Thunderbird slow

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wsmwk
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Re: Thunderbird slow

Post by wsmwk »

robo45h wrote:Now using a Dell Latitude E5540 core i7 with Windows Pro 7 x64, and the latest Thunderbird 31.0. Same problem!

Here's my theory: My Courier IMAP server and super-large Inbox may somehow cause delays not seen on other email systems, or maybe just not by users with small mailboxes.

How many messages in Inbox?

robo45h wrote: And Thunderbird has some x64 code (doesn't happen on 32bit XP, remember) that is behaving badly in this case, chewing CPU and preventing other things from happening.

Doubful. But easily proved by running Thunderbird compiled to 32bit linux and see if it reproduces.
robo45h
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Re: Thunderbird slow

Post by robo45h »

wsm wrote:
robo45h wrote:Now using a Dell Latitude E5540 core i7 with Windows Pro 7 x64, and the latest Thunderbird 31.0. Same problem!

Here's my theory: My Courier IMAP server and super-large Inbox may somehow cause delays not seen on other email systems, or maybe just not by users with small mailboxes.

How many messages in Inbox?


211,850

robo45h wrote: And Thunderbird has some x64 code (doesn't happen on 32bit XP, remember) that is behaving badly in this case, chewing CPU and preventing other things from happening.
wsm wrote:Doubful. But easily proved by running Thunderbird compiled to 32bit linux and see if it reproduces.

Alas, I don't have the ability to perform this test "easily" at the moment.
wsmwk
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Re: Thunderbird slow

Post by wsmwk »

Try disabling IDLE in the account's advanced server settings
robo45h
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Re: Thunderbird slow

Post by robo45h »

wsm wrote:Try disabling IDLE in the account's advanced server settings


Very interesting. With IDLE disabled the problem is much less frequent. Now T'bird only gets flagged by Windows as "Application is not responding" when it is checking my Inbox, or maybe downloading a message (not sure which).
PUdstrand
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Re: Thunderbird slow

Post by PUdstrand »

I've found that this some kind of conflict with the anti-virus programs. I had the problem with Norton on the 32 bit version with XP and McAfee on the 62 bit version when I upgraded to Windows 7. I think it must have something to do with older machines, RAM or something because I have no problems with my laptop which is a newer processor, motherboard, etc. I have a Pentium Dual-Core e6700 3.2 GHz processor with 4 gigs of RAM, (I think it's RAM 2?)

I diagnosed this by shutting Thunderbird down, turning off "real time" or e-mails scanners, and then opening TB again. In both cases e-mails downloaded quickly, and I could open new e-mails immediately without delay or "not responding" hangs. Once I turned the AV back on TB became slow and glitchy again. Someone elsewhere on the Firefox site had actually recommended that I turn Norton off because of a different problem I had wherein TB turned my e-mail text into gibberish. Re-installs, index-rebuilds, etc. etc. made no difference. I spent hours screwing around with this. TB just doesn't like AV on my machine. Unfortunately this is a problem that developed over time so it must be something TB built into it's later versions, I used to be able to use TB, now I can't.

This means basically that on some machines at least TB conflicts with two of the most common AV programs in use today.
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DanRaisch
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Re: Thunderbird slow

Post by DanRaisch »

Actually, no; that's not what it means. It actually means that on some machines, two of the most common AV programs in use today conflict with Thunderbird. It's not up to an email client to ensure compatibility with AV products. That's backwards. It's up to the AV program publishers to ensure that their latest versions work properly with popular productivity applications, like word processors, email clients, spreadsheets, etc. Norton has been a bit better lately than it was a short time ago but McAfee has a bad reputation on these forums and is often found to be causing the problems that folks post here about, particularly performance issues with Firefox or Thunderbird.
PUdstrand
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Re: Thunderbird slow

Post by PUdstrand »

What it means is that I can't get TB to work for me so I'm switching to something else. That's too bad because I've been Using TB for years and years and loved it.
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DanRaisch
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Re: Thunderbird slow

Post by DanRaisch »

That's certainly your choice but it does not change the fact that the burden of ensuring compatibility lies on the AV side. You really should be switching from Norton or McAfee to one of the AV programs that doesn't cause those sorts of problems. There are free versions of programs, Avast being one, that work quite well with Thunderbird and have good ratings as security software.
colbie
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Re: Thunderbird slow found problem

Post by colbie »

some one suggested turning off McAfee, I did that and it worked so far. read it somewhere here , who ever mentioned thanks a bunch.
wsmwk
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Re: Thunderbird slow

Post by wsmwk »

robo45h wrote:
wsm wrote:Try disabling IDLE in the account's advanced server settings


Very interesting. With IDLE disabled the problem is much less frequent. Now T'bird only gets flagged by Windows as "Application is not responding" when it is checking my Inbox, or maybe downloading a message (not sure which).

robo45h,

With IDLE enabled, could you please get an imap protocol log (use imap:5,timestamp) and see if the log matches what is mentioned in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=479450 ??
wsmwk
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Re: Thunderbird slow found problem

Post by wsmwk »

colbie wrote:some one suggested turning off McAfee, I did that and it worked so far. read it somewhere here , who ever mentioned thanks a bunch.

colbie, you might not need to turn off McAfee entirely. See https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:Te ... ues#McAfee

Does that help?
wsmwk
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Re: Thunderbird slow

Post by wsmwk »

DanRaisch wrote:Actually, no; that's not what it means. It actually means that on some machines, two of the most common AV programs in use today conflict with Thunderbird. It's not up to an email client to ensure compatibility with AV products. That's backwards. It's up to the AV program publishers to ensure that their latest versions work properly with popular productivity applications, like word processors, email clients, spreadsheets, etc. Norton has been a bit better lately than it was a short time ago but McAfee has a bad reputation on these forums and is often found to be causing the problems that folks post here about, particularly performance issues with Firefox or Thunderbird.

Just because they are popular AV products does not mean they work properly and play nice with everything. They are in the business to make money, and the more features they throw in the better they look. But many of these features cause problems. See https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:Te ... nce_Issues (and McAfee in particular). One day they are performant, and the next day that are not. At various times in their versions/life cycles they interoperate well, and next thing you know they've broken or regressed something.

That said, Thunderbird version 38 goes into testing soon, and it has several good performance improvements.
robo45h
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Joined: October 23rd, 2004, 9:01 am

Re: Thunderbird slow

Post by robo45h »

wsm wrote:
robo45h wrote:
wsm wrote:Try disabling IDLE in the account's advanced server settings


Very interesting. With IDLE disabled the problem is much less frequent. Now T'bird only gets flagged by Windows as "Application is not responding" when it is checking my Inbox, or maybe downloading a message (not sure which).

robo45h,

With IDLE enabled, could you please get an imap protocol log (use imap:5,timestamp) and see if the log matches what is mentioned in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=479450 ??


I was finally able to configure logging as requested above. Virus scanning is completely disabled on the computer. IDLE was initially turned off. Thunderbird was launched. Windows noted at times that Thunderbird was not responding. IDLE was enabled. The not responding problem occurred again. There are several accounts configured in Thunderbird; the one to be concerned with is the one @olivers.us.

I think that the issue from 479450 appears in the part of the log where IDLE is enabled, but I'm no expert at reading these logs. It also would not explain the problem occurring before IDLE was enabled.


I have no clue how to pass along the logfile, however.
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