Question

Why is TurboTax so slow to launch?

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
January 9, 2020
5 replies
0 views

Maybe it's posted elsewhere, but the forum is hard to search.

For years now TurboTax, particularly right after installation, is super slow to launch. The not so helpful and almost annoyingly taunting splash screen says "yes we know it's slow," but the performance never improves. What's up with that TurboTax? Why can't you make the app launch faster?

TurboTax Home & Biz Windows

tygrtchr

Employee

The speed of the launch depends on the number of people accessing the TurboTax server. The beginning of "tax season" and the week or so before April 15 are the busiest times of the year.

D

DK141

I'm running on a high-performance desktop. AMD 3700x, 32 GB RAM, 2 TB high-performance SSD and it takes 79 seconds to launch Turbo Tax (Run as Administrator).

I regret purchasing TurboTax.

T

TurbTxLoadsTooSlow

Wow 79 seconds, try 46 minutes and counting.

Dear Intuit, this is a consistent problem with TurboTax in previous years. I could not recommend Turbotax to Anyone at this point.

N

ns29

I agree, extremely slow. To the point it seems like a tactic to get you buy on of their upgrades. Im a CPA so I know how to file my tax return. What should have been 30 to 45 min process, has taken me 4 plus hours. It takes almost 30 to 60 seconds to load each thing. Will not be using this next year

fanfare

Employee

TurboTax uses JAVA.

When a JAVA program starts, everything you see or might see has to be initialized.

TurboTax is a hugely complex application. That's why it is so slow to launch.

If it is slow in operation, that shouldn't be, something else has gone wrong for you.

D

DK141

I've spent 14 years developing enterprise-class Java applications. I would have been fired if any of my projects were so slow on startup.

K

kreyg

As this doesn't appear to have an adequate answer...

It appears that TurboTax is scanning the entire Documents folder while starting up. Depending on the number of files you have here, this could take a very long time.

Critter-3

The TT program is a bit of a memory hog so closing other running programs usually helps and making sure the OS is up to date and run a defrag. Also the more information you enter into the return can also slow things up especially if you have hundreds of stock sales ... enter them last if you can.

P

PowerHouseSLO

I have installed desktop version of TurboTax Deluxe 2022. After launch, there is a screen with a a spinning starburst the expands/contracts labelled. “TurboTax 2022 - Activation”. It sits there for at least 30 minutes, and NEVER GETS ANY FARTHER.

H

HeatherPLO

Please see this Help Article which will assist you in troubleshooting this blank screen during the activation process.

@PowerHouseSLO

[edited 1/28/23 3:15 PM CST]

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R

RustyF

This question was posed in 2020. I just bought the brand-new download TurboTax 2024 H & B version in early November 2024 and find that it takes a good five (5) !!!!! minutes to fully launch. I love Turbo Tax, but kinda figured this would have been addressed a long time ago. I guess that should have waited a month to get going. Any Comments, Anybody?