SOLVED - Slow Thunderbird startup on some profiles.

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bhdavis
Posts: 24
Joined: March 14th, 2014, 3:48 am

SOLVED - Slow Thunderbird startup on some profiles.

Post by bhdavis »

[PROBLEM SOLVED. SEE MY FINAL POST BELOW. /u]

HI all.

Unusual situation hopefully you can help me resolve.

I7 laptop computer with Thunderbird 45.8.0. When I got this laptop a few years ago I installed Thunderbird with the default installation profile that I use for email at home. Everything was working fine.

Yesterday I copied my work email profile from my work PC onto a flash drive and brought the flash drive home. This is a large 20gb folder with many, many sub-folders.

I started Thunderbird from the RUN option on the Windows 10 START button. I used: thunderbird.exe -p to add a 2nd profile which worked fine.

I then found the new profile folder in the ROAMING section of USERS in File Explorer and copied the files from the flash drive profile folder over the the new profile folder. To be safe although I don't know if it is necessary or not I also did the LOCAL folders section of USERS and pasted in the files from the LOCAL section of the office PC.

I started Thunderbird and all the email from the office was there as expected. I've used this method in the past and it's always worked for me just fine so was fairly confident it would work here.

The only problem is that Thunderbird takes 10 to 15 seconds to start up when I use the newly created profile for my office email.

When I start Thunderbird with the original default profile it starts right fine. It's only with the copy/pasted 20gb size office profile that it starts slowly.

I tried compacting all the primary folders (assuming......maybe wrongly........that sub-folders would automatically compact as well) and that had no impact.

This is more of an annoyance than a huge problem. However eventually I'm going to delete the original default profile and just use the office email profile on this laptop so it will become a bigger issue for me in the future.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
BH
Last edited by bhdavis on March 12th, 2017, 4:07 am, edited 2 times in total.
bhdavis
Posts: 24
Joined: March 14th, 2014, 3:48 am

Re: Slow startup on Thunderbird 45.8.0 - SOLVED

Post by bhdavis »

PROBLEM SOLVED. SEE MY FINAL POST AT THE BOTTOM.

I just discovered that if I uncheck CHECK FOR MESSAGES AT STARTUP Thunderbird starts immediately.

It seems that the delayed start is somehow connected to how Thunderbird is checking for messages at startup.

I think the overall delay from clicking the Thunderbird icon to start the program to being done checking for email might be about the same. In the new profile it seems to be checking the host servers before you can click on the screen while in the original profile the screen comes active WHILE the program is checking the host servers.

Strange............
BH
Last edited by bhdavis on March 12th, 2017, 3:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
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tanstaafl
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Joined: July 30th, 2003, 5:06 pm

Re: Slow Thunderbird startup on some but not all profiles.

Post by tanstaafl »

Perhaps the 20GB profile has lots of accounts with many messages in the inbox. That will slow down startup. See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Performance_-_Thunderbird

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Minimize_the_ ... _a_profile describes a very lean, fast configuration if you use IMAP accounts.
bhdavis
Posts: 24
Joined: March 14th, 2014, 3:48 am

Re: Slow Thunderbird startup on some but not all profiles.

Post by bhdavis »

Thanks for the suggestion.

The inbox of each of the 3 email accounts in the profile is either empty or has 4 or 5 messages at most. I keep my inboxes clean.

I've also tried deleting all .msf files in the profile directory and let Thunderbird rebuild them on restart. No change.

I've also uninstalled and reinstalled Thunderbird, and then copy/pasted the files from the old profiles into the newly created profiles of the reinstall. Again no change in startup time.

However, as I said above if I uncheck CHECK FOR FILES AT STARTUP Thunderbird starts up immediately.

Thanks again,
BH
wsmwk
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Joined: December 7th, 2004, 6:52 am
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Re: Slow Thunderbird startup on some but not all profiles.

Post by wsmwk »

This are imap accounts, correct?
What happens if you start Windows in safe mode and allow check for email on startup/
bhdavis
Posts: 24
Joined: March 14th, 2014, 3:48 am

Re: Slow Thunderbird startup on some but not all profiles.

Post by bhdavis »

Sorry........no I should have specified they are POP3 accounts as I keep all messages on the laptop.
Haven't tried Safe Mode yet. Will do so.
Thanks,
BH
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DanRaisch
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Joined: September 23rd, 2004, 8:57 pm
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Re: Slow Thunderbird startup on some but not all profiles.

Post by DanRaisch »

On that problem account:

First, backup your Profile ( http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_backup )

Create a new sub-folder under Local Folders. Move all of the messages currently in your Inbox to that new subfolder.

Confirm that you have made the recommended backup of your Profile.

Close Thunderbird and navigate to the \Mail sub-folder of your Profile folder. Delete both the file Inbox.msf and the file Inbox with no extension.

Restart Thunderbird and you should find a new, empty Inbox folder in place. Copy any messages you MUST have in your Inbox from the sub-folder created above to the Inbox. Compact the Inbox after those messages are copied in.

The "Real Fix" entry in this article -- http://kb.mozillazine.org/Compacting_folders#Real_fix also describes this process.
bhdavis
Posts: 24
Joined: March 14th, 2014, 3:48 am

Re: Slow Thunderbird startup on some but not all profiles.

Post by bhdavis »

Thanks for the suggestion. Let me add that since my last post I tried creating a new profile as a test. That profile, with NO email messages at all in the profile, immediately started slowly.

So I have one original profile that starts instantly, two added profiles with old folders pasted into them that start slowly, and one brand new from scratch profile (empty as created) that starts slowly.

I've also tried uninstalling and reinstalling Thunderbird with a single new profile. That too started slowly.

Very strange.

BH
bhdavis
Posts: 24
Joined: March 14th, 2014, 3:48 am

Re: Slow Thunderbird startup on some but not all profiles.

Post by bhdavis »

I just realized this is NOT a startup problem but rather a CHECK MAIL ON SERVERS problem. I saw this once before several years ago and am trying to remember what was the cause.

If I uncheck the CHECK FOR MAIL ON STARTUP box on all 3 mail accounts Thunderbird starts immediately. Then when I click on the GET MAIL button the program hangs for about 5 to 10 seconds before getting the mail.

BH
bhdavis
Posts: 24
Joined: March 14th, 2014, 3:48 am

Re: Slow Thunderbird startup on some but not all profiles.

Post by bhdavis »

Ok....done some more digging.

I've tried deleting the INBOX in all the mail folders to no avail.

I've tried disabling Norton firewall and autoprotect to no avail.

Still digging.
BH
bhdavis
Posts: 24
Joined: March 14th, 2014, 3:48 am

Re: Slow Thunderbird startup on some but not all profiles.

Post by bhdavis »

Found it. I actually posted this fix several years ago at:

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic ... &t=2928185

It was a matter of changing the PROXY settings under TOOLS, OPTIONS, ADVANCED, NETWORK & DISK SPACE, CONNECTION, SETTINGS. I changed from USE SYSTEM PROXY SETTINGS to NO PROXY. Problem solved.

BH
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