In regards to this, I only have this is one application and it is one which is reading a file on disk at every hit. I believe this is coming from:

        ' Same as FileToStr() but for binary files
        ' expC1 File name
        Public Function FileToStrBinary(ByVal tcFileName As String) As String
            Dim lcString As String = ""
            Dim lnCounter As Integer = 0
            Dim lnDelay As Integer = 250
            Dim lnRetry As Integer = 8
            Dim loFile As IO.StreamReader
            For lnCounter = 1 To lnRetry
                Try
                    loFile = New IO.StreamReader(tcFileName, System.Text.Encoding.Default)
                    lcString = loFile.ReadToEnd()
                    loFile.Close()
                    Exit For
                Catch loError As Exception

                    ' If we have not reached the maximum tries of 8, we retry
                    If lnCounter < 8 Then

                        ' Wait for a timeout before retrying
                        System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(lnDelay)

                        Continue For
                    End If

                    ' Get the proper definition as per the current scope
                    If oProcess Is Nothing Then
                        oApp.ErrorSetup(loError)
                    Else
                        oProcess.ErrorSetup(loError)
                    End If

                End Try
            Next
            Return lcString
        End Function

Could ReadToEnd() be causing this?