Unusably slow since last update

[mic5bp]

Type: Bug

The Copilot chat with Claude Sonnet 4.6 is unusably slow since the last update (1-2 weeks, can't remember exactly). There is a ~5s delay when I press enter on a chat message, and the thinking process is also taking minutes instead of the ~10-20s tops, what it used to be.

Extension version: 0.38.2
VS Code version: Code 1.110.0 (0870c2a, 2026-03-04T01:20:28.863Z)
OS version: Windows_NT x64 10.0.22631
Modes:
Remote OS version: Linux x64 6.8.0-101-generic

System Info

Item	Value
CPUs	Intel(R) Core(TM) Ultra 7 165H (22 x 3072)
GPU Status	2d_canvas: enabled GPU0: VENDOR= 0x8086, DEVICE=0x7d55 [Intel(R) Arc(TM) Graphics], DRIVER_VENDOR=Intel, DRIVER_VERSION=32.0.101.6651 ACTIVE GPU1: VENDOR= 0x1414, DEVICE=0x008c [Microsoft Basic Render Driver], DRIVER_VERSION=10.0.22621.5415 Machine model name: Machine model version: direct_rendering_display_compositor: disabled_off_ok gpu_compositing: enabled multiple_raster_threads: enabled_on opengl: enabled_on rasterization: enabled raw_draw: disabled_off_ok skia_graphite: disabled_off trees_in_viz: disabled_off video_decode: enabled video_encode: enabled webgl: enabled webgl2: enabled webgpu: enabled webnn: disabled_off
Load (avg)	undefined
Memory (System)	31.43GB (15.82GB free)
Process Argv	--file-uri vscode-remote://dev-container%2B7b22686f737450617468223a222f686f6d652f6d69633562702f70726a2e64726976696e67222c226c6f63616c446f636b6572223a66616c73652c22636f6e66696746696c65223a7b22246d6964223a312c2270617468223a222f686f6d652f6d69633562702f70726a2e64726976696e672f2e646576636f6e7461696e65722f646576636f6e7461696e65722e6a736f6e222c22736368656d65223a227673636f64652d66696c65486f7374227d7d@ssh-remote%2B7b22686f73744e616d65223a2242502d562d3030304d57227d/workspaces/prj.driving/.vscode/standard_workspace/.vscode/od.code-workspace --crash-reporter-id b251045d-27c8-42f1-850f-2141e441155c
Screen Reader	no
VM	0%

Item	Value
Remote	Dev Container: Driving Devcontainer - Docker Compose @ BP-V-000MW
OS	Linux x64 6.8.0-101-generic
CPUs	Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 6248R CPU @ 3.00GHz (16 x 0)
Memory (System)	62.89GB (54.99GB free)
VM	100%

A/B Experiments

vsliv368:30146709
pythonvspyt551cf:31249601
binariesv615:30325510
nativeloc1:31344060
dwcopilot:31170013
dwoutputs:31242946
copilot_t_ci:31333650
e5gg6876:31282496
pythonrdcb7:31342333
6518g693:31463988
aj953862:31281341
4f60g487:31327383
6abeh943:31336334
envsdeactivate2:31464701
cloudbuttont:31379625
aihoversummaries_t:31469308
3efgi100_wstrepl:31403338
55ia6109:31457054
use-responses-api:31390855
je187915:31401257
ec5jj548:31422691
cp_cls_t_966_ss:31454198
4je02754:31466945
ge8j1254_inline_auto_hint_haiku:31431912
nes-autoexp-10:31446583
a5gib710:31434435
00h15499_gpt_53_codex:31464543
7a04d226_do_not_restore_last_panel_session:31438103
gpt_5_3_codex_f4456sfsd:31465102
cp_cls_t_1081:31454832
copilot-nes-oct-trt:31432596
ia-use-proxy-models-svc:31452481
a43f0574:31442827
e9c30283:31461165
test_control1:31471004
nes-fast-additive:31462666
control_6dc23131:31467998
9c05b404_max_request_50:31468594
idci7584:31464702
edit_mode_hidden:31461530
3bj34942:31461205
864ei723_large_tool_results_to_disk:31460878
showingstats:31471631
b1f5h706:31471673
nes-extended-on:31455476
chat:31457767
0h66b693:31471929
jdddd261:31472041
nes-rcnt-ctrl:31471618
thinking_effort_h:31471653
f0268191:31471593
thinking_c:31471065
nes-issn-1:31473745

[vs-code-engineering]

Thanks for creating this issue! It looks like you may be using an old version of VS Code; the latest stable release is 1.110.1. Please try upgrading to the latest version and checking whether this issue remains.

Happy Coding!

[MurzNN]

I faced the same issue after upgrading to VS Code 1.110 with CoPilot 0.38 - everything is slow with frequent UI freezes. Reverting back to VS Code 1.109 and CoPilot 0.37 resolves the issue.

[marcorusso97]

Same issue here, both with latest version and with 1.109, on a MacBook Pro M5 with Apple Silicon .dmg. Agents are incredibly slow to read and write code in Copilot Chat. On Windows 11 they are 10x faster.

