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LRC creating orphaned or zombie apps?

  
 
EverLearning
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p.1 #1 · LRC creating orphaned or zombie apps?


I had a hard time thinking what to title this, it is so weird.

I have posted to lightroom queen already but with no success. I suppose if I was thinking I would have posted to both sites at the same time. Anyhow, posting now. I will just cut and paste from my posts there unless otherwise necessary.

Info that LRC asks: Windows 11, LRC 13.3

-----------------------------------


I am on a relatively new Windows desktop (about three months old). I open LRC. If I hit Alt-Tab, I see one LRC "window"/tile, along with other windows/tiles like File Explorer, Firefox Browser, etc. The LRC tile has a title bar of "Lightroom Catalog v13.3 - Adobe Photosho..." and shows an image of what was open in LRC. If I go to the LRC window, the title bar is the same but expanded ("Lightroom Catalog v13.3 - Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic - Library").

After working in LRC for a while, Alt-Tab will show another LRC tile; same title bar as the first but the part below it is all black (no image of what was open in LRC). A while later another such black tile will show up, and later another and later ... I have had as many as 8 or 9 of these black LRC tiles. Closing LRC closes the main/original window but all the black tiles remain. Only restarting the computer gets rid of them but it doesn't take long for them to start accumulating again.

I have been working in the library module doing my final culling of images from a trip to Costa Rica. As I have many species of birds, I use a filter to not show the ones I have identified already (as it makes it easier to find the ones I have not identified). The more species I identify, the longer the filter keyword list gets. Perhaps there is a "soft" or "hard" limit that I am hitting that is causing a problem? Maybe it is completely unrelated, but just in case, this is my current string (only showing for length):

bird, !hummingbird, !guan, !quetzal, !oropendola, !chachalaca, !curassow, !honeycreeper, !magpie, !blue-gray, !red-lored, !ibis, !scarlet-rumped, !swallow, !chlorophonia, !golden-hooded, !aracari, !tiger, !motmot, !toucan, !black-and-white, !screech, !black-cowled, !kingfisher, !euphonia, !kiskadee, !kingbird, !osprey, !white-eared, !Baltimore, !cacique, !trogon, !broad-winged, !summer, !bananaquit, !black-striped, !carmiol's, !chestnut-sided, !tody-flycatcher, !hawk, !silver-throated, !black-cheeked, !palm, !clay-coloured, !streak-headed, !dull-mantled, !anhinga, !whimbrel, !sandpiper, !pelican, !dacnis, !acadian, !white-throated, !red-crowned, !yellow-crowned, !caracara, !roadside, !mangrove, !boat-billed, !jay, !egret, !roseate, !great, !heron, !hawk, !red-billed, !pigeon, !dove, !owl, !keel-billed, !cinnamon-bellied, !emerald

Has anybody else experienced this problem? Any suggestions on what to do?

-------------------------------

Alt-Tab is showing numerous open LRC "apps" and the number of open LRC "apps" slowly but surely grows. Also noteworthy is that my view of the Alt-Tab results shows live tiles and it is showing one (sometimes two) actual LRC screens and a whole bunch of "nothing" LRC "apps" (black screens).

So, to clarify, my question is why are there are all these open LRC "apps" when there should only be one and why are so many of them "dead" (black tiles)?

-------------------------------

The tiles are representations of the "apps" that Windows 11 believes are open. So there are two possibilities:

1. Windows 11 is falsely reporting (non-existent) LRC "apps" as being open (and only LRC "apps")
2. Windows 11 is correctly reporting "something" LRC-related as being open; even if it technically isn't really another instantiation of the app

Regarding the second option, I wonder if some LRC process is an orphan process or zombie process that is being reported as an LRC "app" (and this is why I am seeing a black tile)?

I can advise of three additional things noted:

1. The computer can sit idle for hours without creating any additional LRC "black tiles"
2. The work I am doing involves me labelling photos by species/subspecies. I don't know all of them by sight, so I am bouncing back and forth between LRC and Firefox to do google searches for identification
3. Immediately after startup of LRC, Task Manager shows LRC as one of the open apps and when I expand the LRC list, there is only one entry (Lightroom Catalog v13.3 - Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic - Library. When a new "LRC screen" tile shows up there are no additional apps showing up in Task Manager

--------------------------------

I have managed to get my wife to use LRC (yay!). It is worth noting that if LRC sits unused, no additional tiles show up. So far at least, when she is deleting photos and editing photos (no filtering and no bouncing in and out of LRC), no additional tiles show up.

==================

Anybody have any ideas?



Jun 22, 2025 at 05:15 PM
EverLearning
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p.1 #2 · LRC creating orphaned or zombie apps?


Here is a screen capture showing an example of the LRC tiles; both a duplicate tile of the LRC screen and the black tiles.

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/community/attachments/lrc-window-problem-jpg.26499/



Jun 23, 2025 at 09:41 AM
mcbroomf
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p.1 #3 · LRC creating orphaned or zombie apps?


As you said they do not represent actual multi-instances of LRC running. I wonder if they might be random screen capture thumbnails beig cached somwhere.

What happens if you delete your LRC cache?
Change the GPU behavior in the LRC preferences?
Update your GPU diver?
Reinstall LRC with new preferences (also refresh preferences before you do this)



Jun 23, 2025 at 02:11 PM
EverLearning
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p.1 #4 · LRC creating orphaned or zombie apps?


I usually wait a while after a release before upgrading but somehow my settings were on auto update. I know that wasn't the case when I received the new computer as that was one of the things on my looooong checklist of things to configure. Anyhow, it up now running 14.4 and haven't experienced the problem. I don't know if that is because this was a bug that 14.4 fixed or if the update deleted the/a cache or

I would be shocked if the GPU driver needed updating as the computer is about three months old and is a custom build by a very knowledgeable pro (guy who does it for a living) that I have used before (AOT an off-the-shelf purchase where the s/w may have been installed months earlier).

