IDA freezes when searching in strings menu durring debugging

IDA General Bugs
1

While debugging 27mb binary;

  1. Open strings menu.
  2. CTRL + F
  3. Type something
  4. Ida freezes

Totally painful experience.

2

Hi @bukowa,

We understand the frustration, but it’s difficult to offer accurate suggestions without more context.
Could you please provide further details, and ideally, share the binary with us through our official support channel?
Several factors could affect the performance, like:

  • structure of the binary,
  • OS,
  • number of libraries loaded,
  • whether you’re attaching to a process or starting one

We’ll try to provide you with some tips once we have more information!

3

Hey, I don’t think it matters, IDA should never freeze the main thread when searching.

4

It would be helpful to allow us to attempt to reproduce…

I found a 27mb binary to debug, opened the strings menu, hit Ctrl + F and typed something and my instance of IDA didn’t freeze… the closer we can get to being able to reproduce your environment and unique configuration the more likely we are to get to the root of what should be happening.

5

Sorry I can’t share the binary, but if that helps its 32bit, windows10 - it has ton of libraries loaded. 1GB of memory used.
CheatEngine doesn’t freeze the main thread when searching

6

You say “searching” but the term can mean different things. Could you tell us the exact actions in IDA’s UI you’re using? some screenshots or a short screencast could go a long way.

7

Open strings menu ctr + f and search.

8

Thank you. By “strings menu”, do you mean the Strings subiew (Shift-F12), or something else? If yes, was the string list already built before you started the debugging, or you first opened it during debugging? I would once again request the exact actions (with menu items etc.) or some screenshots/videos so we know exactly what you were doing to try reproducing the issue.

9

also have some few seconds freezes when set type of any functions by press Y in decompliler

10

Can you tell me how should I open it to not encounter any freezes?

11

Could you please reply to my previous questions?

12

If main thread is freezing there’s something wrong.

Open strings menu (subview) open it after you start debbuging.

  1. CTRL + F

  2. Type something

  3. Ida freezes