@richards99 these two things come to mind:
- you could try and use Columnar backend (KNIME Columnar Table Backend Boosts Performance | KNIME). I had some issues with that with loops but it might improve the performance.
- try changing the internal compression (Knime processing power blocking at every single step after finished flow - #4 by mlauber71)
- you could try and use a cache node (Cache – KNIME Community Hub) right before your node where you encounter the problems
More things about performance here.
One step could also be to investigate special settings mentioned here (edit: or mabye not FILE READER freezes - Part (2) - #9 by marc-bux)