Diagnose Visio slow startup

[Visisthebest]

From time to time on my development machine (AMD 5600U Zen3 with 16GB, cheap and fast:), Visio 2019 will startup very slowly taking more than 30 seconds rather than coming up almost immediately.

Other Office apps do not have this issue.

I thought it might be my add-in, but when I use debug.print to see when it starts and is ready initializing my add-in it just takes no time at all.

I tried safe mode but I need a mode where I can see what Visio is doing exactly during startup to see where the bottleneck is. Is there any mode or Visio log where I could find this out to diagnose and fix?

[Yacine]

I do have the same problem, but not 30s, rather several minutes!
This happens when I'm connected to the work VPN. When not connected, it starts within a few seconds.
I don't really know where to look, so I just indulge it.

[Visisthebest]

Thank you Yacine that is good to know, I don't use VPN but it may be internet connection-related maybe.

[Nikolay]

A common problem could be you have something on your visio paths configured and Visio scans that on every startup. Make sure all fields in options - advanced - file paths are blank.

[Visisthebest]

Thank you for the tip Nikolay, I only have the one My Shapes.

[Nikolay]

Have you tried to exclude that one (set it blank)? Maybe some shape in My Shapes is causing this?

[vojo]

you sure this is not the EMF problem?

visio cafe has lots info / recipe for the resolution

[Yacine]

you sure this is not the EMF problem?

visio cafe has lots info / recipe for the resolution

EMF?

[Visisthebest]

Nikolay I cannot delete the My Shapes reference only change it to another location. It may be related to OneDrive though, which can be quite slow (may be related to internet connectivity issues). I will change it to an empty directory on C:\ to test but cannot delete it entirely. The other entries are deletable.

I'd like to investigate the EMF problem as well but don't know what it is

[vojo]

some rocket scientist at MS changed how EMF "shapes" are processed.   EMF is a meta data format of a shape (can parse or ungroup an EMF shape, but things like discrete geometries are not present).

Circa March 2022, MS had a visio build that introduced a bug into the EMF.   The fix is to disable EMF optimizations.
(personally, I fixed this by growing the file cache in the OS from 4GB to 12GB),

[Surrogate]

some rocket scientist at MS changed how EMF "shapes" are processed.   

  yes, it is really trouble !
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/visio-crashes-after-installing-march-office-update-6b4edd7e-2a9a-4550-8f20-b98d3d4b596b
but i cant find discussions at visiocafe.com yet

[Visisthebest]

I have not used enhanced metafiles that were imported in to Visio, could I still see this issue if I just use native Visio shapes (built in Visio not in a 3rd party tool)?

[vojo]

visio cafe site news....first item!!!!

EMF is there whether all shapes are native visio shapes or not.

I believe the suggested fix is to go to options and disable EMF optimizations

I fixed mine but make OS file cache very big  (3GB ==> 12GB....I have 16GB of DRAM)

[Surrogate]

visio cafe site news....first item!!!!

Sorry, but visiocafe dont open for visitors from Russia. I cant open even with VPN with Netherlands IP...