Frequent Crashes and High Latency in PDIs: A Common Experience?

[ajayit23]

Hi everyone,

I’m currently building and practicing in my PDI, but I’ve been running into persistent issues with extremely long loading times and frequent crashing/timeout messages.

When I brought this up with my mentor and asked if I was somehow using a "demo instance," he clarified that there is no such thing—every developer uses the same standard PDI infrastructure. However, I attended the ServiceNow AI Skills Summit in Coimbatore yesterday, and during discussions with peer learners, almost many of them reported facing the exact same performance bottlenecks.

Since this seems to be a widespread experience rather than an isolated issue, I wanted to ask,

1. what are your best practices for minimizing crashes and latency in a PDI?
2. Are there specific background jobs we should disable, or plugins we should avoid leaving active?

Any tips on optimizing the PDI experience would be greatly appreciated!

[Dr Atul G- LNG]

Hi @ajayit23 

I completely understand your frustration. I know you're trying to learn the platform, practice hands-on, and build your skills, but your PDI issues are making that difficult.

A few important points to keep in mind:

• There is no official ServiceNow support for Personal Developer Instances (PDIs). Most of the guidance you receive from community members is based on their own experience and what has been shared by others in the ServiceNow Community.

• Since PDIs are provided free of charge, performance issues such as slow response times, occasional outages, or unexpected behavior can occur. A PDI relies on shared infrastructure, so factors like server load, hardware, and network usage can impact performance.

• I am using an out-of-the-box (OOTB) PDI without any additional plugins, and I haven't experienced the same issue. Could you check whether you've installed any plugins? Also, if your PDI contains a large amount of data or heavy customizations, that could affect its performance. It's difficult to determine whether this is an instance-specific issue without more details.

What you can do

• Log in to the ServiceNow Developer Site and refresh your PDI.

• If possible, take a backup of your work (for example, by committing your changes to an Update Set or exporting important configurations).

• Reset your PDI and test again. Keep in mind that resetting the instance will remove all data and customizations, so ensure you've backed up anything important first.

One recommendation

Do not release your PDI unless absolutely necessary. Due to the current demand, obtaining a new PDI can take 2–3 weeks. If possible, reset your existing instance first and see if that resolves the issue before considering releasing it.

https://youtu.be/KL5PNDPeyeU

[Tanushree Maiti · Accepted solution]

Hi @ajayit23 

There is no official list of scheduled jobs that ServiceNow recommends disabling in a PDI. Disabling OOB jobs can lead to unexpected behavior and isn't considered a general performance tuning practice.

Try these step : 

• Clear instance Cache using cache.do in Application Navigator
• From Developer portal , Refresh the instance
• Logout from the application
• Login using Incognitio/Inprivate browser

Also Ensure

• Other Application is working fine ,means its not your internet issue. Try once with changing connection with different one.

Follow these tips in PDI :

• Only activate plugins you actually need.  Enabling numerous plugins increases the number of tables, business rules, scheduled jobs, and metadata  in the instance 
• Try to Keep your instance lightweight.  Activate only those plugin on which you will work.
• Avoid running multiple long-running imports, scheduled job run, Flow executions at same time on a PDI

Note: There is no support available for PDI.