Extremely slow DW file loading and editing response

[ceirion_8533]

Hello
I am having performance issues with Dreamweaver that has been going on for weeks. Namely extremely slow response to loading-file-to-scroll times and extremely long response times for editing.

Typically loading a small standard html file takes 40 seconds, 20 seconds of which is a white screen in the editor and the other 20 seconds waiting for the mouse to be able to scroll. Then I enter a single letter and another 20 second lag before the cursor updates. It is unusable for development work. I have been using DW for fifteen years on my site and it has never performed so poorly.

I have 16 GB RAM and the total computer typically uses 11 GB with DW taking up 3.5 GB

Here is what I have tried according to the forum and AI assistance

1. Do not have live view enabled - I never have, so irrelevant
2. Switch off code hinting - no effect
3. Switch off site cache in the site console - no effect, bad with and without cache

4. Cleared site cache and rebuild - done several times - no effect
4. Check latest update - Adobe creative says it is up to date

[Ben M · Accepted solution]

Since it's only happened in recent weeks has anything changed recently? Is the site located on the local computer or a network drive? Being that the computer is using up 14.5GB of 16GB of ram, it's possible as well that if something else changed or now uses more memory that your memory may be at its limits and it may warrant an upgrade.

To the points you have tried:

1. Are you saying that you are working entirely in Code View if you are not using split/live view?

2. I wouldn't see this having a major impact.

3/4. Have you reset preferences or only rebuilt cache? If you have not tried resetting preferences try this: https://helpx.adobe.com/dreamweaver/kb/restore-preferences-dreamweaver.html

5. DW hasn't been updated in quite some time as it is in minimal maintenance mode so I doubt if the problem is recent that it was caused by a DW update. As such considering alternatives may be the best route to go depending on your development needs.

[ceirion_8533]

I followed the reset preferences solution and it seems to have worked. Thanks for your help. Hopefully the problem won't come back again

[ceirion_8533]

Update to my acceptance of the answer. Note my web site has 20,000+ pages and so when that lot gets parsed by DW it creates a 3-4 Gb RAM memory profile.

Yes resetting the workspace worked, but I did not know why.

And now I know why. I fired up Task Manager on one screen and had DW on the other. Whenever the DW scroll stopped working in code view or I got the blank code view screen, I had a look at the task manager status.

I found two logic conditions OR and AND. These are the conditions. IF CPU load > 25% THEN dreamweaver just stalls OR IF Memory > 93% then it stalls and of course if both is true, stalled DW.

What is happening is as follows

MEMORY
94% memory triggers Windows to start using virtual memory - an extremely slow, hard disk based, last resort to keep the computer system working. Kudos to Windows to deal with low memory. But expect a huge slow down in response time to any user interaction (scrolling, editing). And that is exactly what happens.

CPU
25% Use. This sounds like it should cope perfectly well. But within any operating system (Windows, Linux, Unix) there is a thing called the 'Scheduler'. Its job is to allocate CPU cycles to all the current processes running. And at 25%+ Dreamweaver simply does not get enough CPU cycles to run smoothly. I don't know why DW is so sensitive to this fairly modest CPU load.

Note that this cpu schedule load is dependent on all the other software running on your system - Google Chrome for example may take a Gigabyte of memory, or an anti-malware suite may hog the CPU cycles for a bit. So you get a very annoying random slow down to your day-job on Dreamweaver when in fact the system is at its outer limits in terms of cpu and memory.

Solutions

My immediate solution:
1. If it starts to play up - reset back to 'standard workspace' under menu item so that it uses less RAM
2. Close down all other memory hogs - Google Chrome or other browsers

Longer term solutions:

1. Make Dreamweaver less of of a memory and cpu cycle hog. I have seen a solution to revert the application back to a pre-2015 (non-bracket) version using the Creative Suite, but I do not really want to go back ten years of DW development simply to fit into those RAM and CPU conditions.

