XPS 9500 Laptop Completely Freezes w/ Lightroom

[Guest]

I am using the latest version of Lightroom, and it appears to freeze... it had no issues when I first opened it, nor before importing any images. After I imported my images, I can click around some, then the entire laptop gets frozen. Display is still there, mouse does not move around, and Ctrl + Alt + Del doesn't do anything.

I can only force power off by holding the power button, then power it on again. There is no crash report from Adobe.

When I re-open Lightroom, it almost immediately freezes the device, once everything loads up.

Device: Dell XPS 15 9500 w/ i7-10750H + GTX 1650 Ti + 16 GB RAM.

Windows is updated to the latest version, and I do have all of the latest Dell drivers for my device.

[JP Hess]

Have you tried disabling the graphics processor in the Lightroom preferences? If that works then check to see if there is an update for the driver for your graphics processor.

[Guest]

Disabled GPU -> Restarted Lightroom -> Issue persists.

No GPU driver updates are available.

(Not sure why my previous reply didn't link to yours).

[Guest]

Disabled GPU -> Restarted Lightroom -> Issue persists.

No GPU driver updates are available.

[dj_paige]

Entire computer freezing is either a bad/out-of-date/corrupted driver, or a hardware malfunction. It is not caused by Lightroom Classic. You need to test all of your hardware (hard disk, memory, motherboard, cooling system) for problems.

If the laptop seems unusually hot when this happens, it is the cooling system, the fans (if there are any) aren't working properly, and/or the ventilation openings are clogged or blocked.

[Guest]

Drivers are up to date, cooling is fine.

Fully pegged (Genshin Impact or GTA V), temps don't get a hair over 80 degrees C.

SSD is still at 98% health. For giggles, I've tried two other SSDs I have on hand. RAM tested perfectly fine.

It is specifically Lightroom that causes these freeze-crashes. No other application or games do such a thing.

One thing I have noticed is that these crashes are ocurring when I only have Lightroom open.

If I have YouTube running a video in the background, it doesn't cause any issue... 

[dj_paige]

It is specifically Lightroom that causes these freeze-crashes. No other application or games do such a thing.

I disagree with this logic. There are plenty of other applications that could cause this to happen on your computer, you just don't happen to own any of them.

One thing I have noticed is that these crashes are ocurring when I only have Lightroom open.

If I have YouTube running a video in the background, it doesn't cause any issue... 

Now that is wierd and I don't know what it means.

[Guest]

Very.
As soon as I pause the video or quit, everything freezes up again.

I've tried re-installing Lightroom as well, along with deleting the catalouge & making a new one. Persists, sadly.

[TheDigitalDog]

Try resetting your Lightroom preferences:
https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/help/setting-preferences-lightroom.html
Also see: https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/important-steps-for-manually-resetting-...

Quit Lightroom Classic.
MacOS: Press and hold the Shift + Option keys.
Windows: Press and hold the Shift + Alt keys.
While holding down the keys, launch Lightroom Classic.
When asked, select "Yes". 

[Guest]

It was a fresh install, but I reset anyway. No change, sadly.

[DS256]

I have an older XPS 8700 (2014) that had freezing issues when I upgraded from W7 to W10. You didn't mention if you have noticed this problem with other apps other than LrC which I experienced. The symptom was shown in Task Manager with 100% disk activity but no I/O (I know, how do you measure 100% activity with no recorded I/O).

I finally solved the problem by cloning and installing a new disk.

However, as I was researching the problem, and getting on-line advice from supported groups including Microsoft, someone suggested using drivers other than those from the vendor. So for example, I had the Microsoft disk drivers installed rather than those from Dell for a period. Not sure if it will help you but passing it on.

As I said, the best approach is finding out why it freezes by having Task Manager opened before the problem occurs.

Good luck.

[Guest]

As of now, it was only Lightroom experiencing the issue. Photoshop worked fine.

I can run games and other GPU tasks fine (e.g., video renders).

I will now try GPU drivers supplied by Intel & NVIDIA, rather than Dell's.

[Guest]

Additionally, my disk activity appeared appropriate. 90 to 100% disk activity, as it is busy generating previews, then drops back down. Nothing out of the ordinary appears within task manager right before nor right as it crashes.

[Guest]

Update on the issue:
I noticed if I have a video playing in the background, Lightroom doesn't crash. I'm free to work, as long as a video is playing. But once it ends/gets paused, the PC will freeze & crash like before within 15 to 30 seconds.

I have tried:

• Reseting preferences
• Deleting catalouge & reinstalling Lightroom
• Reinstalling Windows 10, updating, and installing key drivers in the appropriate order
• Trying out two other SSDs (1x Crucial P1 M.2 NVMe, 1x WD Passport M.2 SATA, 1x SAMSUNG DELL OEM M.2 NVMe)

[Guest]

I have combed through hundreds of threads/messages across the Community forums prior towards posting. It appears my situation is unique.

[yamato7]

カタログに大量に写真が含まれている場合、カタログが原因になる事があります。

カタログの最適化をかけてみます。

それでもだめなら、新規にカタログを作成して画像を読み込んでみてください。

カタログが原因で起きている症状であれば、カタログを新規作成すると解決する事があります。

[Guest]

Is there a way to manually trigger the catalouge to optimize? Or manually done?

In all, I have 1,800 photographs, taken in RAW mode on a Sony Alpha 7R III, so each file is about 80 MB each.

I haven't checked to see whether a certain number of photos will cause a crash, so I'll import my folders one by one until I get a number where it crashes.

[Guest]

I have created a new catalog as well, by deleting my previous one.

[yamato7]

日本語メニューの場合、

カタログの最適化は、

ファイル→カタログを最適化

カタログを作成するには、

ファイル→新規カタログ

以前、Adobeのサポートに

十数万枚の写真が含まれるカタログは少し多いと言われた事があります。

1800枚の写真は、私が一回の撮影で現像する枚数ですが、

たまたまカタログが破損している場合も考えられます。

[Guest]

Turns out it isn't that at all (I believe).
As soon as I create a new cataloug and give the computer a restart, it will crash the system, before I even import anything. If I don't restart, I can freely use Lightroom w/o issues--import, edit, etc. 

[Guest]

SECOND UPDATE:
After creating a brand new catalog, Lightroom holds. Then, before I even import any photos, if I restart the device and then open up Lightroom again, the entire device crashes!

[Guest]

THIRD UPDATE:

I have installed Windows 11 (barebones, internet was never connected, so Windows could not install any updates outside of the media creation tool), and additionaly installed ONLY the iGPU + dGPU drivers.

After trying many different scenarios and attempts to reproduce the crashes, the system remains stable.

This boils the issues down to either being Windows 10, or a bad driver that isn't at all related to video. Will be installing drivers one by one and checking Lightroom for stability/crashes, and update here once I have my results.

[Guest · Accepted solution]

Situation (somewhat) resolved.

It appears the drivers/PCI SD card reader itself (built in) are or is bad. With the Realtek SD card driver installed (and no SD card present), the entire system crashes when Lightroom is opened.

Why? I have no idea. What puzzles me is that it functions perfectly fine when there is media playing in the background (browser or any video/audio file in the system), or if I leave my device plugged in on the charger (which defeats the point of being able to edit on the go).

Hopefully I'll be able to find an alternative driver to keep using the slot.