How to limit LR Classic CC 2018 memory usage? Keeps crashing itself!

[fuzzybabybunny]

I have 16GB of RAM. 

Having ONLY Lightroom Classic CC 2018 and Photoshop CC 2019 open, I always always always run into crashes due to completely unrestrained memory usage from both PS and LR. 

For some reason both programs will automatically use RAM until it's 95% used up which causes both programs to become completely unresponsive and Task Manager can barely run to force close these programs.

Photoshop has settings where I can set a hard limit to the RAM usage. I currently have it at 4GB - but shouldn't Photoshop be smart enough to manage its own RAM usage so that it doens't shoot itself in the head? Back in the CS6 days I did the exact same kind of editing and NEVER had any RAM issues on machines that had less RAM than I have now...

With Lightroom Classic CC 2018 there doesn't appear to be an option to manually set a RAM usage limit, so it uses as much as it can until it crashes both programs. Completely ridiculous!

How do I fix this? 16GB of RAM is enough for editing photos. Getting more RAM isn't and shouldn't be the fix.

For example, at this very moment, I have LR, PS, and Chrome open.

Editing a simple 4-layer image in PS with masks.

Photoshop is using 3GB of RAM

Lightroom is using 7GB of RAM

Memory usage is 93%

- When I try to save the image I'm editing in Photoshop I get an error:

"Could not save image.tif because not enough memory (RAM)"

- When I go to Chrome most of the websites no longer load and I get an "Aww, snap! Chrome couldn't load this website" error or "Not enough memory to load this website." I had to hit the reload button 4 times just to get this forum page to show up.

- When I try Merge to HDR in LR they error out with "could not complete this operation" errors.

[D Fosse]

This is a mystery issue. Some see this excessive memory usage, others don't.

See this thread: https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic/gpu-acceleration-uses-gt-90-of-graphic-card-memory-... 

Even with this high usage, you should not see reduced performance. One user reported that updating the driver fixed the performance problems.

Anyone with AMD cards out there?

[fuzzybabybunny]

I'm running Intel 620 graphics. I have GPU acceleration turned off in Lightroom. All drivers are updated.

Right now LR is using ** 8GB ** of RAM. It just doesn't know what to stop! As soon as I open up two images as layers in Photoshop both programs become unresponsive and I even have to go so far as to restart the entire computer...

[D Fosse]

Wait a second. You're talking about system RAM, not video RAM. That's another thing. My bad.

System RAM being used to the limit is entirely normal. It's supposed to do that. The operating system caches and preloads whatever it can into RAM.

Free RAM is wasted RAM. Ideally it should all be used, all the time.

If you have performance problems there's likely a different reason for it.

[fuzzybabybunny]

So you're saying that when you use LR and PS, under Task Manager your memory usage is normally 95%+ all the time and you have zero issues at all?

I've been having memory issues with Adobe products ever since the early CC editions - Premiere, Lightroom, Photoshop, etc. on multiple different computers. All experience the same thing - Adobe products use up all the system RAM and that's when program crashes and errors galore start to happen.

When I force them to only use small chunks of RAM everything is fine. 

[dj_paige]

As stated above, programs should use RAM and I doubt the amount of RAM is the problem.

Since your title states your whole computer is crashing, please know that this cannot be caused by any software application (such as Lightroom or Photoshop). Computer crashes are caused by malfunctioning hardware or by bad drivers. This has nothing to do with Lightroom and I would have said the same thing before Lightroom existed.

[fuzzybabybunny]

I edited the title. My entire system isn't crashing in the sense that I get a blue screen of death or something. The Adobe programs crash and errors happen like I can no longer export files because my RAM is too low. Sometimes I can't even toggle between the two programs and the GUI becomes completely unresponsive. 

[dj_paige]

I hate it when the title and text don't agree. Thank you for fixing it.

I still think you are jumping to conclusions that it is the RAM that is the problem. Could you please state, in detail, what actions in Lightroom are slow and what modules in Lightroom are slow. Emphasis on detail, please provide as much detail as you can.

[fuzzybabybunny]

For example, at this very moment, I have LR, PS, and Chrome open.

Editing a simple 4-layer image in PS with masks.

Photoshop is using 3GB of RAM

Lightroom is using 7GB of RAM

Memory usage is 93%

- When I try to save the image I'm editing in Photoshop I get an error:

"Could not save image.tif because not enough memory (RAM)"

- When I go to Chrome most of the websites no longer load and I get an "Aww, snap! Chrome couldn't load this website" error or "Not enough memory to load this website." I had to hit the reload button 4 times just to get this forum page to show up.

- When I try Merge to HDR in LR they error out with "could not complete this operation" errors.

[dj_paige]

- When I try to save the image I'm editing in Photoshop I get an error:

"Could not save image.tif because not enough memory (RAM)"

How large in pixels (not megabytes) is this photo?

Is that the exact word-for-word error message? If not, please quote the exact word-for-word error message.

This seems like Photoshop is the problem, in which case you ought to ask in the Photoshop forum.

[D Fosse]

Actually, on second thought, this could be related to the excessive video RAM usage seen by some people (discussed in other threads). As I understand it, Intel GPUs don't have dedicated VRAM, but uses shared system RAM. So this could be a similar case, but showing up in system RAM usage.

Normally Photoshop isn't affected by low RAM - it just uses the scratch disk, which it does anyway. It's quite rare to see this message in Photoshop, usually it just runs until you get "not enough scratch disk"-messages.