Visual Studio 2010 F10/F11 Stepping Slow, Toolbar Stepping Fine? - visual-studio-2010

I'm running Visual Studio 2010 with SP1, as well as R# 5.1, and a few other extensions (like PowerCommands and Productivity Power Tools). Somewhere along the lines, my debugging got super slow. If I use the F10/F11 keys to step, VS hangs for a bit and then steps. If I use the toolbar buttons for stepping, it's snappy as expected.
Any idea what's up with my shortcut keys?

I had exactly the same problem - extremely slow debugging with keyboard (F10 for example). Some symptoms:
if I click Step Into on toolbar, then everything works normal,
the lag during debugging is present not only in Visual Studio but anywhere (notepad, browser,...),
if I set any other browser as default browser in Visual Studio (I tried Firefox), then it works OK,
if I disable third-party browser extensions in IE, then it works OK,
if I enable third-party browser extensions and disable LastPass, then the problem is gone and debugging with keyboard is fast again!
So, try to disable LastPass extension if you have it or all extensions and try it.
Edit1 - somebody allready posted this on LastPass forum: http://forums.lastpass.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=61029
Edit2 - and here on SO also :) https://stackoverflow.com/a/8186670/1110039

I've found a deeper explanation for this problem.
I had this problem, with the symptoms user1110039 described BUT I haven't installed LastPass toolbar. And my default browser is Firefox.
Well, my application uses SetWindowsHookEx() function for setting a system wide shortcut. Which happens to be the reason for blocking F10/F11 debug keys (only in Windows 7 64 bits) It doesn't happen under 32 bits.
I've just removed the hook from the debug build and it works ok. I reckon the problem with LastPass is some system wide hook in the code of the extension.

I had exactly the same problem.
The problem was solved by closing the Watch window.

Try debugging with Firefox or Chrome. There must be something about the interaction with IE that is causing this behavior.

Disable "show threads in source" worked for me!

Calling DirectInput's Acquire() function on a keyboard device is what caused the slowdown for me. This is potentially related to the SetWindowsHookEx() caused slowdown - ie. that might be using DirectInput.

It's really odd that the keyboard stepping is slow while the toolbar buttons are not. Typically whenever I hear about a slow stepping experience my recommendation is to disable automatic property and ToString evaluation as this is the most likely cause
Tools -> Options
Debugger -> Uncheck "Enable property and .ToString evaluation"
I'm not very hopeful that will fix this instance. It sounds like a problem with a misbehaving extension that processes keyboard input. Your best bet is to disable the extensions one by one and see which one fixes the problem. I would do it in the following order
Productivity Power Tools
Power Commands
R#

Make sure you've installed Service Pack 1. I believe they fixed at least one significant performance problem in the debugger.

I experienced that very slow step by step debugging too, and fixed it by closing the threads window.

(Making a note here on an old thread, so it can be found in a web search.)
I normally leave the ==Disassembly== window open during debugging (I have a big screen.) I just discovered that single-stepping in the debugger can be speeded up by 50% if I hide that window too. The -tab- for it can exist and be handy - makes no difference - but the window itself shouldn't be showing. Ahah.
Have followed all the other suggestions and more from elsewhere, single-stepping is now about 8 times faster overall. (About 2.5 steps per second now.) Woo-hoo! Thank you all.
(I don't understand how they can write such slow UI code... I have a CPU here that's running at two billion cycles per second... that works out to about 400 million instructions per single step. Seems like Microsoft code could be a -little- faster... but then, I've never had the pleasure of using .NET etc.)

I tried all the suggestion and finally found that When I uninstalled VS2005, this issue got resolved. Note that in that machine VS2005

I was having this problem in my new job, where we use Visual Studio 2008 SP1. (Yes, I know, I know). Long delay on step with flickering hourglass. I always use F10, I don't even think about it, there's no way I could tolerate changing to the mouse or waiting multiple seconds for a simple step command.
I read through all the solutions provided here and elsewhere on the net with no joy.
Finally found the issue - I had set up my default language for the IDE as C#. It turns out the project I'm working on actually uses VB.NET, and when I set the default language to VB.NET (via Tools - Import and Export Settings) the debugger got so fast that I couldn't keep up with it and accidentally pressed F5 on the breakpoint I want to examine.
I hope this helps someone else.

