VS2010 debugger takes an unreasonable amount of time

Question

Anyone else dealt with VS2010 debug in C++ and have it just sit there for 30+ second each time you step? This is happening to me and the call stack window just has this grey thing that says "Busy..." in it during this freeze. The whole interface just locks down...each and every step I make and right now I'm trying to step through this massive policy based design in boost to figure out WTF I got a, "no RTTI data," error when I know the compiler is using RTTI.

Anyway, its frustrating the holy hell out of me so if anyone has any idea how to speed this thing up to at least a snail's pace that would be great.

Answer 1

I have seen similar problems in the past if the debugger is trying to download symbols from a symbol server and either the server connection is slow (or can't be reached) or there's some problem saving them. So firstly check the symbol settings (Debug -> Options -> Symbols). Try disabling symbol lookup entirely or if you're using a local symbol server then check the accessibility and directory permissions.

If that doesn't solve it then try running Process Monitor during the hang as this may show you what's going wrong, eg if something is trying to access a network drive or a file or directory that doesn't exist. It may give you enough hints to diagnose the problem.

Answer 2

You aren't using data breakpoints or conditional breakpoints are you? Both of these slow down running/stepping significantly.

Answer 3

Have you seen these?

Visual Studio debugger slows down in in-line code

Slow debugging issue in Visual Studio