35 Messages
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538 Points
Lightroom Desktop: High sustained CPU usage from dynamiclinkmediaserver
While the Lightroom app and Adobe Lightroom CC Helper themselves are relatively good with CPU usage on macOS, I've been having serious issues with the dynamiclinkmediaserver daemon (AFAIK a sync daemon?) going crazy with CPU usage continuously.
This is so bad it can drain a full 15" MacBook Pro battery in a matter of a few hours *with Lightroom CC closed*. The CPU pegging is clearly out of control because it impinges the operation of Lightroom CC itself (basics like moving through photos, not even editing) instead of intelligently throttling itself while the app is under usage.
Worse, perhaps by design dynamiclinkmediaserver (a very unfortunate name that makes it seem like a malicious binary) remains active even *after* Lightroom CC has been exited. This means even without a user actively wanting Lightroom to operate background syncing, massive battery drainage still occurs with no obvious way to limit this behavior or disable it.
I've even tried kill -9 but this is a persistent daemon which systematically springs back up. This also makes sense, by design, but it's extremely bothersome when used on a laptop without easy access to power to counteract the massive energy inefficiency of this daemon.
Is this intended behavior or a bug? If it's intended behavior, please tell me the Lightroom team is considering throttle controls to limit the daemon to 10% of its CPU usage when Lightroom is inactive. Or better yet, prevent it from directly damaging Lightroom CC performance when it's used concurrently.
I can provide process samples if that can help debugging.
This is so bad it can drain a full 15" MacBook Pro battery in a matter of a few hours *with Lightroom CC closed*. The CPU pegging is clearly out of control because it impinges the operation of Lightroom CC itself (basics like moving through photos, not even editing) instead of intelligently throttling itself while the app is under usage.
Worse, perhaps by design dynamiclinkmediaserver (a very unfortunate name that makes it seem like a malicious binary) remains active even *after* Lightroom CC has been exited. This means even without a user actively wanting Lightroom to operate background syncing, massive battery drainage still occurs with no obvious way to limit this behavior or disable it.
I've even tried kill -9 but this is a persistent daemon which systematically springs back up. This also makes sense, by design, but it's extremely bothersome when used on a laptop without easy access to power to counteract the massive energy inefficiency of this daemon.
Is this intended behavior or a bug? If it's intended behavior, please tell me the Lightroom team is considering throttle controls to limit the daemon to 10% of its CPU usage when Lightroom is inactive. Or better yet, prevent it from directly damaging Lightroom CC performance when it's used concurrently.
I can provide process samples if that can help debugging.
Responses
rachalmers
101 Messages
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1.4K Points
a year ago
https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2552879
It’s been a problem for years and years...
0
0
olivier_lacan_dlveuqjy4hm9x
35 Messages
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538 Points
a year ago
The instructions are for Lightroom Classic or at least were made for it. All the directories listed had the appropriate read & write permissions, although the Adobe docs didn’t specify at all which groups these permissions should be enabled for.
I’m not sure if Lightroom CC uses this daemon differently or causes it to spin out of control.
My entire library is synced and up-to-dare, there should be no syncing activity unless some other process is happening without Lightroom CC reporting it.
Regardless, fixing permissions by hand or with a script is not really something I expect from a paid subscription service. The app itself should detect these issues by running a health check at launch (I’ve relaunched it several times since this started occurring) and offer the same kinds of solutions it appears the older Lightroom versions offered.
0
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rachalmers
101 Messages
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1.4K Points
a year ago
Is it only Mac? Or Windows as well?
Is it older machines?
Newer machines?
I wonder what the commonality is between machines with the problem?
0
0
gopinath_srinivasan_j8sikc3cq13hi
109 Messages
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2K Points
a year ago
Are you using any video/movie files in your catalog? Is there any problem while playing the videos/slideshows?
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0
olivier_lacan_dlveuqjy4hm9x
35 Messages
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538 Points
a year ago
0
0
olivier_lacan_dlveuqjy4hm9x
35 Messages
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538 Points
a year ago
I've exited Lightroom CC, and killed the dynamiclinkmediaserver process from Activity Monitor prior to restarting Lightroom CC. Is there a step I'm missing?
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rachalmers
101 Messages
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1.4K Points
a year ago
As it seems to be isolated to videos, is it worth shifting all video files and slideshows to a spare drive and removing them all from LRCC?
LECC can’t do anything with them anyway, and can’t make its own slideshows either, so it’s a bit of a waste having those files in LR.
Store them in iMovie’s media library perhaps.
The thing being. If you remove any and all videos from LRCC and it starts to behave. Then you know where the culprit is.
4
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Rikk
7.9K Messages
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114.5K Points
a year ago
Lightroom Classic continues to use dynamiclinkmediaserver.
Adobe Photography Products
Quality Engineer: Customer Advocacy
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olivier_lacan_dlveuqjy4hm9x
35 Messages
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538 Points
a year ago
Should this update be available in Creative Cloud? Once again I'm not seeing it even after refreshing the app. Is a whole sign out dance required still? Thanks.
0
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Rikk
7.9K Messages
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114.5K Points
a year ago
If all else fails you can try the sign in/out but that shouldn't be necessary.
Adobe Photography Products
Quality Engineer: Customer Advocacy
0
0
olivier_lacan_dlveuqjy4hm9x
35 Messages
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538 Points
a year ago
Last time the only fix was to uninstall Lightroom and reinstall from CC and it bumped me from 2.2.0 to 2.2.1. I'd love to help engineering folks debug this issue because it's clearly not a fluke as it's happened to me on two machines with two different versions of both macOS and Lightroom CC.
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rachalmers
101 Messages
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1.4K Points
a year ago
2
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olivier_lacan_dlveuqjy4hm9x
35 Messages
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538 Points
a year ago
One note is that although Lightroom CC 2.3 did some house cleaning on first boot it did not kill the dynamicmedialinkserver utility or perhaps booted it without needing to. Regardless, I killed it by hand with Activity Monitor and even without it running video playback *finally* worked instead of hanging like it used to.
Seems like your team might want to mention this pretty important bugfix in your list of Other Enhancements in this release: https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-cc/using/whats-new/2019-3.html#otherenhancements
Glad this is resolved. But I really wish I didn't have to uninstall Lightroom CC for every bugfix release.
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julie_kmoch
116 Messages
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2.9K Points
a year ago
0
0
thomas_st_ours
3 Messages
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80 Points
10 months ago
I am experiencing the exact same symptoms as Oliver Lacan. I'm running Adobe subscription provided, latest release (as of 12/2/19) Lr Classic and Ps on a brand new Apple MacBook Pro 16", MacOS Catalina. I have NO video files in my small catalog of 1000 RAW still images.
Activity Monitor shows dynamiclinkmediaserver is the culprit. CPU blasting away at 100% despite no work or syncing being performed in either app. Fan is at full-tilt trying to cool the laptop. No other apps open. Machine has 64GB of RAM.
Quitting both Lr and Ps has little effect. Only after going into Activity Monitor and quitting dynamiclinkmediaserver does the fan finally stop.
Reopening Lr/Ps recreates the issue, with dynamiclinkmediaserver restarting itself, the CPU going into overdrive, and the fan chasing the CPU.
Searching the forums I can see that this has plagued users for years. Please, Adobe, I need a fix for this now.
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