Slow startup / Open Recent command response even all the extensions disabled

[maruyama-mx]

Does this issue occur when all extensions are disabled?: Yes

• VS Code Version: 1.116.0 (560a9db)
• OS Version: darwin(25.4.0)

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Open VSCode with all the extensions disabled by code . --disable-extensions
2. Run File: Open Recent... command
3. Sometimes it takes about 10 seconds or more, sometimes it responds quickly

Some notes:

• Possibly related to VS Code has become really slow on initial load and when opening folders #307206
• Not all startups are slow. Sometimes it starts quickly even after killing the process, while other times it is slow even when just opening a new window.
• This started about three to four weeks ago and had never happened before.
• When a slow startup occurs, File: Open Recent does not respond for 10–20 seconds.
• During a slow startup, my GitHub account (for Copilot) and Microsoft account (for sync) are not shown in the account menu at the bottom-left of the window.
• A clean reinstall of VS Code did not resolve the issue.
• VSCode freezes with "discarding backups is taking a bit longer" message if I close the window during the slow startup.

I’d be happy to run any experiments if that would help.

Here is a startup performance report when the issue happened with all the extensions disabled.

startup_perf.txt

[aol-nnov]

Observed same issue, but with command palette in general. It took a second or more to draw the menu after I pressed Cmd+Shift+P. Next calls appear to work without noticeable delay.

In earlier releases the reaction was always instant.

[maruyama-mx]

I added another clue to the description.

VSCode freezes with "discarding backups is taking a bit longer" message if I close the window during the slow startup.

[bpasero]

Can you try to reproduce with our nightly insider builds? You can give our preview releases a try from: https://code.visualstudio.com/insiders/