Debugging ESP32/ESP-Prog is extremely slow 1 minute waiting for "info: ...."

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PIO debugging is extremely slow.

The project runs and performs well, no errors BUT the debugging process is too slow.

Per each breakpoint the Debug-Console shows a message “[esp32.cpuX] target halted…” this is done reasonably fast, but then it shows additional message line “Info: …” with a small counter on the left side and it takes at least 1minute! counting before it actually stops at the breakpoint.
It makes it impossible to use such a slow debugging process.

I debug a CPP project that contain multiple tasks and I2C serial communication using FreeRTOS & Arduino framework under VSCode and PIO running on Windows11 PC

The target is ESP32 Devkit V1 using the ESP32-Prog as a debugger probe
VSCode ver: 1.89.1
PlatformIO IDE ver: 3.3.3 + ms-vscod.cpptools
PlatformIO ver: 6.1.15
Microsoft C/C++ IntelliSense debugging & code browsing ver: 1.20.5

Since the breakpoint time does not make any sense I assume that there is some setting problem or I am using the wrong tools.

PlatformIO INI file:

[platformio]
default_envs = esp32doit-devkit-v1
[env:esp32doit-devkit-v1]
platform = espressif32
board = esp32doit-devkit-v1
framework = arduino
monitor_speed = 115200
monitor_dtr = 0
monitor_rts = 0
upload_speed = 921000
upload_protocol = esp-prog
debug_tool = esp-prog
debug_init_break = tbreak setup
build_type = debug
debug_build_flags = -O0 -g -ggdb

2

An update:
I found out that I can improve the speed if I add to platformio.ini the line
debug_speed= N

if N=1000 it takes PIO breakpoint processing 1.5 to 2 MINUTES! to process the “Info” stage of the break point and give the user the control.

if N=5000 it takes PIO around 15-25 seconds to do it.

if N > 5000 the debugger is unpredicted and basically fail to work.

For a comparison, I run a similar program on Arduino Due, much slower board, on the same PC using Segger-Ozone debugger and breaking on a break-point takes a fraction of a second.

Any help is appreciated.
Is it a known problem?
Is there a solution?
Am I the only one using this debugger?