Very, very slow on local machine (fresh install)

[annetters (Annette A.)]

Has anyone experienced *extreme slowness" issues after a new local install? I just completed a fresh installation am trying to create a theme. I’m not super familiar with Ubuntu/WSL so maybe I’m missing something obvious?

• local machine, Windows 11 with 8GB ram, WSL via VS Code, Ubuntu bare, SSD
• Used this installation guide: Install Discourse on Windows for development - #102 by Arkshine
• Starting up ember-cli takes 5-10 minutes.
• Once everything is running, loading a page in http://localhost:4200/ takes 5+ minutes.
• Occasionally my ember process will quit randomly and I get this message:

Build successful (213157ms) – Serving on http://localhost:4200/

Slowest Nodes (totalTime >= 5%) | Total (avg)
-+-
@embroider/webpack (1) | 88353ms
Babel: discourse-plugins (19) | 54321ms (2859 ms)
DiscourseScss (2) | 25401ms (12700 ms)

I, [2024-04-01T12:37:00.055056 #9162]  INFO -- : SIGWINCH ignored because we're not daemonized
I, [2024-04-01T12:37:02.447649 #9162]  INFO -- : SIGWINCH ignored because we're not daemonized
Killed
[bin/ember-cli] ember-cli process stopped. Terminating unicorn.
I, [2024-04-01T12:37:54.128930 #9162]  INFO -- : reaped #<Process::Status: pid 9501 exit 0> worker=2
I, [2024-04-01T12:37:54.239701 #9162]  INFO -- : reaped #<Process::Status: pid 9500 exit 0> worker=1
I, [2024-04-01T12:37:55.360116 #9162]  INFO -- : reaped #<Process::Status: pid 9499 exit 0> worker=0
I, [2024-04-01T12:37:55.362898 #9162]  INFO -- : master complete
annetters@DESKTOP-S5K8606:~/discourse$ 

[Falco]

@annetters

local machine, Windows 11 with 8GB ram, WSL via VS Code, Ubuntu bare, SSD

Can you share memory stats while running this? 8GB is already tight for Windows 11 alone, if you add the whole Linux VM to run WSL2, and the PG/Redis/Unicorn/Ember processes it may cause you to swap too much.

Maybe try developing your theme against our Theme Creator, create and show themes without installing Discourse! ?

[annetters (Annette A.)]

Eep. Good call. This doesn’t seem great.

[Firepup650 (Firepup Sixfifty)]

lmao, chrome enjoys being a good memory hog

[Falco]

If you are keen on developing against a local instance, I’d look into dual-booting Linux if you can afford the disk space. It’s what I do personally.

Otherwise your best bet is using Theme Creator, create and show themes without installing Discourse!.

[Arkshine]

I’ve only a Discourse small dev instance for comparison, and WSL already uses 4GB. However, the actual usage can be much higher depending on the activity in it.

I would definitively follow Falco’s suggestion if you can.

On a side note, you can adjust the WSL configuration (such as limited memory, swap, etc.)

[Firepup650 (Firepup Sixfifty)]

@Arkshine

However, the actual usage can be much higher depending on the activity in it.

It shouldn’t be, the amount WSL uses is just reserved for itself, and AFAIK, it won’t go over it’s reservation…

[Arkshine]

I’m not sure. Maybe it was a bug before, but I usually never turn off my computer, and for some reason, it could go up to 10GB (or more). But yeah, by default, from what I see in the documentation, 50% of your total memory can be used. (I have 64 GB, so I guess that’s the reason).

[annetters (Annette A.)]

Hey all. Thank you for your suggestions. I ended up developing the theme separately via theme creator and testing components on a hosted install. Guess I’m shopping for a new laptop with more membory this year!