IntelliSense extremely slow, unusable

[msallent]

Issue Type: Performance Issue

Tried disabling all extensions, doing a fresh install, and installing the Insider version. IntelliSense still takes more than 3 seconds to suggest anything, even taking more than 30 seconds to remove the red underline after changing some code quickly.

I have the same VS Code setup on my Windows machine (i7 7700K + 16GB RAM) and works perfectly, everything is instant as it should.

I don't think it's a hardware issue as this is a new MacBook Pro that I just bought, but I can't figure out how to solve this and it's driving me crazy.

I'm working on a Gatsby project and whenever I type anything, IntelliSense takes more than 3 seconds to suggest anything.

Slow IntelliSense demonstration

VS Code version: Code 1.33.1 (51b0b28, 2019-04-11T08:22:55.268Z)
OS version: Darwin x64 18.5.0

System Info

Item	Value
CPUs	Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-8259U CPU @ 2.30GHz (8 x 2300)
GPU Status	2d_canvas: enabled checker_imaging: disabled_off flash_3d: enabled flash_stage3d: enabled flash_stage3d_baseline: enabled gpu_compositing: enabled multiple_raster_threads: enabled_on native_gpu_memory_buffers: enabled rasterization: enabled surface_synchronization: enabled_on video_decode: enabled webgl: enabled webgl2: enabled
Load (avg)	2, 2, 1
Memory (System)	8.00GB (0.49GB free)
Process Argv	-psn_0_254014
Screen Reader	no
VM	0%

Process Info

CPU %	Mem MB	   PID	Process
   17	   106	   696	code main
    0	    90	   699	   gpu-process
    0	    82	   730	   shared-process
    0	   262	   756	   window (Hero.js — nare-web)
    0	     0	   757	     /bin/bash -l
    0	    41	   760	     watcherService
    0	    98	   761	     extensionHost
    0	   524	   795	       electron_node tsserver.js 
    0	    74	   797	         electron_node typingsInstaller.js typesMap.js 
    0	    74	   799	   window (Issue Reporter)
    0	     0	   800	   /bin/ps -ax -o pid=,ppid=,pcpu=,pmem=,command=

Workspace Info

|  Window (Hero.js — nare-web)
|    Folder (nare-web): 567 files
|      File types: jpg(203) webp(135) json(124) js(78) png(14) DS_Store(3)
|                  md(1) prettierrc(1) gitignore(1) mp4(1)
|      Conf files: package.json(1);

Extensions (2)

Extension	Author (truncated)	Version
prettier-vscode	esb	1.9.0
material-icon-theme	PKi	3.7.0

(1 theme extensions excluded)

[BjoernRave]

@msallent yea, try using the 1.32.3 version, everything works fine there. I have no idea why it takes them soo long to fix this issue. It's already like this for me since two weeks and it's such an integral part of the software

[RMacfarlane]

This sounds like DefinitelyTyped/DefinitelyTyped#34391 (comment). If you have @types/styled-components installed, please upgrade it to the latest version

[msallent]

Hi @RMacfarlane, thanks for chiming in.

I don't have neither @types/styled-components installed nor typescript.

This is my list of installed dependencies:

"dependencies": {
"babel-plugin-styled-components": "^1.10.0",
"gatsby": "^2.3.25",
"gatsby-image": "^2.0.39",
"gatsby-plugin-manifest": "^2.0.29",
"gatsby-plugin-offline": "^2.0.25",
"gatsby-plugin-react-helmet": "^3.0.12",
"gatsby-plugin-sharp": "^2.0.35",
"gatsby-plugin-styled-components": "^3.0.7",
"gatsby-source-filesystem": "^2.0.29",
"gatsby-source-instagram-all": "^2.0.5",
"gatsby-transformer-sharp": "^2.1.18",
"react": "^16.8.6",
"react-dom": "^16.8.6",
"react-helmet": "^5.2.0",
"react-scroll": "^1.7.11",
"react-slick": "^0.24.0",
"slick-carousel": "^1.8.1",
"styled-components": "^4.2.0"
},
"devDependencies": {
"prettier": "^1.17.0"
},

I guess the issue is project related as I just tried opening a React Native project and IntelliSense worked as expected there.

