very slow compile all of a sudden

if nothing has changed software wise in your setting maybe it's a hardware issue? have you changed any components recently?

compiling is a very cpu heavy task. what's the cpu usage when compiling?

I've seen this if the system is running other things that are cpu intensive,  Things like VSC, chrome and maybe something else are doing something.  I'll restart VSC, chrome, etc, and the problem goes away.  There's in fact one site I won't visit while I compile.

Win11

I have not changed any HW, and when checking CPU load in task manager, it's around 20% .... so I assume that should not be a problem.

When compiling, does the compiler use internet connection? It's a company PC I'm using, just wondering if some IT policy changes can have had an impact?

It shouldn't use internet. And unfortunately company policy change can cause these kind of things. For example if there's an antivirus that checks all new files, then it might be an issue with all the intermediate files the compiler creates under the bin/ folder. We have this issue in my work.

Sigh! Do you have input on how I can figure out what cause the problem? Is there a way to redirect the temp folder? wondering if e.g. having it on a mem stick helps ...  

Btw, bonus info: compile is slow, also from the command line. When in Visual Studio, the compile take 3-5 min. That is, the time before the sim loads and pops up. But, from the sim window shows, it takes a further 2-3 min before the simulation actually begins.... not sure of this info helps, it's really strange! 

I've also noticed that *some* of my projects take an unusually long time to compile, although I haven't been able to work out why - is it some kind of asset that is slow to prepare? Not sure. Do you experience the same slow compile time when building an empty project?

About the simulation, I've observed that the VSCode adapter can get really stuck with the simulator; I became so frustrated with how slow and flakey it was that I ended up building a more robust process around starting the simulator.

In my work computer I can't even plug in a USB device :) So if company policy is to blame then probably no, and even if yes you'll need a good USB drive plugged into the right USB socket to be fast 

Hr. Mortensen said:

wondering if e.g. having it on a mem stick helps ...  

In the past I've built on a USB 3 stick (just regular flash, not a removable SSD, but it was considered a fast USB stick ~8 years ago), and it actually slowed down Monkey C compiles by an order of magnitude.

I think building on a spinning HDD would've been faster.