GitHub Desktop has begun running slow

Describe the bug

A month or so ago, GitHub Desktop was snappy and great to use, but since then has been running very slowly. It's not the network because even rendering screens locally is very slow and jerky. Even the 'About' dialog took several seconds to appear.

Version & OS

GitHub version 2.3.1, OS is Windows 10,

Steps to reproduce the behavior

1. Go to Github.
2. Wait for the current repo to refresh
3. Perform any function (including Help->About)
4. Everything is extremely slow

Expected behavior

For GitHub Desktop to return to the response times I have experienced for months up to a month ago.

Actual behavior

Refresh of the current repo (for example) can take 20 seconds, whereas it used to take less than 5 seconds.

Screenshots

Add screenshots to help explain your problem, if applicable.

Logs

2020-02-27.desktop.production.log
2020-02-26.desktop.production.log

Additional context

None that I know of.

[billygriffin]

@MattRobinsonGenesys Sorry you're experiencing this, that sounds really frustrating. Would you be able to share logs from a month ago or whenever things were working faster, if you have them? A comparison of a few operations might help us diagnose.

Thanks @billygriffin.

The oldest log available is the 11th February, which may not predate this issue:
2020-02-11.desktop.production.log

Hi @billygriffin

Here's the largest log I have. It may provide some insight over a wide range of activities:
2020-02-21.desktop.production.log

[steveward]

Thanks for sharing those logs @MattRobinsonGenesys. It does look like Git operations are taking longer to complete than they should. A couple of debugging questions:

• Are you running any antivirus/security software on this machine that could be interfering with GitHub Desktop?
• Are you storing any repositories on a mapped network drive?

Hi @steveward.

• Yes there's antivirus software, but I don't control it. It's a corporate laptop. I don't think anything significant has changed in the last few months because no other aspects of the system have noticeably slowed down recently.

• My repos are all on local drives.

[steveward]

@MattRobinsonGenesys thanks for the update. Since you are on a corporate laptop with antivirus software that would be my first guess as to the cause of these performance issues. It's likely due to updates in GitHub Desktop, and not any specific system changes on your end. Unfortunately there isn't much we can do about this other than have you try temporarily disabling the software to see if it helps with this issue. Is that a possibility?

Thanks for your efforts on this, @steveward. I appreciate it! I understand there's often nothing anyone can do with this kind of issue. No harm in asking, right?

[pragmatta]

I experienced this just now, i.e. Github Desktop started to work a lot slow. When I compare logs from today and yesterday, it was updated from 2.6.4 to 2.6.6

2021-03-11T06:41:13.833Z - info: [ui] Executing getRemotes: git remote -v (took 1.987s)
2021-03-11T06:41:14.952Z - info: [ui] launching: 2.6.4 (Windows 10.0.18363)
2021-03-11T06:41:14.962Z - info: [ui] execPath: 'C:\Users\mkiviniemi\AppData\Local\GitHubDesktop\app-2.6.4\GitHubDesktop.exe'
2021-03-11T06:41:16.327Z - info: [ui] Executing getCommits: git log fb4e15869a842d3a3757abbd4faf0cd8dba59da1 --date=raw --max-count=1 -z --format=%H%x00%h%x00%s%x00%b%x00%an <%ae> %ad%x00%cn <%ce> %cd%x00%P%x00%(trailers:unfold,only)%x00%D --no-show-signature --no-color -- (took 1.130s)
2021-03-11T06:41:16.647Z - info: [ui] Executing installGlobalLFSFilter: git lfs install --skip-repo (took 2.801s)
2021-03-11T06:41:20.814Z - info: [ui] [BranchPruner] Last prune took place in 5 hours - skipping
2021-03-11T06:45:11.359Z - info: [ui] [AppStore.withAuthenticatingUser] account found for repository: ecomshared - RationalMatta (has token)
2021-03-11T06:45:15.375Z - info: [ui] Executing fetch: git -c credential.helper= -c protocol.version=2 fetch --progress --prune origin (took 3.753s)

2021-03-12T07:05:38.890Z - info: [ui] [BranchPruner] Last prune took place in 7 hours - skipping
2021-03-12T07:05:42.035Z - info: [ui] launching: 2.6.6 (Windows 10.0.18363)
2021-03-12T07:05:42.055Z - info: [ui] execPath: 'C:\Users\mkiviniemi\AppData\Local\GitHubDesktop\app-2.6.6\GitHubDesktop.exe'
2021-03-12T07:05:56.876Z - info: [ui] Executing getRemotes: git remote -v (took 19.145s)
2021-03-12T07:05:58.353Z - info: [ui] Executing getStatus: git --no-optional-locks status --untracked-files=all --branch --porcelain=2 -z (took 19.810s)
2021-03-12T07:05:58.799Z - info: [ui] Executing getRemotes: git remote -v (took 19.880s)
2021-03-12T07:05:59.583Z - info: [ui] Executing getStatus: git --no-optional-locks status --untracked-files=all --branch --porcelain=2 -z (took 19.807s)
2021-03-12T07:06:02.009Z - info: [ui] Executing getRemotes: git remote -v (took 19.546s)

I am also on a corporate laptop with anti-virus, but unlikely that something changed between today and yesterday.

[pragmatta]

Also downgrading to 2.6.4 helps.

[pragmatta]

Reconfirmed when the autoupdater that I forgot to turn off went to 2.6.6, it became slow again.