Debugging in Visual Studio 2013 is very slow because of FileNotFoundException - visual-studio-2013

Question

I develop in Visual Studio (with monogame for Windows Phone 8.1). When I launch my app with "Run without debug" it starts pretty fast, but in debug it launches very slow (about 5 minutes, not counting build time!). The problem I see (beyound slow loading external symbols) is that my app loads many graphics files, but before load a picture it searches its hd version, its hd and localized version, and only localized. Most files don't have hd versions, some of them localized, some are not. So in log I see many messages:
A first chance exception of type 'System.IO.FileNotFoundException' occurred in mscorlib.ni.dll
A first chance exception of type 'System.IO.FileNotFoundException' occurred in MonoGame.Framework.DLL
Of course when starting w/o debugging all that debug stuff is not working and app launches fast.
The only way to check if file is in Content folder is trying to open it (TitleContainer.OpenStream) and catching an exception. So I can't avoid generating those exceptions. How can I speed-up debug launch disabling somehow this stupid slow FileNotFoundException handling?

Answer 1

In my case with annoying exception handling I solved problem by preloading filenames recursively and then searching in stringlist:
private static List<string> mContentFilenames = new List<string>();
private static void preloadContentFilenamesRecursive(StorageFolder sf)
{
var files = sf.GetFilesAsync().AsTask().ConfigureAwait(false).GetAwaiter().GetResult();
if (files != null)
{
foreach (var f in files)
{
mContentFilenames.Add(f.Path.Replace('\\','/'));
}
}
var folders = sf.GetFoldersAsync().AsTask().ConfigureAwait(false).GetAwaiter().GetResult();
if (folders != null)
{
foreach (var f in folders)
{
preloadContentFilenamesRecursive(f);
}
}
}
private static void preloadContentFilenames()
{
if (mContentFilenames.Count > 0)
return;
var installed_loc = Windows.ApplicationModel.Package.Current.InstalledLocation;
var content_folder = installed_loc.GetFolderAsync("Content").AsTask().ConfigureAwait(false).GetAwaiter().GetResult();
if (content_folder != null)
preloadContentFilenamesRecursive(content_folder);
}
private static bool searchContentFilename(string name)
{
var v = from val in mContentFilenames where val.EndsWith(name.Replace('\\', '/')) select val;
return v.Any();
}
Update
But use this code only when debugger is attached. I underestimated microsoft workers - they are happy to turn your debugging to hell. Their lame error handling and lack of isFileExist function makes you to recursively check files to implement isFileExist without an exception yourself, but - surprize - if debugger is not attached, this code makes app silently exit whithout any exception. And before app crashes it check random number of files, so the problem is not in particular method - it just "can't check many files", how many - varies from time to time.
Taking into account that VS crashes in 50% of cases launching any (small or big) app on real WP8.1 device, and the fact that there is no access to device filesystem, imagine how it was difficult to find the root of crashes. I've spent almost a day for that!
Btw, after all those twenty years working with windows, windows store and windows phone apps I'd really like to meet someone from msft just to look in the eye. To see what is it - stupidity or sadism? Do they really hate us, developers? Why?