Weird intermittent delays during Debug

[George Deluca]

I've tried to find some kind of common pattern or circumstance that might help figure this problem out, but nothing seems properly repeatable.

What I'm seeing sometimes during Debug is an incredible slowdown in response from the IDE (PB9). e.g. I can set a break point and then when the breakpoint is hit and I continue using F8 to single step it, I get delays of sometimes 8-10 seconds before the active line hi-lite moves. Similarly clicking on the Eyeglass Icon to add a variable watch can cause similar waits.

At this point the system is NOT busy, its a 3gig Phenom Quad processor and I have a desktop monitor (Samurize) which would show if some other process had gone 'hog' wild, sucking up resources.

Sometimes exiting Debug and re-entering clears it up, sometimes I re-cycle the whole IDE.

Thank heavens it's intermittent or Debug would be basically useless.

Anyone else experience anything like this? Any ideas?

It's not a show-stopper but sometimes setting up external stuff for a Debug test to get just the right environment is tricky and I've ended up plodding along anyway in molasses mode rather than quit, re-set everything and retry Debug.

George

[Bob Zale]

The most likely cause is Anti-Virus/Spyware software. A few of them believe that there is no good reason for you to be using the Debug interface of Windows and cause all sorts of havoc. They take over that interface when installed and often make it impossible for you.

You might try disabling it or running in safe mode to see if that corrects it. However, sometimes it's necessary to totally uninstall it to release the effects.

Best regards,

Bob Zale

[George Deluca]

Thanks Bob. I'm using Avast, any reports of this being one of 'those' anti-virus suspects.

George

[Rodney Hicks]

I use Avast and have never had a problem with it. But this may depend upon the features/settings used. I use all features and default settings where there's a choice. I'm running Vista HP.

What is the external stuff that you're setting up?

[John R. Heathcote]

My $0.02 too.

Like George I notice a significant slow down too using the debugger on my system, but only using single step (F8), animate is affected too. Running (F5) to a break point, or to the end of the source code works just fine. The slowdown gets worse each time I use the debugger, but again only using F8.

The slowdown also seems to occur when I am watching more than 8, or so, variables at a time. When I reboot my system and start the debugger again I get a very speedy single step, even when watching the previous 8 variables, but as I start the debugger again the slow down begins to occur. It would seem that on my system the slowdown issue is cumulative.

[George Deluca]

Rodney: In testing, by 'external' I mean carefully altering Registry settings, config files, directory structure etc. to check out the error handling of one-time chunks of code. e.g. Initial run after an install, etc.

John: It's 'nice' in a way to know I'm not totally alone. My puzzlement is that it's not consistent. Yesterday for example I was in debug for lengthy sessions and all was just fine.

Ah well, as I said, it's not a show-stopper.

[Bob Zale]

Have you tried uninstalling your anti-virus?