In the end, the disabling of Last Pass in my browser (IE) was what solved this problem for me, but along the way I learned a lot of other things that could have just as easily been the cause. A variety of other valid answers to this question (Some in the various answers on this page) are validated and explained here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudioalm/archive/2015/03/03/make-debugging-faster-with-visual-studio.aspx
This article explained that this F10 slowdown can be from having various diagnostic windows and toolbars open, Symbol loading issues, etc. and also explained what to do about debug slowdowns in general. It was an eye opening education that I think will continue to help me in the future should the F10 slowdown rear it's head again.

In my case it was the Call Stack window (Visual Studio 15.9.13) that caused the lag!
Even when I stepped over a very simple line like ++i; it took around 1-2 seconds until the debugger stepped over to the next line. Closing the Call Stack window or hiding it fixed the lag for me immediately.

Related

Pressing <ALT>+<ARROW_KEYS> in Visual Studio editor writes single ASCII character

I am using VS2013 as my IDE and ever since I installed it acts very oddly when pressing ALT and any of the ARROW keys. I use ALT+LEFT and ALT+RIGHT to navigate backward/forward which works in principal but once VS completes the jump it writes out a single character.
This is before the jump:
This is after the jump/after pressing ALT+LEFT:
Those are the characters that are being written:
ALT+UP: ◘
ALT+RIGHT: ♠
ALT+DOWN: ☻
ALT+LEFT: ♦
I am using VS2013 at work as well all the time and I have never seen this before. I know that pressing ALT+NUMPAD_KEYS produces ASCII characters but why is that happening for my arrow keys and only in VS? Apparently ALT+UP for me is the same as pressing ALT+6 (http://www.irongeek.com/alt-numpad-ascii-key-combos-and-chart.html). I actually swapped out my keyboard to see if its got anything to do with that. No joy.
Any ideas?
Update 1:
Looks like this fellow has a similar issue but with Eclipse on Windows:
https://superuser.com/questions/668394/turn-off-alt-numeric-keypad-ascii-symbol-insertion
Sadly no answers to his post.
Update 2/Solution:
As per the comment of 'Hans Passant' I found a solution. See below for details.
I have found the cause thanks to Hans Passant.
I did a diagnostic boot and discovered the issue even then still persisted. I then went on to kill all remaining processes until I struck gold:
With this process gone ALT+ARROW_KEYS don't trigger ASCII symbol insertion anymore. I ended up doing two things in total to get rid of this process:
Reinstalled .NET Framework 4.5.1
Renamed/Removed this file: C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\RegSvcs.exe
On booting into Windows there are neither errors pertaining to that particular executable nor have I noticed any other malfunctions. Just to be sure, I ran a couple of virus/malware removal tools. They all came up with no threats.

visual studio 2010 Step Into function doesn't work properly

Anyone else having issues with using F11 to step into code?
Until about an hour ago, I was able to perfectly step through code in both C# and C++ projects with ease, but now I suddenly have to press F11 at least 10 times before it will goto the next line. It's not even an issue of lag, as pressing and waiting has no result, it literally has to be hit 10 times every time I want to step into code. The same applies to the button on the GUI.
It started after playing with the Immediate and Command Window's (which are really useful by the way), I didn't use any commands that dealt with stepping into code, just commands for starting and stopping debugging.
Could I have accidentally enabled a "Make debugging retarded" option?
Googled everywhere for a solution, seems everyones had F11 problems but nothing like this, so any help is greatly appreciated

Disable DevExpress / VassistX by default?

Is there any way to prevent start/load of DevExpress and/or Vissual assist?
Even if disabling it's up'n running the next time.
When using a limited cpu larger projects sometimes freezes everything for a bunch of minutes each time you forget to disable (and seems like I forget it each time).
Tried both out and one of them could be a nice contribute, if disabled by default.
I cannot tell you about VAssist, but automatic loading of CodeRush is controlled by the DevExpress--> Options-->Core-->Startup-->Load manually option.
I couldn't find the Startup option under Core; till I changed the Level to Expert from New User
To load it up again, you can go to Tools->Load DevExpress.
To bring up the options page, do Ctrl+Alt+Shift+O and change it to expert mode in bottom left pane.

