Flow.exe spikes to 20% CPU and causes sporadic windows freeze

[sensioic]

I have the exact same problem. The issue isn't because of Firefox. In the background Conexant Flow processes are using an exorbitant amount of RAM/CPU. This is ridiculous for a new computer. I've bent over backwards hunting down the process, ending it, renaming the file paths to prevent execution, and HP or Flow re-activates itself. HP needs to find a solution because this bloated useless driver makes the our new HP ProDesk 600 G3 Desktop Mini worthless.

Best steps I can advise:

1). End the Flow.exe process in Task Manager

2) Rename Flow.exe under C:\\ProgramFiles\Conexant

Keep you fingers crossed it doesn't re-install or re-activate itself.

[r-obi]

There are new audio driver (sp95006), but now, audiodg.exe stops working every day a few times.

I turn back to the older driver 9.0.216.0 and renamed thr flow.exe to get it solved again.

Too bad

[RenG]

Both services are set to manual start.

I tried to kill the app, but in the last version sp95006, they bundled a watchdog to relaunch it.
I tried to rename the exe, and it came back.

Now I removed exe that looked like the watchdog, the setup64.exe, and the Flow.exe.
I'll check on next reboot, but that is unaceptable from an enterprise grade laptop.

[RenG]

Changed the driver manualy from Conexant SmartAudio HD to Connexant ISST Audio, and a blue HP icon now appears in the taskbar in place of the B&O.

Flow.exe is no longer used.

Now my jack 3.5 plug is no longer working.

Tired....

[DeathToBadSW]

OMG, I have this problem, finally got on top of what it was.   Can someone please put the person responsible into a room where the lights go out for 3 seconds 40 times an hour, for 6 months?  That's what I've gone through, I think that would only be fair.

I've renamed it for now.....sounds like it will come back.

[passthejoe]

I started a bug report with Mozilla on this issue:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1555726

I'm pretty sure the problem is with Conexant, but there are no other programs I'm running that cause Flow.exe to run like this, so maybe Mozilla's developers can figure this out.

[Martin6548]

I'm afraid Firefox has nothing to do with it. I don't even have Firefox installed and I've had this problem for the last two years.

As  many other users here, I solved it by deleting flow.exe which is not a very nice solution, I get an error screen every time I turn on my PC and my microphone stopped working properly.

HP doesn't seem to care. To be honest I higly doubt I'm buying an HP ever again.

[ChocolateIT]

Seems the Driver-Software from hell got an update! YEAH! I noticed a new icon in my taskbar and today I trouble with Thunderbird. Sometimes it would not maximize when I click it on the taskbar.

I identified a new ofender:

C:\Program Files\CONEXANT\SA3\HP-NB-AIO\SmartAudio3.exe

Just renamed it to _SmartAudio3.exe because it kept popping up after stopping the process (I think it was called "Bang & Olufsen" in the Task manager.

Fingers crossed... I was so outraged, I even sent Bang&Olufsen a Twitter Message! 😉

[Montagnard2]

Hello bar_foo: thank you so much for sharing your solution!!!

Before applying it, I regularly had 52% of CPU consumed just by Flow & Firefox together although Firefox was doing nothing. That was accompanied with long periods of total CPU consumed from 70 to 100%. This was becoming a real pain. After editing data.sqlite as you suggested, the problem has not manifested again and CPU rests  between 15 & 25 %.

Thanks again for sharing your great solution.

[Montagnard2]

Hello Libs_liu, thank you for your post.  After reading it, I did that as well.