Why is XOJO so slow?

General
101

You might try flushing your DNS cache to make sure there’s no invalid dns entries cached. I’ve found that can slow down any application that accesses the network layer. Whether your on or offline. If that doesn’t help your speed then likely you do have an issue that is not caused by a network layer slow down.

Open terminal and run:

sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder;sudo killall mDNSResponderHelper;sudo dscacheutil -flushcache

Then reboot your computer

102

Tried it and it did not make any difference.

Thank you Steve for your kind help. But to be honest, if the Xojo IDE would make such heavy use of net connections that it would slow down the IDE permanently while net is slow, that would be a big issue for many. I do not think that my slow downs are in any relation to my network.

103

I’m running on Windows 10 64bit - i5-7600 (dual core @ 3.5GHz hyperthreaded), 16Gb RAM, SSD’s for System & Data, HDD for Backup & M.2 for projects, Graphics is a Radeon R9 200 with 2GB RAM. So a reasonable, but not great setup.

I haven’t noticed any degradation in IDE performance since before 19R1.1 and indeed Xojo seems more than fast enough.

One thing that did turn up a year or so ago was the info panel at the bottom of the editor section (Search, Errors, Messages) can steal significant CPU cycles - refreshing bookmarks I think. I always close that panel when not in use to get maximum coding space - this maybe a clue? Identifying this issue did show that there are some of us that use the IDE in unique ways (or maybe at the edge) that those a Xojo don’t. Unfortunately identifying what you’re doing different to us can be difficult. I guess long movies and critical analysis by Xojo are the only way to identify what the usage differences are.

If only our clients would use our products the way we do & intended them to be used :slight_smile:

105

I find it a bit scary that xojo could easily keep GB’s of memory 3-4,5 gb at use. Even without plugins after having opened different projects. And even when ending in a single small project open it uses still 3Gb. Wonder what’s happening…

106

The debugger info panel didn’t improve much after the change to some text area based list.

107

its holding all the data for the project
and all the images for layouts, controls etc
and all the images used by the IDE
if you’re on a mac you can poke around the resources and you’ll see there are many

108

[quote=468492:@Norman Palardy]its holding all the data for the project
and all the images for layouts, controls etc
and all the images used by the IDE
if you’re on a mac you can poke around the resources and you’ll see there are many[/quote]

how nice that may be it seems to NEVER release a closed project (or only a small amount). It remains to be AT least 2,8gb (on windows, on mac it’s even more).

  • this happens if Xojo is open for 3+ hours.
    On short tests, memory is somewhat released. (on windows it’s still about 2GB)
109

and with the advent of hi-dpi all the images etc are in higher rez, possibly multiple resolutions, dark mode etc etc

the data for a single project isnt that huge - images etc are much larger
dunno if those are stored in a way they could be purged per project once the project closes

110

There is much room for improvement here. It’s really a productivity breaker.

111

I’m late to this party, but I recommend keeping an eye on memory used by the IDE. I’m not using macOS much as a main OS any more, but on both Windows and ESPECIALLY Linux, the longer you use the IDE, the worse it becomes with real memory used by the IDE creeping over 3GB after a few hours of continued use. I now use a “Coffee Break” app to remind me to relaunch the IDE ever 2 hours.

What I’d like to see is for ALL of the Xojo development and support team members to shift over to Linux and ONLY use the Xojo IDE there for 1 solid week. The issue would become quite apparent for them and maybe a bit more attention would be paid to finding the cause.

112

I’ve tried what Julian shows in his video. In my case it’s the dark mode of Catalina.
If i change to normal mode, everything is fast and responsive again.

113

Dark mode itself is measurably slower than non-dark mode in Xojo and Xcode
This is, in many ways, an Apple issue

114

I have found that while dark mode is usable on 2019r1.1 its too slow to use on 2019r2+. This is on Mojave. While I can see that dark mode is slower on Mac in general, I can’t see how r1.1 to r2+ could slow down so much to the point where I am unable to get work done. r2+ is almost usable with dark mode off.

115

<https://xojo.com/issue/56900>

Since Xojo is so slow on macOS, I stopped developing with Xojo on macOS.

116

[quote=471029:@Sascha S]<https://xojo.com/issue/56900>

Since Xojo is so slow on macOS, I stopped developing with Xojo on macOS.[/quote]
Its extremely disappointing that the cause of this has not been identified and fixed after several months. As 2019r2 onwards is unusable we haven’t renewed our Xojo licenses and will be sticking with 2019r2.1 (which is just about usable) for the foreseeable future.

117

I’m on 2019r3 and it’s sooooo slow. I’m a new convert to Xojo and it’s the biggest thing I’ve noticed.

I’ve not got older versions to compare it to but as others have said simply clicking on an object like a listbox to select it can take seconds to see the grab handles and the property pane.

118

I am using 2019R1.1 (won’t be going further for now)… but I can say that I see NO slowing issues here…
So either theese issues are isolated to R2.0 and beyond and/or the use of Dark Mode .

If it is related to R2.0 and beyond… I’m fine with that since there are huge other issues that are keeping me from upgrading… perhaps Xojo will get their act together again soon, and earn me (and others) back as a paying customer

119

I’m on 2019r3. I see no significant slowing. macOS Mojave.6. I don’t use dark mode for any purpose.

Perhaps there are specific controls that slow things down that I don’t happen to use.

120

I’m using 2019r3 (with API 2.0 code) on Mojave, Catalina & Windows 10 and don’t see the slowness people have mentioned.

I also have about 25 plugins loaded. I don’t bother with Dark Mode myself (doesn’t suit me), but I do turn it on occasionally when I’m testing the UI. The only thing I noticed is that on Catalina, the code window colours are a bit messed up (I’ll need to investigate that at some point).

Until the real culprit of this slowness is found, some things to consider doing might be:

  • Don’t place your projects in a Cloud drive folder, e.g., iCloud, OneDrive, Drop Box, etc.
  • Try switching Time Machine (or whatever Backup software you use) to Manual rather than “Auto”, and schedule a time to run your backups when not using your computer.
  • If you have Anti-Virus, maybe try excluding the Xojo application and your project folders from scanning - but first ensure your computer is not infected with a virus or malware.
  • Examine what other processes your computer is currently running and question whether they absolutely need to be there.
  • Am I forgetting something else that would be useful to check?

Note: I do have GitHub Desktop open all the time while I use the Xojo IDE. This software is obviously watching my project folders periodically for changes, but doesn’t appear to impact performance. But can the same be said about other source-control products?

I hope this helps someone, at least in some small way.

Edited to add: My Mojave machine is a 2012 Mac Mini with only 8Gb RAM. Obviously it is less performant than my 2018 Mac Mini (Catalina) with 32 Gb RAM, which I only got recently - but until I got the new machine, I had no complaints with the Xojo IDE responsiveness on the old Mini.

121

On my MacBook Pro 2013 with Mojave, 2019r3 and Dark Mode, I’ve found the IDE a bit sluggish. Turning off Dark Mode is a noticeable performance improvement, but I like Dark Mode enough to live with the sluggishness. I’m fairly confident this problem, whether the fault of Apple or Xojo, will be addressed. Otherwise, I’d go back to Light Mode.