Freezing, slow on (somewhat) large files lately
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Over the past few versions, maybe two, three months back I’ve started noticing a lot of issues with larger files…
I normally have maybe 10-15 files open, but none of them very large (max 200-300 kb).Over the years using N++ I feel it has been good at handling large files, even up to 50 MB files has been “editable” but lately it is struggling with even 1 MB files…
Just now opening a 1.3 MB XML file, it takes about 20 seconds to open the file and for N++ to become “active” again, after that editing a few elements in the XML and scrolling through it is no issue, but then saving the file again takes several minutes, and most often it completely freezes and I have to kill it and reopen it again (where teh changes has not been saved).
Running v8.5.6 64-bit version on a Dell XPS 17 with Windows 11 (latest updates).
I’ve also tried to disable (by removing) the XML plugin and all other “custom installed” plugins but that didn’t change the issue…
Any suggestion on what I can try?
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1MB files should not be “large” or causing significant slowdown.
Please download an official portable-zip Notepad++, and try to open the same file and see if you have the same “slowness” with that portable edition. If so, then my guess is that some other application or hardware issue (virus scanner, network drive, or something) is slowing it down, rather than it being Notepad++'s fault. If the portable is fast but your installed copy is slow, then the problem is in the configuration of your installed copy – either some plugin that didn’t get properly disabled during your experiments, or some weird setting that I cannot think of off the top of my head.
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@AndersWa I’m on Windows 10, so I don’t know if the details might be different for Windows 11. You could try opening Task Manager first, going to the Processes tab and clicking on the CPU column to sort that highest first, then open the file in Notepad++ and see what rises to the top. Also try sorting by Disk. If something unexpected rises to the top, that’s a hint as to where to look. (Remember that modern CPUs are multithreaded, but many tasks are not; so the CPU can be a bottleneck even if it’s only 100 / number-of-virtual-cores percent. The Performance tab, and then the Open Resource Monitor link at the bottom of that tab, can help you figure out if something is a choke point.) I’m not saying Notepad++ couldn’t be the problem, but if you’ve checked with all extensions disabled, it’s likely that something else is interfering.
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@AndersWa said in Freezing, slow on (somewhat) large files lately:
Just now opening a 1.3 MB XML file, it takes about 20 seconds to open the file and for N++ to become “active” again, after that editing a few elements in the XML and scrolling through it
Large files and syntax highlighting does not work well together.
Syntax highlighting is designed for hand crafted files. The highlighting help the writer. It is costly to compute but the cost is unnoticeable on modern CPUs for a few thousands of line.
Large files are auto generated. The generator does not need syntax highlighting. The cost of highlighting 100 thousand lines and re-highlighting them for every edit is huge.
Change the language to Normal text (disable highlighting).