I am happy the problem hasn't shown itself since the update but as the old saying goes, "correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation", so I will wait a bit before truly celebrating.



Jun 23, 2025 at 02:47 PM
EverLearning
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p.1 #5 · LRC creating orphaned or zombie apps?


Ah darn. It's back. I have three tiles of the LRC screen image showing with Alt-Tab.


Jun 23, 2025 at 03:39 PM
mcbroomf
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p.1 #6 · LRC creating orphaned or zombie apps?


Not sure which GPU you have but Nvidia have released drivers very frequently (almost monthly for a while on my GPU) so it might be worth a check.

An LRC update would preserve your preferences so might be worth resetting them. Do you have a lot of plugins? You can copy your prefs and go back to them if it changes nothing.



Jun 23, 2025 at 03:49 PM
EverLearning
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p.1 #7 · LRC creating orphaned or zombie apps?


My card is an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070. I have no plugins.

Thanks for the replies BTW. Much appreciated.



Jun 23, 2025 at 04:04 PM
EverLearning
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p.1 #8 · LRC creating orphaned or zombie apps?


I wondered if the Alt-Tab tile images were cached somewhere and not being cleaned up properly but that is off the table as an explanation:

"Windows 11 does not explicitly "cache" the tile images for Alt-Tab in the traditional sense. While the Alt-Tab interface does display previews of open windows, these are generated dynamically and not stored as static image files. The system handles the generation of these previews in real-time, rather than relying on a cached set of images"



Jun 23, 2025 at 04:05 PM
 


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EverLearning
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p.1 #9 · LRC creating orphaned or zombie apps?


An unrelated mistake on my part is providing further insight to this problem. I accidentally deleted some images from the catalog but did not delete from disk too, so now I am bouncing back and forth between File Explorer and LRC (grid view) to identify the photos not in my catalog and delete them. This is causing duplicate "LRC screen image" tiles to show up at a prolific rate (9 plus the original presently).


Jun 23, 2025 at 04:10 PM
dclark
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p.1 #10 · LRC creating orphaned or zombie apps?


EverLearning wrote:
An unrelated mistake on my part is providing further insight to this problem. I accidentally deleted some images from the catalog but did not delete from disk too, so now I am bouncing back and forth between File Explorer and LRC (grid view) to identify the photos not in my catalog and delete them. This is causing duplicate "LRC screen image" tiles to show up at a prolific rate (9 plus the original presently).


The easiest way to find and delete those files is to "Synchronize Folder...", which will import them into LrC, and then delete all the files in "Previous Import". But, since you say you "accidentally" deleted them, I am not sure you want to take the second step.



Jun 24, 2025 at 12:52 AM
EverLearning
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p.1 #11 · LRC creating orphaned or zombie apps?


Quick update: An independent advisor over at the Microsoft community forum said (in part) this:

"This often happens after you've been switching between Lightroom and Firefox."

So when I need to bounce back and forth between a browser and LRC, I will do so with Edge and see if the problem ceases. I will try to remember to post an update if I determine anything definitive.



Jun 26, 2025 at 05:13 PM
EB-1
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p.1 #12 · LRC creating orphaned or zombie apps?


That's crazy. LR really seems out of whack if it is not compatible with common software running concurrently.

EBH

EBH



Jun 26, 2025 at 06:43 PM
EverLearning
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p.1 #13 · LRC creating orphaned or zombie apps?


I was surprised by this too but the advisor seemed very confident of this. The problem doesn't present when LRC just sits open or when there is prolonged work inside LRC but presents itself when I was bouncing back and forth between LRC and Firefox.

I am going to watch this closely and see what happens going forward.



Jun 27, 2025 at 03:33 PM
chez
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p.1 #14 · LRC creating orphaned or zombie apps?


EB-1 wrote:
That's crazy. LR really seems out of whack if it is not compatible with common software running concurrently.

EBH

EBH


Maybe it’s Firefox that is out of line here. Sounds like there is no issues with LR and other browsers.



Jun 27, 2025 at 06:50 PM
EB-1
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p.1 #15 · LRC creating orphaned or zombie apps?


chez wrote:
Maybe it’s Firefox that is out of line here. Sounds like there is no issues with LR and other browsers.


I'd normally blame the software that is behaving badly but I don't know what is really happening. If the random extra tabs are LR tabs, then it would be LR, but if there are random FF tabs then it would be FF. MS will do anything for you to use their browser. I maintain about 10 Windows systems and 8 boxes running Linux and weird stuff happens to some people. I've never had those kinds of problems though. I would be reporting the issue to Abode if they are the SaaS provider even at a consumer level.

Personally I don't like using a production system connected to the internet with a browser, but that's me. I browse on less critical systems with other mitigations.

EBH



Jun 27, 2025 at 07:10 PM
chez
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p.1 #16 · LRC creating orphaned or zombie apps?


EB-1 wrote:
I'd normally blame the software that is behaving badly but I don't know what is really happening. If the random extra tabs are LR tabs, then it would be LR, but if there are random FF tabs then it would be FF. MS will do anything for you to use their browser. I maintain about 10 Windows systems and 8 boxes running Linux and weird stuff happens to some people. I've never had those kinds of problems though. I would be reporting the issue to Abode if they are the SaaS provider even at a consumer level.

Personally I don't
...Show more

Yeh, my image processing machine is basically dedicated to that and I use iPads for general browsing. I’ve never had any issues using LR / PS on my dedicated system.



Jun 27, 2025 at 08:46 PM







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