shadow.exe and Lightroom unresponsive

[JCrossonNYC]

For the last several weeks I have had truly horrible performance from Lightroom. Even a task as simple as selecting photos in the grid view, from click to action can be 5-10 seconds.

Nothing has changed in my setup and my computer runs just fine otherwise. Other productivity programs, such as PowerDirector, Adobe Premier Elements, Photoshop - All work normally.

However, during Lightroom's "slowness" - Here is what I experience:

1. CPU seems pegged (hard to tell, I'm not sure how to really read the resource monitor which has multiple CPU graphs).

2. There will be a subprocess of lightroom called "shadow.exe" that pops up, is reported as unresponsive by Windows, and then goes away (I'm not doing anything with shadows, I don't know what this is).

3. Lightroom will disappear for a moment, my desktop will be displayed and Lightroom will be completely gone from my taskbar. Then it will re-appear.

The computer is running normally otherwise. The hard drives are more than 30% free. Lightroom is running the latest version. I've tried closing all other processes and running only Lightroom - It doesn't have any impact at all.

Please can anybody help me understand what could be happening here? This entire situation is incredibly frustrating!

[GoldingD]

Are you intentionally running Remote Desktop?

not at a pc to check

looked up what shadow.exe is and got

https://www.file.net/process/shadow.exe.html

as as well as an unrelated Sonic the Hedgehog game

[JCrossonNYC]

shadow.exe is a sub-process of Adobe Lightroom. It only shows in the Task manager for a moment but is not an independent application. I am not running Remote Desktop and haven't dealt with Sonic the Hedgehog for thirty years!

[GoldingD]

On your PC bring up File Explorer, and search for shadow.exe

It is not on my PC (different edition? or I may have deleted long ago)

[Just Shoot Me]

JCrossonNYC  wrote

shadow.exe is a sub-process of Adobe Lightroom.

It is NOT.

It should be in this path

C:\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-t..es-commandlinetools_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7601.17514_none_42d65ed50fa3c682

That is on a Windows 7 system.

But there may be a virus or malware that is using the same name. No reports of it that In can find but that doesn't mean it isn't something other than the REAL MS Shadow.exe.

[JCrossonNYC]

I appreciate all of your replies. There seems to be skepticism on this thread that I know what I am talking about. The shadow.exe issue is an issue that has occurred for other Lightroom users:

https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2503463

I've tried testing and updating gpu drivers as well when this issue occurred.

Edited by Mod to remove link to Get Outlook for Android.

[AxelMatt]

Have you tried that?

Please try switch off the GPU support from the Lightroom preferences and check if that helps to fix the issue

Go to Lightroom > Preferences > Performance tab > Uncheck "Use Graphics Processor" > Restart Lightroom.

Adobe Lightroom GPU Troubleshooting and FAQ

[johnrellis]

There seems to be skepticism on this thread that I know what I am talking about.

There's no doubt here about what you are observing. 

"shadow.exe" is definitely not part of Lightroom Classic or past versions of Lightroom desktop. It comes from some other source, as previously suggested. That it appears to be triggered by running Lightroom does not mean it is part of Lightroom or that Lightroom is at fault.

Some possibilities:

1. Very possibly malware has infected your computer.  For example, these articles from Trendmicro (a reputable company) describe malware that uses "shadow.exe":

TROJ_KLOVBOT.BQ - Threat Encyclopedia - Trend Micro USA

PE_ICOGON.B - Threat Encyclopedia - Trend Micro USA

Make sure you run a complete malware scan of your computer.  You might try downloading another antivirus/malware product in free-trial mode and seeing what it finds.

2. The gaming service Shadow may have been installed on your computer: https://shadow.tech/usen . It uses "shadow.exe", as described here: https://help.shadow.tech/hc/en-gb/articles/360012648294-Installing-an-antivirus . Perhaps it is misbehaving.

3. Google shows that other products have files named "shadow.exe".

If running anti-malware and disabling the GPU doesn't help, then to leverage the help of others here, I suggest you use Windows File Explorer to search your computer for all instances of "shadow.exe".  For each one, right-click it and do Properties, and post a screenshot here. That will narrow down where the file might be coming from.

Also, copy/paste here the first ten lines from LR's menu command Help > System Info.

[JCrossonNYC · Accepted solution]

Hi all, thank you for your replies. I've changed some configuration settings on my gpu based on the linked thread and some further digging, and I think things have improved. I will update the thread when I know for sure.