Connection Timeouts and Sending Msg. Failed Errors

J0Mama · Post by **J0Mama** » January 15th, 2006, 5:44 am

Not here (dual core Intel); hotfix fixed it. Must be an AMD issue.

nimsje · Post by **nimsje** » January 15th, 2006, 6:11 am

That is correct, it's an AMD issue:
Timestamp counters (TSCs) on 64-bit AMD systems should ideally remain synchronized, because these systems run all CPUs from a common clock oscillator. However, some 64-bit AMD systems have power management features that can cause the TSCs on some processor cores to lose time relative to others.

The intel dual core cannot have different frequency's for each core. It appears that AMD is also not capable of it.

J0Mama · Post by **J0Mama** » January 15th, 2006, 7:01 am

I'm going to have to take that back. It just happened again.

Carlton Bale · Post by **Carlton Bale** » January 15th, 2006, 9:38 am

Thanks to David Mytton, I now have a copy of the patched DLL file that was submitted to the development team to resolve the issue. I've packaged it into a self-extracting zip file. Just extract the file into your Mozilla Thunderbird directory, overwriting the existing nspr4.dll file. It has resolved the problem for me. Here's the link:

http://www.carltonbale.com/hosted/nspr4.exe

suryoyo · Post by **suryoyo** » January 15th, 2006, 10:52 am

Carltwhy why did you package this into an exe isntead of a zip?

Nimsje is certainly no talking out of his ***. I had heard of issues with games running only on one core on other forums and causing problems for people where they had to manually set the affinity on the task manager, very familiar to the problem we're having with thunderbird.
I'm actually going to try the fix out on Monday. Thanks Nimsje.
I've been using the imagecfg fix for the last month w/o problems as a temp fix.

nimsje · Post by **nimsje** » January 15th, 2006, 2:11 pm

Carlton Bale, are you not posting a virus here? Not to be a p.i.t.a. but I am not that thrusty downloading .exe files from strange sites. I am just carefull.

I am very curious how the TB fix was implemented, because it doesn't seem to be a TB problem at all. The MS patch, and the /usepmitimer realy did the trick for me.

Carlton Bale · Post by **Carlton Bale** » January 15th, 2006, 7:09 pm

nimsje wrote:Carlton Bale, are you not posting a virus here? Not to be a p.i.t.a. but I am not that thrusty downloading .exe files from strange sites. I am just carefull.

A virus, are you kidding me? I did a self-extracting zip to make it easier to install. The previous link is just a Winzip self-extractor that just auto-prompts to the default install directory for TB -- it also gives a description of the fix. If you want a zip, here is a zip:

http://www.carltonbale.com/hosted/nspr4.zip

I don't think it should be necessary to install a Microsoft hotfix to get Thunderbird 1.5 to work on dual core systems when TB 1.0.7 worked without issue. Hopefully, this fix will be incorporated to TB soon.

-Carlton Bale
a guy trying to make thunderbird better, not a virus writer

rpcohen · Post by **rpcohen** » January 16th, 2006, 1:04 am

I also have an AMD X2 system and the problem with timeouts on SMTP sends with TB 1.5. I never had any such problem with TB 1.06. I was glad find this thread and can confirm that the the workaround of setting the program's affinity to only 1 of the 2 CPUs fixes the problem.

I found another type of temporary workaround that hasn't been mentioned here. It uses a freeware command line utility called Process.exe that can be downloaded from http://www.beyondlogic.org/solutions/pr ... ssutil.htm. This utility, among other features, allows the affinity of a process to be changed from the command line. The easiest way to use it is to download the utility and unzip the contents (process.exe) into the same directory/folder as your Thunderbird.exe program. Then, using a text editor create a new file with the following two lines and save it as TB0.cmd in the same directory/folder:

start thunderbird.exe
start process.exe -a thunderbird.exe 01

When you double-click or otherwise run TB0.cmd, it will start TB and then immediately run Process.exe to change the affinity of TB to CPU0 only. A shortcut to TB0.cmd can be created on your desktop, Startup folder or anywhere else your system from which you want to run Thunderbird. You can also open the properties for the cmd file and change its icon to the Thunderbird icon to make it easy to recognize.

This is only a temporary workaround, of course. As suggested by others, I also voted for bug #307527 in Bugzilla which relates to this bug. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=307527

Ralph

Carlton Bale · Post by **Carlton Bale** » January 16th, 2006, 6:36 am

The bug is now up to 15 votes, more than double what it was yesterday. I'm not sure how many is "enough", so please vote if you haven't.

For whatever reason, I couldn't get the DLL download link from Mozilla.org to work yesterday. It appears to be working now. Download the file nspr4.dll and save it to your C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird directory, overwriting the existing file. I encourage everyone to try this solution as it is the intended production fix for Thunderbird 1.5 and it needs to be tested. If you have any issues with the patch, post it to bug report 307527. It may be helpful to report results here as well.

Main download link: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=208496 (dll file)
Alternative link (if bugzilla is not working): http://www.carltonbale.com/hosted/nspr4.zip (zip)
Alternative link (if bugzilla is not working): http://www.carltonbale.com/hosted/nspr4.exe (self-extracting zip)

rpcohen · Post by **rpcohen** » January 16th, 2006, 10:15 am

Carlton Bale wrote:I encourage everyone to try this solution as it is the intended production fix for Thunderbird 1.5 and it needs to be tested. If you have any issues with the patch, post it to bug report 307527. It may be helpful to report results here as well.

Thanks, your modified npsr4.dll file appears to have fixed the problems I was having with the SMTP timeouts.

Ralph

jblaty · Post by **jblaty** » January 17th, 2006, 6:58 am

The modified npsr4.dll file also appears to fix the POP3 connection timeout issues. Will continue testing.

Carlton Bale · Post by **Carlton Bale** » January 17th, 2006, 7:04 am

I think the timeout was independant of the server connection, be it POP3, IMAP, or SMTP. I got the error for all of these connections and the revised DLL I installed solved the issue for all of them.

nimsje · Post by **nimsje** » January 17th, 2006, 1:05 pm

Can someone please explain why the new AMD cpu drivers also fix this problem? Is there a workaround implemented for amd cpu's in this dll?

suryoyo · Post by **suryoyo** » January 17th, 2006, 1:17 pm

nimsje I've heard from other forums that the amd drivers have some affinity presets in them that fix issues people have had with games. I think the problem we're having with TB is probably the same.

I was looking over the thread you mentioned, I need the Win xp x64 version of the MS hotfix mentioned there. Do you know where I can find it?

nimsje · Post by **nimsje** » January 17th, 2006, 2:29 pm

No sorry according to the MS site, you have to ask them. I was lucky that someone had put it online already.

Connection Timeouts and Sending Msg. Failed Errors

Another temporary workaround