart LR often and, in fact, am thinking about seeing if I can create a key shortcut to do just that (access the "Restart Lightroom" button from the Preferences->Performance tab).

[vilmantasr]

for me problem is not ram usage, but vram usage, when it reatches 7,7 or similar from 8 (nvidia 4060) it just freezing.

[SFsix]

I have the same issue on MacOS.

Just got my new MacBook Air. And while exporting 120 EOS R7 CR3 images LrC memory usage climbs to a staggering 42GB.

That can't be normal? On my old iMac with 64GB it even climbed to 150GB. I only do basic edits, exposure, highlights and shadows, color profile and that's it. No denoise. No masks. 

[steveisa054]

I just want to point out that when my Lightroom memory allocation rises over 15 or 20 GB it is when I am only working on one single image file of about 40 MB in size as an unenhanced DNG file. I only edit one image at a time. Now that my new PC has 64 GB ram (and a graphic card with 12 GB ram), Lightroom is working much better for me. But the memory allocation goes up over 18 GB often when working on an image, and so each time I notice this happening (Lightroom controls become very laggy), I shut down and restart Lightroom. That is my work around for now.

[MattPointZero]

I am having similar issues - I have a fast system (i9 14900k, 64GB DDR5 ram, NVME 4tb) and even editing small photos (24mp from an A9iii) I am getting 5 or 6 photos into an edit session and my ram use goes up to 90-95% and the system slows to a halt.  No specific trigger I can see, and until that happens, the system is barely ticking over.  I assume it is a memory leak, as when I restart and reopen the same image, all is fine and my ram is at 20% usage.  I use LRC and Capture One, if I can't find a fix it will limit me to editing in C1 only which is frustrating.

[sheldong26810370]

Same issue with  13700K , 3070TI, 32 GB.  When it gets to about 70% memeory usage LrC crawls.  Restart LrC and memory is way down and the cycle begins again..   IMHO something is broken in LrC.

[Flapjack7]

Same issue here. I have 7800X3D, X670 chipset, 32GB RAM and RTX 3080. Lately it's a nightmare to work with Lr. It bogs down to a crawl after editing a few photos with RAM usage go sky high. Especialy when i use AI Masking. Restarting Lr helps for a while, but after another few photos edited the slowdown comes back.

[MattPointZero]

The masking looks more and more to be a specific part of the trigger.

[Ian Lyons]

Can you be more specific about which mask(s) and what you're doing with those masks?

[Flapjack7]

I can't pinpoint exact mask that triggers it because I think AI masking is not a sole culprit here but only speeds up the memory problem. Without using masks it also does hog the memory up but it takes longer.

I mainly use subject, sky and person masking. Then simple edits - exposure and contrast etc.

[Flapjack7]

Sometimes you don't even have to edit anything. Just browsing photos, marking them, adding color labels and... bam - 90% of memory occupied and Lr starts to crawl.