What am I doing wrong? (Image Trace)

So I've seen some (fairly old) online videos where using image trace is a breeze. People use really complex photos of buildings and just go image trace and after a few seconds thousands of vectors are created.

now i am trying to trace a simple rasterized halftone effect with shades of grey preset and get warnings, tracing is very slow and AI ultimatelly freezes and I am forced to shut it down.

I am suggested to rasterize the image but its already rasterized. and there is nothing large about it.

I am under the impression there is a switch or toggle somewhere that I am not aware of that is making this a pain for me.