Slow startup time on (at least) macOS

[jonpalmisc]

Version and Platform (required):

• Binary Ninja Version: 4.2.6238-dev (dc64ea3b)
• OS Version: macOS 15.0 (24A335)
• CPU Architecture: AArch64

Bug Description:

Binary Ninja seems to take about 3 seconds (at least) to appear after opening it on my system, which is considerably longer than other similarly-sized applications.

For reference:

Application	Startup Time
Safari	0.7 s
Chrome	0.8 s
Xcode	1.5 s
Logic Pro	2.2 s
KiCad	2.5 s

I have verified that this occurs in consecutive launches, i.e. this is not due to macOS checking the application after an update, etc.

Steps To Reproduce:

Open Binary Ninja.

Expected Behavior:

Binary Ninja starts more quickly.

[bpotchik]

Are these numbers with or without plugins being loaded?

[jonpalmisc]

This is with only stock plugins:

[Core] Loaded native plugin cryptoplugin
[Core] Loaded native plugin demangle_gnu3
[Core] Loaded native plugin demangle_msvc
[Core] Loaded native plugin dwarf_export
[Core] Loaded native plugin dwarf_import
[Core] Loaded native plugin idb_import
[Core] Loaded native plugin view_bintxt
[Core] Loaded native plugin view_elf
[Core] Loaded native plugin view_macho
[Core] Loaded native plugin view_md1rom
[Core] Loaded native plugin view_pe
[Core] Loaded native plugin arch_arm64
[Core] Loaded native plugin arch_armv7
[Core] Loaded native plugin arch_msp430
[Core] Loaded native plugin arch_riscv
[Core] Loaded native plugin arch_x86
[Core] Loaded native plugin platform_efi
[Core] Loaded native plugin platform_linux
[Core] Loaded native plugin platform_mac
[Core] Loaded native plugin platform_windows
[Core] Loaded native plugin platform_windows_kernel
[Core] Loaded native plugin workflow_objc

[xusheng6]

I cannot seem to reproduce this locally. Sidekick was known to occasionally drag down the startup performance in certain cases, do you have that installed?

[jonpalmisc]

Nope, no Sidekick.

[plafosse]

I've diagnosed the issue and its the initialization of python specifically the call to !g_pfnPyImport_ImportModule("binaryninja")