Fix Event ID 454 error – User profile performance issues in Windows 10

If you notice poor performance issues when using a custom default user profile in Windows 10, this message is intended to help you. In this article, we will identify the potential cause (s) of the User Profile Event ID 454 error that causes performance issues, as well as providing the appropriate solution that you can try to help you fix the error.

Let’s take a look at a typical scenario where you may encounter this error.

You create a new default user profile and activate it. A new user logs in using a profile created from the default profile on a Windows 10, Windows Server 2016, or Windows Server 2019 computer.

In this scenario, you experience one or more of the following symptoms:

• Desktop icons take a long time to appear.
• Performance is poor when you start or navigate in internet explorer or Microsoft Edge.
• ESENT (an embeddable transactional database engine. It was first shipped with Microsoft Windows 2000 and has been available to developers since then) errors like the following are logged in the event log:

EventLogID: 454

TaskHostW: (pid)

WebCacheLocal: “Database recovery / restore failed with unexpected error -1907”

The full event log message may also indicate an association with a different user folder location, such as C: Users Administrator.

Event ID Error 454 – User Profile Performance Problems

If you are faced with this user profile performance issues with event ID 454, you can try the recommended two-step solution described below to resolve the error.

Before you start, you need to show hidden files.

To view hidden files, do the following:

• Press Windows key + E to open File Explorer.
• In File Explorer, select File, then select The options.
• On the View tab, select Show hidden files, folders and drives option.
• Deselect the Hide protected operating system files (recommended) option.
• Click on Okay (Remember to reselect these two options once the problem is resolved).

You can now proceed with the solution as follows;

1]Connect to each affected computer using an account with administrative credentials, then go to the following hidden file and folder, then delete them if they exist:

Point: WebCacheLock.dat and WebCache is the file and folder you should delete, respectively.

C: Users Default AppData Local Microsoft Windows WebCacheLock.dat

C: Users Default AppData Local Microsoft Windows WebCache

2]For each user account on the computer, make sure the user is completely logged out and the profile has been completely unloaded, then find and delete the following hidden file and folder if they exist:

C: Users AppData Local Microsoft Windows WebCacheLock.dat

C: Users AppData Local Microsoft Windows WebCache

Replace the placeholder with the name of the actual user profile folder. Repeat this to delete the above files and folders for each assigned user account on the computer.

Microsoft says you might meet user profile performance issues with event ID 454 because the default user profile includes a locked copy of another user’s cache database. When the new user logs on to the computer, the contents of the default user profile are incorporated into their new profile. As the Windows shell and desktop start to load, the database cannot be fully initialized for use. Applications that use the database are likely to experience negative performance or report errors.