Re: Ridiculously long (2 minutes) startup time for org agenda

[Thierry Banel <tbanelwebmin@free.fr>]

On 18/02/2018 13:38, JI Xiang wrote:
> Hello, first time posting on the mailing list. I encountered a problem 
> where my agenda view (`C-c a a`) is taking ridiculously long (nearly 2 
> minutes) to be shown the first time. From the second time onwards, the 
> time is about 11 seconds, which is still very long by any means.
>
> I wondered whether it has something to do with me having many files in 
> the agenda list, so I tried to restrict the list to just one file. But 
> still the first call to org-agenda-list took 12 seconds. This 
> shouldn't be normal, right?
>
> The following are shown in the `Messages` buffer during the call.
>
> ```
> Press key for agenda command:
> Restoring clock data
> Loading /home/jx/.emacs.d/.cache/org-clock-save.el (source)...done
> [yas] Prepared just-in-time loading of snippets successfully.
> Importmagic and/or epc not found. importmagic.el will not be working.
> Setting up indent for shell type zsh
> Indentation variables are now local.
> Indentation setup for shell type zsh
> Using vacuous schema
> Shell native completion is disabled, using fallback
> ```
>
> I'm not sure why they would be there, especially the "using vacuous 
> schema" and "shell native completion" part. Are the messages related 
> to some `#BEGIN_SRC` blocks in the org files? I don't think I would 
> ever need source code blocks when I'm viewing an agenda buffer?
>
> I posted the question [on 
> Emacs.SE](https://emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/30489/what-could-cause-org-agenda-to-take-very-long-to-start-up) 
> and somebody suggested me use `elp-instrument` to perform a profiling. 
> The results are as follows:
>
> ```
>
>     Function Name, Call Count, Elapsed Time, Average Time
>
>     org-agenda 1           116.6048159   116.6048159
>     org-agenda-list 1           116.29427357  116.29427357
>     org-agenda-prepare 1           109.15345470  109.15345470
>     org-agenda-prepare-buffers 1           108.98258905 108.98258905
>     org-agenda-get-day-entries 1288        7.0089191339 0.0054417074
>     org-agenda-get-scheduled 1288        3.726361062 0.0028931374
>     org-agenda-get-deadlines 1288        2.1579713230 0.0016754435
>     org-agenda--timestamp-to-absolute 14544       1.1317418120 
> 7.781...e-05
>     org-agenda-get-timestamps 1288        0.3673404320 0.0002852021
>     org-agenda-get-sexps 1288        0.3438970410  0.0002670008
>     org-agenda-get-restriction-and-command 1 0.310503975   0.310503975
>     org-agenda-get-blocks 1288        0.3083237900  0.0002393818
>     org-agenda-prepare-window 1           0.157091024 0.157091024
>     org-agenda-skip 8624        0.0781296389  9.059...e-06
>     org-agenda-files 49          0.026090686   0.0005324629
>     org-agenda-finalize 1           0.013325178   0.013325178
>     org-agenda-mode 1           0.009848546   0.009848546
>     org-agenda-finalize-entries 23          0.006178961 0.0002686504
>     org-agenda-today-p 2604        0.0061717839  2.370...e-06
>     org-agenda-skip-eval 16968       0.0052723920  3.107...e-07
>     org-agenda-highlight-todo 112         0.0039840550 3.557...e-05
>     org-agenda-format-item 112         0.0038309749  3.420...e-05
>     org-agenda-new-marker 208         0.0031529359  1.515...e-05
>     org-agenda-format-date-aligned 28          0.0007373120 2.633...e-05
>     org-agenda-add-time-grid-maybe 28          0.0003810809 1.361...e-05
>     org-agenda-fix-displayed-tags 112         0.000342384 3.057e-06
>     org-agenda-fontify-priorities 1           0.00018465 0.00018465
>     org-agenda-align-tags 1           0.000160119   0.000160119
>     org-agenda-get-day-face 28          0.000156385   5.585...e-06
>     org-agenda-get-category-icon 112         7.702...e-05 6.877...e-07
>     org-agenda-span-name 23          4.4484e-05    1.934...e-06
>     org-agenda-span-to-ndays 1           2.3496e-05    2.3496e-05
>     org-agenda-fit-window-to-buffer 1           2.0877e-05 2.0877e-05
>     org-agenda-time-of-day-to-ampm-maybe 21          1.124...e-05 
> 5.353...e-07
>     org-agenda-set-mode-name 1           9.226e-06     9.226e-06
>     org-agenda-mark-header-line 1           8.774e-06 8.774e-06
>     org-agenda-reset-markers 1           4.829e-06     4.829e-06
>     org-agenda-deadline-face 4           4.761e-06     1.19025e-06
>     org-agenda-update-agenda-type 1           1.575e-06 1.575e-06
>     org-agenda-ndays-to-span 2           1.174e-06     5.87e-07
>     org-agenda-mark-clocking-task 1           7.16e-07 7.16e-07
>     org-agenda-use-sticky-p 1           5.02e-07      5.02e-07
> ```
>
> I'm not sure if that says much though.
>
> Version information:
>
> - Emacs: `GNU Emacs 27.0.50 (build 2, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ 
> Version 3.18.9) of 2018-02-18`
>
> - Orgmode: `Org mode version 9.1.6 (9.1.6-44-ge6f891-elpaplus @ 
> /home/jx/.emacs.d/elpa/develop/org-plus-contrib-20180205/)`.
>
> - I'm using [Spacemacs'](https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs) 
> develop branch.
>
> However, this problem happens on both Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and the latest 
> MacOS. Actually it has persisted for a very long period of time so I 
> doubt if it's related to any particular Emacs/Org version.
>
> Any help would be much appreciated!
>
> Best regards,
>
> Xiang
>
>
>
>
Try typing
M-: (org-agenda-files nil 'ifmode)
This will tell you how many (and which) files are being processed.