Slow Chrome Remote Desktop Connection: Solved!

The Problem

I’ve been using Chrome Remote Desktop quite happily for a while now. But sometimes it just wouldn’t work as expected. It would connect with no problems but then it would lag and stutter and most often, just freeze for quote a while. Or forever. But! I found and solved the problems with slow Chrome Remote Desktop. And it wasn’t what I expected.

Hopefully this note-to-self can be useful to some other self.

The Culprit

Believe it or not, your CPU might be the cause of slow Chrome Remote Desktop connection. Namely, it takes some computing to compress video before it’s sent over the network. If your CPU is busy doing something else (like running a simulation of some sort), it will postpone the processing for… quite a while.

The Solution

Put the remote desktops executables higher on a priority list. Go to Details tab in task manager and set priorities of remoting* executables to High.

If you're experiencing slow Chrome Remote Desktop, try increasing the executables' priority.

For me that worked. Now I can check my simulations remotely in a matter of seconds… instead of days.

18 Comments

  1. Is there a way for Windows to remember this setting? I have to re-select this setting every time I reboot.

  2. Michael Blankenship

    I do not see that file in my task manager.

  3. Thank you!

    I had multiple issues, Chrome remote desktop freezing, Photoshop not refreshing etc. and changing the priority to high (also with real time) fixed it.
    If you don’t see those process in the Task Manager:
    In the Processes tab, they have the names
    – Desktop Integration Process (32 bits)
    – Host Process (32 bits)

    You can check the detail and you will see that the location of those process are something like:
    C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome Remote Desktop\93.0.4577.8

    Right click on it and click on “Go to details”. It will switch you to the Task Manager Details tab.

    Alright now you see the exe files:
    – remoting_desktop.exe (the Desktop Integration Process (32 bits))
    – remoting_host.exe (the Host Process (32 bits))

    You can now right click and set the priority.

    But that too much work. Just run this with Powershell as admin:

    Get-WmiObject Win32_process -Filter ‘name=”remoting_host.exe”‘ | ForEach-Object {$_.SetPriority(128)}

    128 is High, 256 is real time

    And not sure if the second one is also needed:
    Get-WmiObject Win32_process -Filter ‘name=”remoting_desktop.exe”‘ | ForEach-Object {$_.SetPriority(128)}

    • Great work, thank you for your input!

    • Thanks a lot for this solution. However, I got an error when running the code as admin. The error message is:

      “Get-WmiObject : Invalid query “select * from Win32_process where name=”remoting_host.exe””
      At line:1 char:1
      + Get-WmiObject Win32_process -Filter ‘name=”remoting_host.exe”‘ | ForE …

      Any suggestions? Thanks again!

  4. Do you make these changes in the remote computer, the local computer, and/or both?

  5. It is EXTREMELY unlikely that my i9 is showing random CRD freezes because of the massive CPU load on the computer. (Rarely gets above 20%) Much more likely just to be countless Google software bugs.

  6. I have made the suggested changes on both the local and remote machines.

    I have stopped ALL Google Chrome extensions with the exception of Remote Desktop on the remote machine.

    I have removed Chrome and the Chrome Remote Desktop from the remote machine and reinstalled same.

    I have utilized the remote desktop WITHOUT Chrome running on the remote machine to conserve usage.

    NOTHING has worked to stop the freezes. Seems a bit random and lasts anywhere from 15 seconds to over one minute.

    I’m ready to bag Chrome’s remote desktop and just purchase Remote PC. Life is too short to put up with Google and their software.

  7. Hi, it may well be caused by a slow uplink on the remotely accessed PC broadband line. If theuplink speed is less than 1 mbps this will be you problem. You then need to change a few parms in remoting_host.exe in Program files,X86,Google , Remote Desktop, x10….. Click: Compatibility Mode, Reduced Color, Run 640, then Change for all users, the run the ‘Compatibility Trouble Shooter’, then make sure it says ‘fixed’, then your in buisiness to overcome the slow uplink prob on remote PC. Good luck 🙂

  8. GPU! For me when the HDMI video cable is unplugged from the computer then everything lags like hell. As soon I connect the Video cable to GPU port then everything is perfect.
    Sounds like this is a bug between windows and google.

    • Yep! Same issue as Stryker. Another person borrowed my external monitor and unplugged the HDMI cable from the remote PC. Horrible performance ever since. Barely usable.

      • Hello. I was using only one monitor connected with an HDMI cable and since I connect another monitor with a display port I have had this issue. How can I solve it?

  9. I see. I use an old-fashion RGB connector and it used to work fine until July 17, 2022. I took the fancy screen with me. I will unplug the conflicting cable and see how it works. I will keep you guys posted, thanks!

  10. Hi! It is fixed now! I did not make any chages in my set up. Maybe this thread got to be known by the right people. Thank you Google / Microsoft!

  11. this works for me. thank you very much!

  12. I agree with Enrique. Without further corrections to any of the machines, the problem simply disappeared. Every so often there is a five second freeze with Outlook, but other than this, it works as advertised now.

    • Enrique García Franco

      Indeed, it is just a matter of restarting the remote computer. Windows allows remote use at the username-password screen with Wake on WAN.

      For that, one needs to have a stable internet connection and googling ‘wake on WAN”. It is set up at the BIOS.

      Wake on WAN is also safer than just leaving the PC on, because there is a password or code to be entered to use the computer

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