Always getting the 'Microsoft Visual Studio is busy' message

2015-05-22

Question

_{Friday, May 22, 2015 2:37 PM}

Hello All,

Not sure where do go with this. I have a solutions with ~65 projects, some solutions with less and often, I get the Microsoft Visual Studio is busy message as a notification. I ran process monitor but that really didn't tell me much. This is killing my performance, sometimes I have wait 45 seconds before I get control back. Any one???

Thanks

Ralph

All replies (15)

_{Sunday, May 24, 2015 10:17 AM | 1 vote}

Hi Ralph,

There are some tools we can use to help diagnose the cause of this. Are you interested in pursuing this, or did you just want to make the issue known here? (On another thread, I also recommended you can use the Connect site to report issues like this:
Microsoft Connect: https://connect.microsoft.com/intro/?wa=wsignin1.0)

To diagnose this, we can try gathering some diagnostics that may help identify the bottleneck. Is your project distributed at all over a network; any references, source files, target folders, etc. on network shares?
Are you familiar with the Process Monitor tool? Process Monitor:http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx. With this, you can watch all file and registry accesses in hopes of identifying what, if any, such actions may be related to the delay.
Also, you can use the Task Manager (or Process Explorer) to launch the debugger against devenv.exe itself. In this way, you can get an idea of what threads are hanging the process.

When it hangs like this, is it a "busy hang" where the CPU is active, or is it an "idle hang" where the CPU is not active, and the process is likely waiting for some external event or other system object to be signaled?

_{Monday, May 25, 2015 5:24 AM | 1 vote}

Thanks for DiogoCosta1998's help.

Hi Ralph,

I think DiogoCosta1998's suggestion would be helpful for this issue.

In addition, if there are many projects in the same solutions, sometimes it would also impact the VS performance. My suggestion is that if possible, you could create several solutions for them.

Of course, if your windows runs for a long time, generally we'd better to restart it.

Best Regards,

Jack

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_{Tuesday, May 26, 2015 12:55 PM}

I will be very happy to aggressively pursue this. Per my post, I have been running Process Monitor but not sure what I am looking for. When VS hangs, no other process are, ie, Windows is fine. Task Monitor shows no CPU spike. Also that link shows me an error...

The system has encountered an unexpected error. We apologize for the inconvenience. The issue will be addressed as quickly as possible.

If this error continues, click the Help link at the top of the page to report the issue and include this error ID in your e-mail: 1c8547d7-825d-4d9b-92d7-b5281de5d7e1

Microsoft Connect welcome page.

_{Tuesday, May 26, 2015 12:57 PM}

Thanks Jack, I could separate them but I read VS is suppose to handle > 200 - and they are all related. If I can't find a solution, then I would have split it up but that is work I rather not do. Additionally, this project will grow over time so I am worried.

-r

_{Wednesday, May 27, 2015 3:03 AM | 1 vote}

Hi Ralph.Krausse,

Maybe you could test it with the following steps.

(1) Please delete .suo file in your solution folder, and then re-open your solution, check it again, so we could make sure that it is not the project loaded issue.

(2) Create a blank solution, and then add all projects to this new blank solution, so we could make sure that whether it is the previous solution's issue.

(3)To make sure that it is not the add-ins' issue, please run your VS in safe mode.

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms241278.aspx

(4) Please also reset your VS settings.

(5) Clean the temp files in your windows/VS.

If still no help, please also tell me the real windows configurations, you know that maybe it would impact the performances. So you could also test it in a new machine which has the better configurations.

Of course, I know that a solution could have much more projects, but if every project is really huge, I doubt that it would impact your VS performance more or less, and different solutions for projects would be better to manage for you, so maybe it would be better for you if you could create several solutions for them.

Sincerely,

Jack

_{Thursday, May 28, 2015 12:44 PM}

Thanks Jack - working though the list. I will reply when I have more to report...

_{Thursday, May 28, 2015 9:05 PM}

I have followed 1 through 5 and have used VS for the day. It is better but still freezes more than I think it should. I just created a new solution, with 3 projects in it. Again better, but still have issues. This doesn't occur with my machine at home. BTW. Core i5 with 16GB ram.

