WDFME.exe RAM hog

There are a couple of other things I should have mentioned in my previous post:

The Quick View icon (usually in the system tray) allows ‘WD Smartware’ to be started, or if it is running, to be exited, and for the drive to be removed safely.  However, under the normal installation the essential backup parts of the Smartware program, including WDFME.exe, will be running even when ‘WD Smartware’ has not been started.

‘WD Smartware’ does have to be started in order to choose the files or categories for categorisation and backup.  If the Backup tab is greyed out, click on the WD Passport icon on the Home tab and wait a few seconds to make it visible

I don’t know if it has to be run all the time during the initial categorisation, but it doesn’t need to be started for normal backing up – just run WDFME.exe as mentioned in my earlier post.  My experience of ‘WD Smartware’ is that the information presented in the tabs is contradictory and not entirely accurate.  It is another drain on resources, so I have found it best not to open it.

WD Smartware must be ‘exited’ before WDFME.exe can be stopped.

The second thing is that it appears that MS Outlook can only be backed up when it is closed.  Even when ‘WD Smartware’ says Backup Complete, that is not true if Outlook is still running.  It takes a few minutes, so your PST and OST files won’t be backed up if you just turn everything off at the same time.

rheitel, have you encountered any CPU or RAM hogging issues with the WD Anywhere Backup software yet?

Update after leaving PC on for 2 days…

Surprise! After leaving my PC on for 2 days I came back to find that WDFME.exe was using less than 0.5Gb of RAM (total physical memory: 8Gb RAM)

unfortunately the backup has apparently still not completed - but this is a huge improvement!

Smartware shows 819Gb (of 845Gb PC files) are now backed up

PC has now been on for 3 hours - and WDFME has stabilised at 3.1Gb RAM - still appalling, but actually workable

Has anybody else tried this method of leaving your PC on for a few days to stabilise the backup?

AlexRJ wrote:

 

unfortunately the backup has apparently still not completed - but this is a huge improvement!

  

Has anybody else tried this method of leaving your PC on for a few days to stabilise the backup?

 

It’s pretty sad when we say that “only two days” is a “huge improvement”.

No, I refuse to try this method of backing up my system, because its totally unacceptable. I could probably backup my entire hard drive using a 9600 baud dial-up modem faster than that.

Everyone remember the good old days, when only Microsoft was responsible for producing bloatware?

Food for thought,  there are thousands of people out there for each person that is posting here in the WD forums vocalizing our complaints about this dreadful software  with the exact same issue and they will never post.

All I can say is that this must be the worst bit of software out there that I have encountered for a long time. I cannot believe that the software even made it to release - it is patently broken. Ever since I first installed the software early last year, and through two or three updates this major issue has not been resolved. The latest update is the worst of all, rendering my laptop unusable!

WD  - come on, get your act together! I mean strictly speaking this is a product not fit for purpose…

I just posted this in one of the other threads about how bad WD’s Smartware was. Please forgive me for crossposting the exact same thing.

I joined this forum last Sunday night and have made only a few posts concerning how bad the Smartware was and that my CPU was running at 100% and all of the RAM was being used. Yesterday afternoon out of the clear blue I received an unsolicited call from a level 2 tech support person at WD while I was standing on a line in my neighborhood post office. WD had read my posts and he called to correct the issue. I requested that he call me at home later in the evening as the issue was with my home computer. He called as promised and I allowed him access to my computer. He corrected the issue and now everything is back to normal. I am backing up like it should be able to do, not using any RAM to speak of and the CPU usage is under 5%.:smiley:

If you registered for this forum I hope that you included a contact phone number as they reached out to me without receiving a single call from me first.

If tech support is able to resolve this problem, rather than posting a phone number, how about they just post the fix in the forums and sticky it.  Also put it in the FAQ and even email out to the customers at the registered email address rather than everyone suffering from their software issues. 

I understand it takes time to patch software but some people have mentioned tech support actually fixing the problem.  It would be nice to use my external drive without taking my computer to its knees from the RAM being maxed out all the time.  I also do not want to have to uninstall the software losing the information on the drive that is password protected or have to explain to my 12 year old or girlfriend how to stop the WDFME.exe service through the Resource Manager every time the computer is started to keep the computer usable.

