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Startup hangs restoring large persisted buffers; allow persisting layout without buffer contents #20765
Description
Windows Terminal version
1.24.12741.0
Windows build number
10.0.26300
Other Software
No response
Steps to reproduce
- Set
"firstWindowPreference": "persistedWindowLayout". - Keep several windows with many tabs open (I had 3 windows, 33 tabs), some holding long build output in scrollback.
- Restart Windows.
Expected Behavior
Terminal restores its windows and tabs.
Actual Behavior
Unelevated Terminal hangs on startup (Not Responding, ~250 MB). Every later wt / default-terminal cmd launch is handed to the hung process and no window ever appears; elevated Terminal works because it does not use the persisted state. LocalState held 62 buffer_*.txt files totalling 27 MB, the largest 3.3 MB (~4,800 lines of dotnet build analyzer warnings, ~350 chars/line). Moving state.json and the buffer files aside fixed it.
Request: a setting to persist the layout (tabs, titles, starting directories) without buffer contents, or a cap on how much scrollback gets persisted per pane.
Activity
zadjii-msft commentedon Oct 5, 2026
This literally already exists in 1.25! You should update to that build☺️
virzak commentedon Oct 5, 2026
Upgraded, thanks. Correction to my report: scrollback wasn't the cause. On 1.24 the hang reproduced with no buffer files at all, only when restoring split panes (looks like #18610). On 1.25.2733.0 the same layout restores fine, so closing.
One thing:
profiles.schema.jsondescribespersistedWindowLayoutas layout-only, but in 1.25 it maps toPersistedLayoutAndContentand gets rewritten topersistedLayoutAndContent. The layout-only value ispersistedLayout, which the schema doesn't list.DHowett commentedon Oct 5, 2026
It's likely that your editor has cached an old schema; the current latest should mention
persistedLayoutas of #20475 (backported to 1.24, 1.25; I should not have backported it to 1.24, but even so it is there)virzak commentedon Oct 5, 2026
Not an editor cache: I read it straight from the repo. On
main,release-1.25andv1.25.2733.0, thefirstWindowPreferenceenum isdefaultProfile/persistedWindowLayout/persistedLayoutAndContent, and it describespersistedWindowLayoutas layout-only. #20475 addedpersistedLayoutAndContentbut notpersistedLayout, whileTerminalSettingsSerializationHelpers.hmapspersistedWindowLayouttoPersistedLayoutAndContent.DHowett commentedon Oct 5, 2026
oh, the distinction between
persistedLayoutandpersistedWindowLayout. Yeah, we should fix thatschema: fix persistedWindowLayout (#20770)
schema: fix persistedWindowLayout (#20770)
schema: fix persistedWindowLayout (#20770)