Why is code taking so long just to start?

I have a code that used to run quickly. Now it takes forever just to start doing anything. There seems to be a delay before it gets going. I say this because if I let it spit out intermediate results ones from even the first few lines of the code take a long time to show up in the command window. Possibly related the Run button does not seem to work anymore. If I push Run nothing happens in the command window unless I go to it and hit enter, then busy comes up in the bottom corner. Same symptoms only worse for parallel programming. Specifically there is a long initial delay and then when parfor is encountered it takes an unreasonable amount of time to start my cores. This is all on a Windows 10 machine with an 8-core processor. I usually run pretty complicated cfd code, but I get the same symptoms if I just make a simple nonsense loop.

[Walter Roberson]

Does the same thing happen if you use the command line? That is, is there a notable delay even for function calls like sin(1) from the command line?

Answer 1

[Paul Crittenden]

Thanks Walter (the answer was yes). The issue seems to be too many large data files in same directory as the code. Moved data files and code to separate directories and all is good. Must have been experiencing overhead sorting through the directory...