Arduino IDE is a great tool for programming microcontrollers. However, sometimes working experience with Arduino doesn’t go well. Imagine a situation where you are going to write an Arduino code but ends up waiting for 5 minutes until Arduino starts up.
Most of the Arduino users face slow startup time for Arduino IDE. So here we will look into some quick fixes to solve this issue.
Quick Fixes to Arduino IDE Slow Start Up
Sometimes when we program different microcontrollers boards, installing multiple libraries and board cores can result in slowing the Arduino IDE. This usually happens when a new Arduino IDE update is available once the update is done the opening time of Arduino IDE increases by a great number.
Below is a list of few quick fixes one can try:
- Install Older Version of IDE
- Use Portable IDE
- Remove Unnecessary Libraries and Board Cores
- Disable Antivirus Scanning for ESP32
- Disable the WiFi Connection
Install Older Version of IDE
First solution on the list is going back to the older version of Arduino IDE. Till now Arduino has released its updated 2.0.2 version of IDE. Most of the time when a new update comes it has some extra features, improvement in UI/UX, new boards support and multiple new libraries are added.
This overall result in slowing of startup time because every time we run Arduino IDE it will check for the updates available. So, it’s necessary to update the Arduino IDE if we don’t need it.
Many users have outdated systems which cannot run the updated Arduino version efficiently. Instead of going with the 2.0 version one can go with 1.8 or 1.9 which is lightweight and easy to use Arduino IDE.
Use Portable IDE
Second on the list is using a portable version of Arduino IDE. Portable version doesn’t need special folder permission as it is like a pen drive which one can copy and use in any system without interfering with other systems files. All this leads to multiple times faster IDE than the normal one.
Portable version of Arduino has its separate core and libraries folder and it stores all the files locally without any need of system administrative permissions.
Unfortunately, Arduino IDE 2.0 has no support for portable Arduino, however we can try this in older versions of Arduino. To create a portable Arduino just download 1.8/1.9 in zip file format and extract the file into a temporary folder then create a folder with name portable and you are ready to go.
Remove Unnecessary Libraries and Board Cores
Arduino takes so long to compile one simple answer to this is “libraries”. Every time when IDE starts up all the libraries’ files installed in IDE are parsed. And this parsing of file is not done over OS but using a Java-Virtual Machine resulting in slowing of Arduino IDE and to heat this up antivirus comes in which itself scans all files for antivirus.
One quick fix to this is delete the unnecessary libraries installed. It can be done using the library manager or by deleting the files from the Arduino working directory. Secondly never save any files like documentation inside the Arduino sketch folder as they are also parsed by Arduino IDE on startup.
Here is a complete guide on How to Remove Arduino Library?
Disable Antivirus Scanning for Arduino IDE
Apart from securing PC antivirus might be causing trouble for you in case of Arduino. As Arduino has multiple files including libraries, board cores and sketches. If any antivirus software is installed inside the PC, every time we install a new library it is checked by the antivirus first.
Arduino IDE sets up lots of new and temporary files once we compile the code so if antivirus is set to scan every new file once it is created this might overall lead to slow startup time.
So a quick fix to this is to try disabling the Arduino library folder from scanning. Initialize an exception list inside an antivirus program so it doesn’t check those files. But remember to always install libraries and cores from trusted sources as we have disabled the real time protection which may cause problems.
Disable the WiFi Connection
Last on the list of quick fixes is to try disabling the WiFi connection before running Arduino IDE. Many users reported that disabling WiFi has improved Arduino IDE startup time. As it doesn’t check for the new updates of boards and cores resulting in more improved performance.
Here is an article which identifies Why Arduino Taking too much for compilation and How to Fix it?
Conclusion
Arduino IDE is a great tool for programming microcontrollers boards. But with the latest updates and improvements some users might face too long startup time. Here in this writeup we highlighted some of the quick fixes to this problem. Above all, switching to an older version of IDE is by far the best and simple solution to this problem.
