Why is ArcGIS Pro so slow?

[ClintonJenkins1]

I like ArcGIS Pro. It is clearly a step forward in many ways. But why is it so slow for what are very simple things that should be nearly instantaneous. For example, if I want to adjust the symbology of something, ever single step causes the program to whir and think for about ten seconds, even when the layer is turned off! What exactly does it have to think about when the layer is not even rendering?

Almost every action in the program seems to generate some unknown processing demand. I can understand if the map is updating or a tool is running, but it seems to be for everything. This really drags down productivity and leaves me frustrated. If it wasn´t for this, I´d probably start switching to Pro completely. With all these lags though, it is impossible.

None of the data are on the network. Windows 10 machine, 32GB ram, fast video card not even close to maxed out. Most data are on SSD drives. 

[H__AlexHuskey]

Drew: There may be many factors causing inflated file size, but the elephant in the room is why are they allowed to swell that way? Esri should provide functionality to obviate detective work on the user's part, and eliminate automatically what's interfering with performance. Geoprocessing history? Why is it allowed to hamper our work? History can be logged somewhere out of the way and accessed only when needed. Map graphics? If they're necessary for one's map, then ArcPro has got to handle them fast. If best practices deem that graphics not be used, and other functionality can fill the need, the software should say so, or better alternatives should be part of beginner training. The upshot is that Esri should be doing a whole lot more for the map author, especially reducing our clicking & repetitive tasks so we can create geo experiences for our audience.

[WilliamLuscombe]

We are having same problems with layout, just very slow. Doing simple tasks like opening folders, searching tools, loading parameters in tools etc

I have gone to Desktop for some tasks now.

This is the case for most of our students. There is seems to be some underlying issues with Pro. 

[JasonJordan00]

I would just like to point out that it just took me *6* minutes for the 'Create Mosaic Dataset' tool to open on a brand spanking new project in Pro 2.6.1. I'm on a pretty decent Dell workstation with 32gb RAM but Pro still has a very bad habit of hanging when opening or closing tools. It's making it very hard to convince coworkers to switch to it and drop ArcMap.

[Anonymous User]

I'm running Pro 2.5.1on a dual core i7-6820HQ with 32MB of ram.  Yesterday while creating a map, I tried to add our standard department disclaimers as a text box on the layout - roughly 240 words of text.  The application had been running smoothly but all of a sudden ground to a halt, as it tried to process such a large text box.  The paste operation of the text took about 5 to 10 minutes, then setting all the appearance settings life font, color and size, took about 30 minutes to complete.  Then once it was all placed and I didn't need to touch it again, Pro went back to nearly normal performance, running at what felt like about 80-90% of the speed it had been at before that text box was added.

Tried it again, watching the performance stats - GPU and CPU ramp up to 33% from 1% but the biggest spike is network traffic - I haven't even saved my edits to the file and already it's doing this?  What is it doing exactly?

[TroyBum72]

This has been an issue for my organization for 2.4 and 2.5. Premium support told us in a case in August that it was Windows KB .NET update KB4570723 and cumulative update KB456351. They said that .NET updates were to blame, and the recommendations were to not apply these patches and/or disable spell check. A supposedly fixed/improved layout bug was never part of the discussion.

This does seem resolved at 2.6, but upgrades bring a whole new set of issues. So we have very heavy dependencies on 2.4 right now, our testing to upgrade enterprise to 10.8.1 has cases for bugs open since August as well. We have not been able to patch certain machines which we how feel are getting vulnerable. I want to be clear layouts were my issue, but the fixes mentioned here were never part of the solution and are projects and layouts are not nearly this complex. The only reason I stumbled on this Geonet article today is because we continue the fight against this, can't upgrade, can't patch, can't fix. Feeling stuck and frustrated. Perhaps participating in this article will assist us with a new approach. Thanks in advance for any advice!

[JohannaPrüssmann1]

It's getting impossible for me to work in ArcGIS Pro. It gets stuck very frequently, and I can't even reorganize layers without having to wait 10 minutes for it to become idle again. It's really getting on my nerves, as well as my boss'.

You can see how the software becomes unresponsive just by trying to add a simple layer from the catalogue in the following link:

https://youtu.be/c80mEC4KJxs

Here's another example where I was trying to make a tutorial for creating thematic map series that requieres putting each layer within a group. That should be easy, but took almost 30 minutes. Watch the video here:

https://youtu.be/7s5mskAUIgA

[Paul_Christensen]

I opened a support case and we were able to overcome most of my performance issues by doing the following:

• In Windows Defender, add ArcGIS Pro as an exception.
• Clear Pro Display Cache regularly.
  • Do not let this get above 1GB or so if you can help it. The larger the cache, the slower Pro gets.
• Lower display graphics settings in Pro Options. Also disable hardware antialiasing

I am running Pro 2.6.2 and these steps greatly improved my performance on several workstations.

I don't know why Esri doesn't make this more readily available in documentation.

My issues were:

• General UI lag and lockups
• Traverse tool input lag
  • 5 seconds or more lag when moving between cell blocks
• Turning layers on and off resulted in UI lock for 5-10 seconds

*Data is FGDB on C:\

[JohannaPrüssmann1]

Thanks @Paul_Christensen  for the great advice. I'll try it out 👍

[Lake_Country_GIS]

I am a long time ArcGIS Pro user (beta tested and implemented earliest versions). It appears perhaps the 'bloat' effect is kicking in. I have recently changed my Enterprise Geodatabase to SQL Server vs. PostgreSQL. Many of my Pro documents now have broken links. So, to fix them, I usually just click the red exclamation to have the data sources repair. Now with the latest version of Pro, is is taking me up to four hours to repoint my data sources. Bad news for sure. I still have quite a few layers to go.

[RockRunEnterprises]

Agree with the bloat effect. Also a Pro user from it's inception and beta tester. The problem seems to be getting exponentially worse. 

Projects created in previous versions are just grinding to an awful mess. Toggling between layouts, maps, and scenes are just resulting in greyed out stillness.