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Sitecore content editor performance issue due to long running validation rules

Validators that take a long time to run can have a negative performance impact while using the Sitecore Content Editor. This post is intended to look for those validation rules in question.

Symptoms of Problem  

Slow performance while using the Sitecore Content Editor

How to Check Long Running Validation Rules 

Long running validation rules appear in the Sitecore logs with the following message: Long running operation: Running Validation Rules. To search for these messages you can either search for the above string using your favorite text editor like Notepad++, or by parsing the log file(s) with Sitecore Log Analyzer tool. To parse the log file(s) using Sitecore Log Analyzer: 

1. Launch Sitecore Log Analyzer. 

2. Use Select Location button to select log file(s) for parsing. 

3. Set String filter field to Long running operation: Running Validation Rules value. 

4. Press Analyze / Refresh* button. 

5. Go to Messages tab and check Warnings checkbox. 

6. Check the checkbox of the “* Long running operation” entry in the list of messages

The output looks like-


Sitecore Recommendation 

Sitecore recommends long running validation rules be investigated and disabled to help increase performance while using the Sitecore Content Editor. 

How to Solve 

The process of finding out which validation rules are producing warnings is a bit trial and error. Here are some steps that can be taken to help identify those validation rules that could be the culprits: 

1. Look at any custom validation rules to see they are taking a long time to process. If so, disable them. 

2. Disable any standard validators, by removing them from the validation rules section of an item, that are not required. 

3. Some validators are declared in the web.config file (for example, the Media library validator)

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