Avast free antivirus and Adobe Lightroom

[steve576]

I am an active user of Adobe Lightroom which maintains a large database of all the changes that you make to photograph as well as updating the images files themselves whenever a change is made. I've noticed that whenever I move from image to image, or add titles or descriptions to my images, LR slows down and a potential culprit is Avast antivirus. Each time I make a change (or just move to the open program from another one on my Windows 10 machine, the Avast program takes about 15% of the CPU and after 10 seconds or so drops away. I've tried to exclude the folder that contains the LR database and preview files as well as the hard drive that contains the photos, but it doesn't make a difference. I've just disabled all the core protections on Avast until the next restart but even so, the Avast program jumps into action whenever I make a change in Lightroom.

Is there some other scanning (virus scanning?) that takes place which is not disabled by turning off the four main core protection modules in Avast?

Steve

[Asyn]

- Which version of Avast Free..?
- OS..? (32/64 Bit..? - which SP/Build..?)
- Other security related software installed..?
- Which AV(s) did you use before Avast..?

[steve576]

Avast version 19.8.2393 (build 19.8.4793.541). Up to date with virus definitions. Windows 10 64 bit. I think the latest update although this Avast issue has been with me for some time - I've tried in the past to exclude files and folders and then ignored it again. I've used Avast for 4 or 5 years. I've got the standard Windows 10 security things running although it is telling me that Avast is snoozed because I had disabled the core protections.

[Asyn]

Each time I make a change (or just move to the open program from another one on my Windows 10 machine, the Avast program takes about 15% of the CPU and after 10 seconds or so drops away.

Before we dig deeper, could you elaborate why you think that 15% CPU usage is an issue..!?

[steve576]

That is a good question! The CPU goes nowhere near 100% and so there should (I guess) be enough processing power to allow Lightroom to run smoothly. I was wondering if the scanning of the Lightroom files, database or application (whatever Avast is checking) could, itself be slowing down the program. I find it strange that even though I have disabled all the core components of Avast, I still get the 15% usage when I do things with Lightroom.

[Asyn]

Sorry, but it seems Avast is just doing its job.

[bob3160]

Lightroom itself is a very system intensive program.

[steve576]

Just an update on this in case any other people have the same issue in future. I struggled along with this and noted that all I had to do was to click between one image and the next in Lightroom and the Avast app would instantly come to life and use the 15% of CPU. LR took several seconds sometimes filling in the metadata associated with an image ready for me to edit. Nothing I could do to the Avast settings would change this so I decided to uninstall the Avast Free Antivirus system altogether and restarted my computer.

Now Lightroom works without any lags or issues. I can open files, move between files, sync metadata between files and all happens without any lag. So Avast might have been doing its job, but it was definitely doing something to LR that was over and above what 15% CPU should have been causing.

Steve

[bob3160]

I've alerted Avast to this topic. Let's see if that helps.

[jaroslav.nix]

Hello steve576, thank you for the report and I am sorry for the troubles you see while avast installed.

If you are willing to help to analyze the issue, I would like to ask you for installing Avast back on the machine and provide us performance logs from xperf tool. It is not unfortunately available for download as a standalone tool and need to be installed together with ADK (Assessment Development Kit, but feel free to install the Performance Toolkit only):
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/get-started/adk-install

Then please run elevated command line and type this command:
"c:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Windows Performance Toolkit\xperf.exe" -on DiagEasy+DISPATCHER+Profile -stackwalk profile+CSwitch+ReadyThread -start avast -f \avast.etl -on 1492D477-3272-5C0C-D91A-C156CC3CD206 -start inet -f \inet.etl -on Microsoft-Windows-WinINet

then please reproduce the issue and after that stop logging by similar command:
"c:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Windows Performance Toolkit\xperf.exe" -stop -stop avast -stop inet -d xperf-log.etl

Please ZIP the generated xperf-log.etl and upload it to our FTP server and let us know the name of uploaded file.

Thank you.

[jaroslav.nix]

We have been trying to reproduce locally, but without luck, so it's probably something specific for you computer settings/environment and the xperf logs would really help us, thank you.