2. Install more memory - obvious solution

3. Buy a more powerful computer - my computer is not that old - 2020 and it cost me £1000+ so I am not keen on yet another purchase. But it seems it is not enough to cope with this new Dreamweaver. Here it is

Built: Dell system year: 2020
Processor: Intel i7-7700 CPU - 3.6GHz, 4 core, 8 logical processors
Operating system: Windows 10 Pro - version: 10.0.1905 Build 1904
RAM: 16 GB
Secondary storage: 4TB

[Nancy OShea]

20 thousand pages is HUGE!  You should be using a CMS like WordPress to manage it.

I run a product website that contains thousands of individual items. But the site is dynamically driven from a database, so there are only about 15 physical web pages. The rest is created on the fly by the web server from content stored in the database. The site is fast & friendly. And there are no latency problems in Dreamweaver.

[Nancy OShea]

• Which version of Dreamweaver?
• Which operating system?
• Is your local site folder defined and residing on your primary hard drive?
• Have you tried Restoring Preferences?

https://helpx.adobe.com/dreamweaver/kb/restore-preferences-dreamweaver.html

[netposerw]

In the past month my DW is close to being unusable. Typing is slow, double-clicking a word (string) is painful. I double-click and nothing happens or the entire line is highlighted. Selecting lines of code lags (seconds). Typing in any way is delayed.

I cleaned out the cache and tried every thing except an uninstall > install. 

Moved to VS code in the mean time. 

[Nancy OShea]

I cleaned out the cache and tried every thing except an uninstall > install. 
Moved to VS code in the mean time. 

By netposerw

===========

Did you Restore Preferences? 

https://helpx.adobe.com/dreamweaver/kb/restore-preferences-dreamweaver.html

Did you wipe old DW files off your system with the Adobe Cleaner Tool before reinstalling?

https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/kb/cc-cleaner-tool-installation-problems.html

[netposerw]

Restoring preferences did nothing. 
It's as if the keyboard buffer fills up after 3 or 5 keystrokes. No other app on my system does this. I tested a few different USB and wireless keyboards and the keyboard on my laptop.  It feels like there is so much latency in DW. 

I do not want to run the cleaner tool on my system at the moment. 

[Ben M]

What OS? Specs?

[netposerw]

It's just typing and selecting. A task that a 20 yr old PC could do as well. 
If hold down the "/" key and it types 4 or 5 slashes, pauses for a scecond, a few more appear etc. On my other PCs holding down the same key would have typed 30 or 40 slashes per second.  Trying to hightlight text and typing over it is also and issue where some chars get typed and others stay. 

DW is unusable at this point. 

If you want to know I'm on a Dell 5690 (laptop),  i7 Ultra, 64 GB RAM. It has no issues with any of the other CC apps.
This started a couple of months ago. I downgraded DW from the latest (21.4) to 20.21 and nothing changed. 

[Ben M]

If this only happened in the last month, it's safe to say a DW update didn't cause this as it's been over a year since the last update. But we had to ask your specs as the original thread you replied to also consisted of a user using 75% of their memory to boot up which risks DW running slow because there was not enough memory.

Is your site stored locally on your hard drive or stored elsewhere (external hdd, cloud storage, etc.)? As old as DW is, it has always played better with locally stored sites as opposed to externally stored ones. Also as this happened recently it may also be worth noting if there was a new installation or OS update. There was an issue not long back on the Mac side that was introduced when an OS update was pushed by Apple and was only resolved in a later OS update. 

[Nancy OShea]

Does latency occur in ALL sites and ALL files, or just certain ones?

[netposerw]

The issue is with any file on any site. It's a KB/mouse (buffer ?) issue. Opening files, uploading/downloading, switching sites is normal. No slow downs. Just typing and selecting. I tried with a USB KB, wireless KB, and the build in laptop KB. 

[Nancy OShea]

In which View are you working?  CODE | SPLIT | LIVE or DESIGN

Try toggling from LIVE to DESIGN with Ctrl/Cmnd + Shift + F11.

DESIGN view uses less resources while editing. It's my preferred mode for working with scripts.

LIVE view is for checking styles & layouts, but it uses more graphics memory and requires constant screen refresh (F5).

[netposerw]

I only use "Code View" but did switch to "Live View" and typing and selecting there is normal. No lag and no issues.