I am running Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit Edition and the computer runs fine when the process is not running.  Please email me the fix or call me with the fix and I will post it in the forums if the tech support is too lazy.

I agree with  Lucifuge752, if you have a fix for this software issue, please post it. I believe most of us are more than qualified to make the necessary changes. What could it hurt, it’s not working anyway?!?

I’m not sure why I haven’t given up on it months ago. I’ve threatened to uninstall the software many times but now I’m just curious to see how long this will go on.    

Thanks, RSSrsvp.  I went to my personal info on the forum, and could not find a place to put in a phone.  What am I missing?

Most likely that had my phone number from when I registered the product when I purchased it.

I, for one have grown weary of dealing with this issue. I was hopeful that the recent software and firmware updates would have resolved the RAM hog problem. But no luck.

I’ve had it with this piece of junk. In lieu of using the HD for an expensive bookend or doorstop, I’ll reformat it and use either Windows’ or Norton’s back up utilities. Conveniently, WD provides a Quick Formatter download. Maybe they knew some of us would take this drastic action as a last resort?

Good luck!

I’m another ■■■■■■! Some poor Dell Tech Support lady in Bangalore has spent 5 hours trying to sort this out and I’ve just re-discovered a problem that I had before when I shut down the WD Smartware - somehow it got restarted! Why on earth can’t WD sort this out?

I’ve got the same problem with the WDFME.exe file. Will a WD technician please contact me and assist me in correcting this problem.  My email address is: rxerri@hotmail.com

I posted here on page 7. Since then I only use the Dumbware to periodically update my files, only at a time when I have nothing else to do and I can let it run overnight and in the morning I kill all WD progams using the task manager. This week I saw there was an update available, downloaded it and discovered it is dumber than before. I would not have believed that an update to this abissmal software could have gone backword, but WD, you’ve succeeded. Sill a hog on resources and the new grayed out interface really demonstrates your committment to customer satisfaction. The hard ware is good, but there should be a discount if you use the software (perhaps you should pay us). I’ve killed the dumbware and I now use third party back-up software. I’ll continue to check into this thread periodically but I doubt I will ever utilise/update the WD Dumbware again.

Simple solution - I uninstalled the updated version of SW and reinstalled from the drive itself (version 1.4.5.2, in my case).  Backup is running fine now, and my Win 7 memory usage gadget is showing between 40-45% usage and not creeping up to 99% like it did before.  Whatever bugs the later versions “fixed” are apparently not affecting the backup now (and I stress, again, at least in my case).

Also - very important - TURN OFF automatic updates in WD SW.  My issues just started in the last week, so it had to be one of the automatic updates (Sherlock Holmes’ "if you have eliminated all other possible solutions and all that buggery).  If it ain’t broke…

At last!

I’ve been waiting for a long time for this memory hog issue to be fixed.

Having installed Version 1.6.0 … now all seems to be working perfectly.

Spoke too soon.

After logging out as one user and logging in as another user, the WDBackUpManager started running at 50% of CPU and continued to do so … and continued to do so…and continued to do so…even after all files were backed up and even after stopping the backup.

Hi luckyphil

Thanks for your post - it made me go and look for a smartware upgrade

I’m using Win7Prof-64bit, and it is now backing up fine (well, I haven’t yet tested a restore…)

It says that Partial Backup is complete (it won’t back up my open pst file) and the four WDx processes are only using 20Mb between them…

I no longer have a WDFME service (should I) - the old one used to use 7Gb+ of RAM

Have rebooted twice and used for over 24 hours now, all still seems fine at this end…

I also had this issue and also just upgraded to 1.6.0.  And like Lucky_Phil I too have found the memory hog issue FIXED and now a new,more annoying, CPU hog issue introduced.  I just posted about it so please feel free to chime in on my thread:

http://community.wdc.com/t5/My-Passport-for-PC/New-1-6-0-WD-SmartWare-Keeps-WDBackupEngine-exe-at-50-CPU-usage/td-p/418096

-Allan

Even with limiting the WD to 15% of ram usage this program brings my system to a crawl.  As a company owner and Systems Administrator looking to allocate funds, WD just dropped off the list on all products.