Visual Studio 2010: very slow web applications debugging!

Question

I recently installed Visual Studio 2010 (Ultimate edition, final version released in April), and found that debugging a web application became very slow (2-3 times slower than in Visual Studio 2008)!

I took the same web application and checked the speed of loading of one of its pages in VS 2008 and VS 2010, and compared the time it takes to load the page.

I tested it using 2 approaches: 1) debugging under ASP.NET Development Server (by pressing the "Start" button) and 2) using ASP.NET Development Server without debugging (by using the "View in Browser" menu command).

And I got the following results for Visual Studio 2008 and 2010.

1) ASP.NET Development Server withoud debugging ("View in Browser"): the speed of page loading is the same in VS 2008 and 2010.

2) Debugging under ASP.NET Development Server ("Start" button): in VS 2010 the page takes more time to load than in VS 2008 - VS 2010 debugging is 2-3 times slower than in VS 2008!

3) At the same time, when debugging a web application in VS 2008, it takes the same time to load the page compared to when using only the "View in Browser" command. That is, VS 2008 debugging does not introduce any overhead to page loading in the web browser!

I wanted to make sure that other people have the same problem with slow debugging of web applications in VS 2010. Can this issue be solved by any means?

BTW, I am using Windows XP SP3.

Thank you.

Answer 1

Disable Intellitrace (historical debugger) - it enable jumping "back in time" during debug but it slows down debugging.

You can disable it from the options->intellitrace

Answer 2

Try 'Delete all breakpoints' from the Debug menu. It sped up my web application debugging by 10 times.

Answer 3

I had problems with slow Visual Studio debugging when "Native Code" debugger was enabled. Try disabling it.

On "Visual Studio 2010" go to:

1. Project Properties ->
2. Web ->
3. Debuggers (bottom of page). ->
4. Disable all exept ASP.NET

Hope it helps.

Similar question: 1

Answer 4

After incredibly slow debugging for months I finally discovered the cause (even after disabling intellitrace).

It turned out to be PC Tools internet security -> IntelliGuard -> 'Behaviour Guard'

This is a hips like protection system that monitors the 'signature' of system operations

I disabled this feature and wow what a speed difference - 'stepping into' lines of code in debug now has almost zero delay. I re-enabled Intellitrace and can use it with only a very slight speed hit.

Tino

Answer 5

I tried a lot of things and the only way to solve it was the swax solution 'Delete all breakpoints'

Answer 6

I had this problem as well and it turned out to be due to sybmbols. Go to Tools > Options > Debugging > Symbols and uncheck any symbol servers

Answer 7

Deactivate the option Show Parameter Values in the callstack window (debug -> windows -> callstack -> left click).

It required lots of recursion.

Reference

Answer 8

I did find out what you have to do:

1. Disable Intellisense
2. Disable the Graphics Rendering Editor Function, this causes editor slowness with some graphics cards.
3. Disable the Sourcecontrol that is set by default to the Microsoft Server Product.

I just can tell you, that VS2010 is a very good product, if you know these few things, and setup this.

Answer 9

You can uncheck the Symbols servers.

Answer 10

Try removing the localhost from the list of trusted sites in IE security settings.

For me it solved the problem of slow JavaScript debugging in VS 2010. It may work for you if you have added 'localhost' (or any other domain name you use for local development) to the trusted sites list, like I did.

Answer 11

I can get it faster by clear all break points, all unnecessary variable in Watch windows, and all the unnecessary debug windows, such as CallStack ...

Answer 12

I realized that ESET Internet Security also makes lots of performance issues while debugging in Visual Studio 2010 using ASP.NET Development Server.

Answer 13

Recently I faced with the same problem. I noticed that I had too many messages (especially "A first chance exception ...") in the VS's Output window. I fixed those exceptions and everything went fine.

Answer 14

What is expensive too sometimes is debugging the JavaScript libraries you are using or developing.

Checking the option "Don't open a page" in the project property window allows you to debug the web application without debugging JavaScript. You simply have to open the web application in your browser manually.

In some circumstances debugging JavaScript can break the responsiveness of the debugging process and if you know that your concern is with the .NET debugging, you can make load time faster that way easily.

Answer 15

Taking another route of Paulius' answer (disabling "Native Code" debugger) I was able to speed up the debugging. Here are the steps I took for VS 2010 Pro:

1) Tools > Options > Debugging > General

2) Ticked Enable Just My Code (Managed Only)

3) Also this might help, unticking Enable address-level debugging

Answer 16

There is another trick you can do:

1) Go to (Ctrl + Alt + Del) Task manager > Processes

2) There are 2 main processes for visual studio debugging, 1)devenv.exe 2) WebDev.Webserver40.exe (Or similar).

3) Right click on each of the bove processes > Set Priority > Real Time. Click Ok in the message Box.

Speeds up debugging dramatically!.