Description
Obsidian opens the vault normally, but shortly after indexing starts the UI turns into a black window. The main Obsidian
process remains alive and Windows still considers the window responsive, but the renderer process exits.
This appears to be triggered by large Markdown files in the vault.
Environment
● Obsidian version: 1.12.7
● OS: Windows 10, build 19045
● Installer path: C:\Users\****\AppData\Local\Programs\Obsidian\Obsidian.exe
● Community plugins: disabled during the final reproduction
Steps to reproduce
I prepared a sanitized reproduction repository:
1 . Clone the repository.
2 . Run:
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\scripts\generate-repro-vault.ps1
1 . Open repro-vault in Obsidian.
2 . Wait for indexing.
3 . Optional process monitor:
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\scripts\observe-obsidian-renderer.ps1
Expected result
Obsidian should index large Markdown files without the renderer process exiting.
If a file is too large or expensive to index safely, Obsidian should skip it, warn the user, or degrade gracefully while keeping the
UI usable.
Actual result
The vault opens briefly, then the window turns black.
Process inspection showed that the main process, GPU process, and utility process remained alive,
while Obsidian.exe --type=renderer disappeared after about 15 seconds.
Local investigation
I tested by physically moving folders in and out of the vault and clearing Obsidian runtime caches between runs:
● Empty test vault: stable for 60 seconds.
● Original vault with only root-level small files: stable for 60 seconds.
● Original vault with most directories restored: stable.
● Restoring a task transcript folder caused the renderer to disappear after about 15 seconds.
● Moving only Markdown files larger than 5 MB out of that folder restored stability for at least 90 seconds.
The problematic set contained eight large Markdown files:
Size Description
37.82 MB Large task transcript Markdown
9.06 MB Large task transcript Markdown
8.57 MB Large task transcript Markdown
7.62 MB Large task transcript Markdown
7.50 MB Large task transcript Markdown
6.76 MB Large task transcript Markdown
5.63 MB Large task transcript Markdown
5.25 MB Large task transcript Markdown
Files smaller than 5 MB in the same folder did not trigger the issue during local testing.
Workaround
Move very large Markdown files outside the vault, split them into smaller notes, or exclude them before opening Obsidian.
Notes
This looks related to the indexing pipeline for large Markdown documents. The failure mode is severe because the user sees
only a black window and cannot recover from inside the app.