[ethankore]

@msallent yea, try using the 1.32.3 version, everything works fine there. I have no idea why it takes them soo long to fix this issue. It's already like this for me since two weeks and it's such an integral part of the software

Thank you for pointing this out. I have no idea why I haven't tried it myself. Works like a charm. :)

[vaunus]

Can confirm I experienced the same issue with 1.33.1 and I disabled all extensions to eliminate those as the cause. Rolling back to 1.32.3 fixed the problem as suggested.

For me this was occurring in a React JavaScript ES6 project. If I for example added a new unused import it would take a good 4 seconds for IntelliSense to realise the imported variable was unused and to highlight it accordingly. After rolling back this is near instant.

[msallent]

Can confirm as well, downgraded to version 1.32.3 and everything seems to be working fine.

Thank you for the suggestion @BjoernRave, hope this gets fixed in a future release.

[vaunus]

@msallent do we need to keep this issue open so the VSCode team look into what the problem is? I see you've closed it but rolling back to a previous version isn't a resolution.

[msallent]

Yeah, you're right @vaunus. I'll reopen the issue and hope someone from the team is able to help.

[dashdashzako]

Isn't this issue the same as #72616? If it is, @msallent could you please confirm which version introduced the problem?
That would be great!

[tbredin]

Experiencing this as well — I have just installed VSCode (Version 1.33.1) on a brand new MacBook Pro (Mojave 10.14.4 (18E224)), and am editing SCSS style blocks inside single file Vue components. The only extension I have installed so far is Vetur.

For example, typing ml and then hitting tab should produce margin-left: ;, but I'm consistently getting margin: ; instead because its too slow to react to my keypress.

Have checked my settings, and the delay on IntelliSense was set to 10, but even changing this to 0 provides this very slow response. I am loving VSCode, but this feature is unusable for me at the moment, hope it gets fixed soon 👍

[jsardev]

I've also encountered this issue and started to dig around to find the cause of this. What I've found was that the problem is mostly caused by the ts-server which for some reason parses all my node_modules. This is just a hypothesis as I didn't dig any further, but maybe it can be some kind of clue. My issue is right here.

[mjbvz]

Please test this again with the latest VS Code insiders build (and make sure you are using typescript 3.5-insiders in your workspace)

There were a few upstream perf fixes, including microsoft/TypeScript#31400, that may have addressed this

---

@bredin Please file your issue against the vetur extension

[vaunus]

@mjbvz the issue I was having as described above appears to be fixed in the latest build, however I am using JavaScript ES6 not Typescript so would suggest waiting for @msallent and others to report back as well.

[msallent]

@mjbvz latest insiders build works perfectly even though I'm not using typescript at all.

April update (1.34) seems to still have this issue so I'll keep using 1.32.3 until this is resolved.

[steabert]

For me intellisense with typescript in 1.34.0 is unusably slow, in 1.35.0 it's normal again.

[mjbvz]

Closing as fixed in 1.35 / insiders

Likely fixed by microsoft/TypeScript#31400

[eclectic-coding]

@mjbvz Not fixed here. VSC has been miserably slow since 1.32.

[chungweileong94]

Not only that the IntelliSense is slow, the ts/js server often stop working for some reason, and I have to manually restart the ts server or reload the window, just to get it works again.

[eclectic-coding]

For what it is worth, the Code Insiders has gotten better over the last few days.

[BjoernRave]

@polishedwp @chungweileong94 maybe check the developer tools of vscode, in help -> Toggle Developer Tools. I found out that an extension called Auto-Rename-Tag was causing the problems

[eclectic-coding]

@BjoernRave Thanks, didn't know about the Developer Tools but that is not the case for me. It started with the TS upgrade after 1.32.1 and I have turned off all extensions and added one by one with no discernable difference. It is getting better but still a long way to go.

[ProTip]

For anyone still experiences issues with this try disabling auto import suggestions. In my testing just importing from the aws-sdk would then introduce a 2+ second delay on type suggestions to everything.