Debug problem occurs sometimes in Silverlight when in Chrome

I am using a dedicated test SL web application that hosts SL object I am debugging.
I am debugging using basic F5 and use browser Google Chrome. Sometimes a bug happens, how I reproduce it.
I was running build->debug like 100 times already, but then I made a mistake that caused StackOverflowException and happened in main page constructor and afterwards when I rebuild and hit F5 it says no symbols have been loaded. Note that NOTHING has changed , I use the same 2 buttons combinations rebuild solution-> start debugging.
In order for debug to continue to attach I need to close XAML main page , open it again (in visual stuido) and hit rebuild ->f5 again, afterwards it works fine. (found this solution after SOME time)
I am not sure whats bugged but it appears to be a bug somewhere in SL to me.
Question is - whats going on maybe someone can explain.
This sounds more like Chrome's isolation mode for plug-ins. Generally speaking it's best to manually attach to the Chrome process that is running Silverlight (which isn't always one VS attaches to when pressing F5).
Actually error was super simple, I wasn't understanding how "exactly" xap works, it was a little more magical to me than it is. I just needed to rebuild & clear cache in browser ( chrome in this case) to attach successfully. For some reason I thought that local version doesn't require clear cache call.
Actually chrome is pretty bad to debug silverlight so I recommend IE for this sole purpose, sometimes debugger simply fails to attach to chrome, in that case you usually need to do this by attach to process - choose chrome with silverlight name there.

Visual Studio debugger problem

In Visual Studio 2008, after debugging about 1-2 minutes, when I press F10 (Step Over), the debugger hangs and Visual Studio freezes for 5-10 seconds and then go to the next line. Then whatever I do (F10, F5, F11, etc), the debugger continues the execution as if i pressed F5 and all my forms that I was debugging close. I always have to restart the application.
It is very hard to reproduce and it does not occurs every time I want to debug something. Does anyone has a solution ?
EDIT : I've managed to reproduce my problem with the following code :
static void Main(string[] args)
{
XElement e = new XElement("root");
Test(e, 0);
}
static void Test(XElement parentElement, int i)
{
if (i < 1000)
{
XElement element = new XElement("element");
parentElement.Add(element);
Test(element, ++i);
}
}
You need to put a conditional breakpoint on the line "XElement element = new XElement("element");" with the condition "i == 999". Then start the program, wait 2-3 seconds and put normal breakpoint on the line "parentElement.Add(element);". Now VisualStudio freezes and it is impossible to debug. In a WinForm application, it closes all the forms that are open after pressing F10.
But I found that if I disable the debug option "Call string conversion function on objects in variables windows" in "Tools -> Options -> Debugging", I can debug. It is slow but at least VisualStudio doesn't freeze. Does anyone know why it is doing this? Because I don't want to disable this option, it's really annoying to debug without it.
I also noticed that if I only put a breakpoint at the end of the main method, the code runs really fast compare to having a conditional breakpoint in the recursive method.
Try deleting the solution user options file (.suo) where the debug/breakpoint information is stored. You will lose all solution user settings, such as breakpoint locations. When you have "funny" debugging incidents, this is the first thing to try because this file can get corrupted.
If this does not solve the problem, then you have something else going on, such as threading issues, excessive memory fragmentation, garbage collection issues, dispose/finalize issues, and so on.
I found the answer to this question on another Stackoverflow thread. There's a MS hotfix for this issue.
I've found that I get slowdowns like this whenever I have added remote unc shares that don't exist to the list of symbol directories.
Try going to Tools -> Options -> Debugging -> Symbols and make sure that all of the directories in that list actually exist.
I have no idea how that would cause your program to continue after that point however.
Not sure I've ever run into this, but if I were you, if you haven't, delete your bin folder, and rebuild your project. Then run a clean solution to be safe. Sometimes, funky things can happen with your PDB's getting out of date -- so you need to clear them out.
Also, if your calling outside assemblies, remove them and reattach them to make sure you have the most up-to-date assemblies.
I have had this exact same problem just as you described. The MS Hotfix addressed the issue and now I install this hotfix whenever I do a fresh 2008 VS install.
Please download the fix from this link
http://support2.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=957912
I know this is an old thread but this occurred when debugging an Excel add-in in my case.
Problem was that my breakpoint was in a background thread and in my watch window I had an old check on the ActiveWorkbook in Excel. That call just like many others should only occur on Excel's main thread.
Once I removed that watch, it debugged just fine again.

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