IGV is very slow currently. Is there an issue?

[W Lam]

I am using desktop version IGV 2.19.1 on a Windows 11 PC. IGV has generally been very slow in loading ref seqs and bams. Is there an issue?

[igv-help]

I think there may be an issue connecting to the reference genomes at UCSC. We'll look into it.

[igv-help]

Hi,

Could you try redownloading the genome from the Genomes menu?  "Genomes > Download Hosted Genome..."  then select the genome of interest.   This downloads the genome definition file (e.g. hg19.json).    For faster loading you can also select "Download annotations", and if you have the disk space (~ 1 GB) "Download sequence".   If you decide to download the sequence please be patient and let it complete before shutting down IGV.   

I have updated the URLs in the genome definitions to a different server, this should resolve the problem but downloading annotations and sequence will isolate you from network issues.  The downside is the annotation file can grow stale,  you will have to manually reselect the genome periodically.