[duyo-son]

Unfortunately, even March 2026 (version 1.111) has NOT resolved this issue.
The nightmare updates just keep coming. 🙃

[Spenhouet]

Seems copilot is blocking the extension host event loop. Things like git operations or code actions become completely stuck resulting in a "while copilot is doing something VS code is unusable".

[pwang347]

Hi folks, thank you for reporting this. It would really help if you could provide some more details to pinpoint the issue based on the symptoms. In general, it would be appreciated if you could share if a previous version worked for you and if so which OS / setup you used (e.g., 1.109 was called out above but it didn't work for everyone).

These are just some informal notes from experience for now, but we plan to share better troubleshooting steps in the future.

Problem 1: Delay when I press enter on a chat message

Things to check:

• Does this happen only on the first message, or every message?
• Could you please check how much of it is due to customization discovery? On the latest version, you can open show the agent logs via the Gear icon at the top of chat, which will show how much time is being spent loading the different customization types

• If the time above is low, or if you see nothing, please share the GitHub Copilot chat logs from View > Output > GitHub Copilot Chat (consider setting log level to trace via Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+P Set Log Level). Would recommend skimming the log to make sure you don't share anything you'd rather not share.

Problem 2: Thinking process is slow

Things to check:

• Consider viewing the agent debug logs to see if new events are coming in while the agent is thinking (is the agent still working?)
• If new events are still flowing in, chances are it's an issue with either a problem with the model or our harness around it. If nothing is happening, it might be an issue with the GitHub service or your network. You should also be able to see request errors from this view. I would also highly recommend checking and sharing the GitHub Copilot chat logs in this scenario.
• Please share which models are impacted and if you observe patterns like looping etc.
• GitHub/model provider service can sometimes degrade, however, if you can reproduce the slowness on only some versions of VS Code / chat extension then the issue is probably on us. It would be great if you could give this a quick try in this case and/or report the issue using the issue reporter (accessible via ctrl/cmd+shift+P: Help: Report Issue) which by default can let us know if any A/B experiments may be impacting the model behaviour.

Problem 3: UI freezing

Things to check:

• Please take a perf trace and share the results

Toggle the developer tools Help > Toggle Developer Tools
Select 'Performance'. In there click the record button.
perform the operation leads to the slowness of the UI
Let it profile for ~30 seconds, stop it.
Save the profile to a file and attach the file to your issue. 

Problem 4: General slowness on operations

Things to check:

• Try disabling all extensions except for Copilot chat. Does this issue still reproduce?
• Try running VS Code with the --transient flag code --transient to see if the issue reproduces with no extensions or local user data. Does the issue still reproduce?

[Spenhouet]

@pwang347 In my team this seems to only affect Windows + WSL users.

While Copilot reports "Thinking", "Reasoning", "Analysing" the git extension and all code actions freeze. In times, this seems to then slow down Copilot.

Here some observations:

1. When I monitor the VS Code Process Explorer prior to it getting stuck it loses the connection to WSL and reports:

Connection to 'wsl+ubuntu24.04' could not be established

2. When it is stuck, the developer tools console logs things like this:

INFO Extension host (Remote) is unresponsive.
2803[Violation] 'setInterval' handler took <N>ms
3357[Violation] Forced reflow while executing JavaScript took <N>ms
style.ts:48 [Violation] 'resize' handler took 188ms
log.ts:440  INFO Extension host (Remote) is responsive.
411[Violation] 'setTimeout' handler took <N>ms
log.ts:440  INFO Extension host (Remote) is unresponsive.
log.ts:440  INFO Extension host (Remote) is responsive.
log.ts:440  INFO Extension host (Remote) is unresponsive.
log.ts:440  INFO Extension host (Remote) is responsive.
console.ts:139 [Extension Host] rejected promise not handled within 1 second: Error: file:///home/me/comp/workspace has no GitHub remotes
log.ts:460   ERR An unknown error occurred. Please consult the log for more details.
event.ts:986 [651] potential listener LEAK detected, having 220 listeners already. MOST frequent listener (31):
console.ts:139 [Extension Host] rejected promise not handled within 1 second: TypeError: terminated
console.ts:139 [Extension Host] stack trace: TypeError: terminated
log.ts:460   ERR An unknown error occurred. Please consult the log for more details.
19[Violation] 'requestAnimationFrame' handler took <N>ms
5[Violation] 'message' handler took <N>ms
log.ts:440  INFO Extension host (Remote) is unresponsive.
log.ts:440  INFO Extension host (Remote) is responsive.
log.ts:440  INFO Extension host (Remote) is unresponsive.
log.ts:440  INFO Extension host (Remote) is responsive.
keybindingIO.ts:91 [Violation] 'keydown' handler took 159ms
console.ts:139 [Extension Host] rejected promise not handled within 1 second: Error: file:///home/me/comp/workspace has no GitHub remotes
log.ts:460   ERR An unknown error occurred. Please consult the log for more details.
log.ts:440  INFO Extension host (Remote) is unresponsive.
log.ts:450  WARN [AiRelatedInformationService]: Related information provider timed out

3. This started since ~1-2 Weeks ago.

[Spenhouet]

@pwang347 I recorded a trace. How can I safely share that with you?