Process cannot be killed

Every other day my RDM freeze and i have to end tprocess in task manager. The issue is that it is still showing but when running
taskkill /f /im RemoteDesktopManager.exe
I get: ERROR: The process "RemoteDesktopManager.exe" with PID 25256 could not be terminated.
Reason: There is no running instance of the task.
doodle jump
At this point i can open a new instance but crashes again and now i have 2 zombies instances.

That sounds really frustrating. I’ve run into stubborn processes like this before, and sometimes only a full reboot or restarting the related service actually clears it. Hopefully the devs can identify what’s causing the process to hang.

Yeah, i figured this was the fix. Still the instability is killing my productivity. I'm going back to RDC Man. Really wanted to make this work.

P.S. my system is a Win 11pro 23H2, Intel vPro Ultra 7 Dell Latitude 7450

Hi ebastien,

Thank you for posting and I'm sorry to hear this is disrupting your workflow — a freeze every other day is absolutely not acceptable, and I understand the frustration.

On the taskkill error: the message "There is no running instance of the task" means the process has already exited, even though Task Manager still shows it. It's a stale window entry left behind by the ungraceful exit — a symptom of the freeze rather than a separate issue. A reboot is the most reliable way to clear it.

The freeze itself is what we need to dig into. The most effective way to do that is with a minidump captured while RDM is in the frozen state:

https://docs.devolutions.net/rdm/kb/troubleshooting-articles/hung-rdm-dump-file-creation/

The Process Explorer method (Create Dump > Create Minidump) is the most straightforward. If you'd like, I can open a support case using the email address associated with your forum account and send you a secure upload link directly, so we can get the file to our development team.

In the meantime, there are a couple of workarounds that have resolved similar freezes for other users.

The first is resetting RDM's local configuration and cache:
Close RDM, navigate to %localappdata%\Devolutions, rename the RemoteDesktopManager folder to RemoteDesktopManager.old, then relaunch. The full procedure is here:
https://docs.devolutions.net/rdm/kb/how-to-articles/reset-rdm-to-default-settings/
If you use a local data source, make sure to move your Connections.db from the .old folder into the new one before restarting.
The second is switching any RDP session entries from FreeRDP to the MSTSC (Latest) option in the session properties. Several users found the combination of both steps stopped the freezes entirely.

To help narrow things down, could you also let us know which version of RDM you're running, what data source you're using, what you were doing at the moment of the last freeze (active RDP or SSH session, a copy/paste action, or idle), and whether your organization uses endpoint security software such as Sophos or CrowdStrike?

Best regards,
Stephan