Python/R Console Takes Too Long to Start on Windows (Console Stuck Loading)

[Santoshjnawali]

On my Windows device, the Python and R interpreters take a very long time to start. The console often gets stuck on “loading” and fails to display logs, and interpreter detection is inconsistent. Sometimes the wait is so long that I lose patience before the console loads. I have daily updates enabled, and I have been experiencing these issues for a long time.

• Interpreter startup is extremely slow

• Console stays in a “starting” state with no logs

• The interpreter sometimes isn’t detected until I reload

• Extensions start very slowly

Is anyone else on Windows experiencing this? Is there anything we can do at the user level to improve startup time?

[juliasilge]

Can you try using the command Developer: Startup Performance to find out what part of startup is causing a problem for you? It will help you see if it's some specific extension or some part of what Positron is doing.

[juliasilge]

Is that all you see in the startup performance logs? I am used to seeing a lot more there. 🤔

[Santoshjnawali]

It shows all the details. Here are the extension activation stats.

[Santoshjnawali]

With the recent daily update, my startup time is much worse. I am wondering if this is my device or network specific

[jmcphers]

It looks like all the extensions with very long startup times have something in common: they're all downstream of extensions that authenticate against Microsoft's services.

Do you use GitHub Copilot with Positron Assistant, and/or the Github Pull Requests extension? If not let's try disabling those to see if it addresses the issue; if so, it'd be helpful to look at the logs for those extensions (in the Output panel).

[Santoshjnawali]

Yes, I use GitHub Copilot with Positron Assistant. I tried disabling both GitHub PR extension and Positron Assistant. The startup time is still a lot.

[jonvanausdeln]

I just tried with 2026.01-59 on my Windows 11 box and things aren't too bad. I do have a fairly performant machine:

Processor	Intel(R) Core(TM) Ultra 7 165H (3.80 GHz)
Installed RAM	64.0 GB (63.5 GB usable)

## Extension Activation Stats

| Extension                           | Eager | Load Code | Call Activate | Finish Activate | Event                               | By                                  |
| ----------------------------------- | ----- | --------- | ------------- | --------------- | ----------------------------------- | ----------------------------------- |
| vscode.git                          | true  | 56        | 84            | 528             | *                                   | vscode.git                          |
| vscode.git-base                     | true  | 9         | 0             | 0               | *                                   | vscode.git                          |
| vscode.github                       | true  | 914       | 1             | 0               | *                                   | vscode.github                       |
| posit.publisher                     | true  | 74        | 20            | 0               | workspaceContains:/                 | posit.publisher                     |
| vscode.debug-auto-launch            | false | 11        | 0             | 0               | onStartupFinished                   | vscode.debug-auto-launch            |
| vscode.emmet                        | false | 27        | 13            | 0               | onLanguage                          | vscode.emmet                        |
| vscode.extension-editing            | false | 15        | 0             | 0               | onLanguage:markdown                 | vscode.extension-editing            |
| vscode.github-authentication        | false | 31        | 2             | 0               | onChatSession:copilot-swe-agent     | GitHub.vscode-pull-request-github   |
| vscode.markdown-language-features   | false | 80        | 9             | 681             | onLanguage:markdown                 | vscode.markdown-language-features   |
| vscode.markdown-math                | false | 12        | 0             | 0               | api                                 | vscode.markdown-language-features   |
| vscode.merge-conflict               | false | 50        | 3             | 0               | onStartupFinished                   | vscode.merge-conflict               |
| vscode.microsoft-authentication     | false | 74        | 1             | 1234            | onAuthenticationRequest:microsoft   | vscode.microsoft-authentication     |
| positron.positron-assistant         | false | 186       | 44            | 362             | onLanguageModelChatProvider:echo    | positron.positron-assistant         |
| positron.positron-catalog-explorer  | false | 4583      | 1             | 0               | onStartupFinished                   | positron.positron-catalog-explorer  |
| positron.positron-code-cells        | false | 10        | 2             | 1               | onStartupFinished                   | positron.positron-code-cells        |
| positron.positron-connections       | false | 7         | 13            | 0               | onStartupFinished                   | positron.positron-connections       |
| GitHub.copilot-chat                 | false | 1244      | 120           | 2139            | onLanguageModelChatProvider:copilot | GitHub.copilot-chat                 |
| positron.positron-duckdb            | false | 372       | 2             | 1356            | onStartupFinished                   | positron.positron-duckdb            |
| positron.positron-environment       | false | 7         | 6             | 0               | onLanguageModelChatProvider:echo    | positron.positron-assistant         |
| positron.positron-notebooks-helpers | false | 5         | 0             | 0               | onStartupFinished                   | positron.positron-notebooks-helpers |
| positron.positron-proxy             | false | 478       | 2             | 0               | onStartupFinished                   | positron.positron-proxy             |
| ms-python.python                    | false | 196       | 5             | 2450            | onLanguageRuntime:python            | ms-python.python                    |
| positron.positron-r                 | false | 56        | 4             | 0               | onLanguageRuntime:r                 | positron.positron-r                 |
| positron.positron-reticulate        | false | 9         | 0             | 0               | onLanguageRuntime:reticulate        | positron.positron-reticulate        |
| positron.positron-run-app           | false | 7         | 0             | 0               | onStartupFinished                   | positron.positron-run-app           |
| positron.positron-runtime-debugger  | false | 7         | 0             | 0               | onStartupFinished                   | positron.positron-runtime-debugger  |
| positron.positron-supervisor        | false | 48        | 2             | 3               | onLanguageModelChatProvider:echo    | positron.positron-assistant         |
| vscode.terminal-suggest             | false | 72        | 0             | 1205            | onTerminalShellIntegration:*        | vscode.terminal-suggest             |
| GitHub.vscode-pull-request-github   | false | 111       | 1             | 4127            | onChatSession:copilot-swe-agent     | GitHub.vscode-pull-request-github   |
| quarto.quarto                       | false | 467       | 8             | 5466            | onLanguage:quarto                   | quarto.quarto                       |