What are the next steps?

Thanks

Ralph

_{Friday, May 29, 2015 6:26 AM}

Hi Ralph,

Which VS version did you use?

>>This doesn't occur with my machine at home. BTW. Core i5 with 16GB ram.

So the same solution worked well in your machine at home, if so, whether your previous machine have the same/better configurations like this one?

Since the same solution worked well in other machine, it means that it is not the projects' issue.

So we would think about the Windows Environment or the VS IDE, for example, the machine' configurations or other third party tools like anti-virus, firewall or others.

Best Regards,

Jack

_{Friday, May 29, 2015 12:26 PM}

As for at home, just mean the environment. I can't take this project home because it is work. I have large projects at home and it doesn't seem affected. I would agree, it could be this machine but how do I figure out what is wrong. The odd part is that the VS issues started well after all the 'other' software was added. BTW, this is VS2013.

It wasn't clear to me how to use the Process Monitoring tool to figure out what was happening to resolved this.

Thanks

Ralph

_{Monday, June 1, 2015 3:10 AM}

Hi Ralph,

>>It wasn't clear to me how to use the Process Monitoring tool to figure out what was happening to resolved this.

For this issue, maybe you could know more about this tool here:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-ca/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396

But for this issue, if just your windows has this issue, maybe you could think about your Windows System or others. I doubt that it would be not the VS IDE issue, I mean that one possible reason is that your windows met an performance issue which impacted the VS IDE's running.

Do you view your task manager? Maybe other processes or tools which spend high CPU or memory.

If still no help, since it is hard for us to really repro the performance issue,

To get the issue confirmed and diagnose by product team, would you please create connect report for it? You will get email notification for update. http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/CreateFeedback.aspx

If you submit it, please share me the link here, so we could get the latest information from the connect report experts.

Best Regards,

Jack

_{Wednesday, June 3, 2015 1:33 PM}

Yes, I know of that link and have had process monitor for a long time but again, there aren't really instruction on how to use it WITH VS. What am I looking for? When I do run it and VS hangs, PM still shows 'stuff'. But how do I use that to figure out what is hanging. Also since VS is hanging, is MS logging WHAT is hanging since it knows it is hanging? That would great to know.

I totally understand this is difficult at best to debug.

Lastly, when VS hangs, nothing else in Windows is hanging, task manager doesn't show cpu or memory spike, everything is running normal.

Does the event viewer log anything?

thx

_{Thursday, June 4, 2015 6:18 AM}

Hi Ralph,

If you really want to analyze and debug the VS crash or hang issue, one idea is that you could collect the dump file, and then submit a feedback here:

http://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/CreateFeedback.aspx

And then you could upload the dump file in your connect report, so it would be helpful for the product team members to troubleshoot and analyze the dump file.

Reference:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/debugger/archive/2009/12/30/what-is-a-dump-and-how-do-i-create-one.aspx

Best Regards,

Jack

_{Thursday, June 4, 2015 8:48 AM}

Hello Diogo,

I don't know if you have set this already, but for selective building you can use the configuration manager

Build -> configuration manager.

You can create more configurations in one solution.

Success
Cor

_{Friday, June 5, 2015 1:19 PM}

Hi Jack,

Per your suggesting, I am uploading dmp file (1.03gb). When I try to submit it, the feedback tool fails and tell me "Your feedback can not be submitted because it included attachments that are over the allowed limit of 512mb per attachment and a 2gb limit for all attachments."

Please advise...

Ralph

_{Monday, June 8, 2015 1:53 AM}

Hi Ralph,

Do you collect the dump file for the solution which included 60 projects? If so, maybe it would be a hug dump file, so maybe you could collect one for few projects.

Or one idea is that you could upload the dump file to the one drive, and then share the link of it in your connect report.

Anyway, if you submit the connect report, please share us the link here, so we could get the latest information from the product team members.

Best Regards,

Jack

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Always getting the 'Microsoft Visual Studio is busy' message

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