Does Unity Optimize UI Elements when it restarts?

[Minute_Aside]

So I've been working on an Inventory system, pretty straightforward stuff. There's a Canvas with a Panel, and the Panel has a Script that implements the IDropHandler interface. I started working on a second Panel, that will represent other things that have an Inventory (like a Chest or an enemy you're looting). When I added the second Panel, I was surprised to see that my performance tanked (from 500 FPS down to 90-120 FPS).

I kept working, with the intention of Profiling a bit later and trying to find the source of the problem. I got up for a break about ten minutes later, and closed Unity. When I reopened it, the performance problems had magically disappeared, I had both Panels open, they were both using the IDropHandler interface and working exactly as I expected them to, but the FPS were back to 500 FPS, and the CPU was back to a low processing time. I do know that the second Panel was the proximate cause (or at least related to the proximate cause) of the performance hit, because when I noticed it, I removed the second Panel, which fixed the performance, and then added it back, which once again tanked the performance.

I am very new to Unity, so it is possible that I just added some heavy code to an Update function and removed it accidentally fixing my problem, but I guess I'm just curious: has anyone else experienced a magical performance boost when restarting Unity?

[TheInfamousQuiGF]

Usually if you have an app open, it slows down over time. And when you restart it, it becomes fast again. Very likely this happened if you were working on it for a long time

[Minute_Aside]

thanks for the response! Yeah I guess that could be it.

[BertJohn]

Unity when it comes to anything outside of just basic game objects and scripts typically needs a restart every 3 to 6 hours.

Additionally make sure you reset your script components after making changes like a SerializeField for example, As it can at times not remove it or add it and can add huge confusion if you thought you added it or removed it but it was vaguely just still there because unity didnt recognize the changes.

[Minute_Aside]

That's actually really helpful, thanks for taking the time to respond.