Android Studio 2.3.1 - editing build.gradle file causes IDE to freeze for 20 seconds (or more)

Question

The past few days, I've experienced some unusual problems in Android Studio 2.3.1; the IDE freezes whenever I edit the build.gradle (module) file.

• My Project-level gradle settings are Use default gradle wrapper (recommended)

• gradle-wrapper.properties is as follows:

  distributionBase=GRADLE_USER_HOME
  distributionPath=wrapper/dists
  zipStoreBase=GRADLE_USER_HOME
  zipStorePath=wrapper/dists
  distributionUrl=https\://services.gradle.org/distributions/gradle-3.3-all.zip
  

• My local Gradle version (defined by GRADLE_USER_HOME) is Gradle 3.5

• Android Studio does not have a proxy server setting enabled as described in this post Android Studio gradle takes too long to build

• my gradle.properties file is as follows

  org.gradle.daemon=true
  org.gradle.parallel=true
  

• my build.gradle file is as follows

  apply plugin: 'com.android.application'
  
  android {
      compileSdkVersion 25
      buildToolsVersion "25.0.3"
      defaultConfig {
          applicationId "app.com.eventfull.waterjam"
          minSdkVersion 16
          targetSdkVersion 25
          versionCode 1
          versionName "1.0"
          testInstrumentationRunner "android.support.test.runner.AndroidJUnitRunner"
      }
      buildTypes {
          release {
              minifyEnabled false
              proguardFiles getDefaultProguardFile('proguard-android.txt'), 'proguard-rules.pro'
          }
      }
  
      dataBinding.enabled=true
  }
  
  dependencies {
      compile fileTree(dir: 'libs', include: ['*.jar'])
      androidTestCompile('com.android.support.test.espresso:espresso-core:2.2.2',         {
          exclude group: 'com.android.support', module: 'support-annotations'
      })
  
      compile 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:25.3.1'
  
      compile 'com.google.firebase:firebase-auth:10.0.1'
      compile 'com.firebaseui:firebase-ui-database:1.0.0'
      compile 'com.google.firebase:firebase-database:10.0.1'
  
      compile 'com.android.support:design:25.3.1'
      compile 'com.android.support:support-v4:25.3.1'
      testCompile 'junit:junit:4.12'
  }
  
  apply plugin: 'com.google.gms.google-services'
  

I tried toggling the offline work option in Global Gradle Settings (Settings > Preferences > Build, Execution, Deployment > Gradle), but this has no effect; IDE still hangs up when editing the build.gradle file. Thoughts?

---

EDITS:

Here are my custom VM OPTIONS.

-Xms512m
-Xmx2g
-XX:MaxPermSize=1024m
-XX:ReservedCodeCacheSize=240m
-XX:+UseCompressedOops

A complete un-install & re-install seems to have fixed this issue.
I dislike resorting to such measures - I'd rather know the why - but it was nonetheless effective.

---

UPDATES on 6.25.2017

Despite uninstalling & reinstalling Android Studio, Gradle, rebooting my system, cleaning various system caches a few times...Android Studio still freezes for ~30s to 60secs upon editing a gradle file. I've taken to editing the gradle files in an external text editor & Sync Project with Gradle Files. It helps, but Android Studio still seems to freeze intermittently for ~20secs or longer after doing this. Toggling the "offline mode" in gradle settings does nothing.

I'm using...

• Android Studio 2.3.3 (for production apps)

• Android Studio 3.0 canary 4 (for experimenting & ideas).

• 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:2.3.3' is the gradle android build tools in Android 2.3.3

• Macbook Pro (Mid 2015), Core-i7, 16GB RAM, Sierra 10.12.5

Let me know if someone has any suggestions...

---

UPDATE 4/02/2018

The problem has disappeared since Google added a special repository for Android Studio users, that is, the embedded Maven repository for Android Studio 3+.

Android Studio 2.3.3 and lower doesn't have this.

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Open Android Studio's Preferences - ⌘, (mac) or CTRL ALT S (win)
2. search for 'embedded'
3. click Enable embedded Maven repository