Title: Sidekick becomes extremely slow / locks up as conversations get longer — not a client-side issue
Platform: Shopify Admin (Sidekick AI assistant)
Plan: Grow
Store: OrthoTape.com
Issue:
Sidekick works fine at the start of a conversation but becomes progressively slower and eventually locks up as the conversation grows longer. Response times go from seconds to minutes, and in some cases Sidekick stops responding altogether mid-session.
What I’ve tried (all confirmed, none resolved the issue):
- Tested in multiple browsers
- Removed all browser extensions
- Tested in Incognito mode
- Hard refreshed the Shopify admin
- Started fresh conversations to confirm the issue is tied to conversation length, not a one-time glitch
Findings:
The slowdown is directly correlated to conversation length. Short, fresh conversations are fast. As the thread grows — especially when working through complex multi-step tasks like product updates, SKU workflows, and structured data — performance degrades significantly. This is consistent and reproducible.
This is NOT a client-side issue. The problem persists across browsers, devices, and network conditions. The degradation pattern points to server-side context window processing as the conversation grows.
Impact:
Our workflow relies heavily on Sidekick for product SEO updates, JSON-LD structured data, ShipStation SKU protocols, and chargeback responses. Long working sessions are unavoidable for these tasks. The slowdown forces us to break work into multiple conversations, losing context and efficiency each time.
Request:
Shopify needs to investigate and address the server-side performance degradation that occurs as Sidekick conversation threads grow. This is a known pattern that has been reproducible for weeks.
Has anyone else experienced this? Would love to know if there’s a workaround beyond starting a new conversation every 10-15 turns.