Sluggish Performance

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hislordship
Posts: 9
Joined: June 11th, 2013, 2:13 am

Sluggish Performance

Post by hislordship »

Hello

I wonder if anyone here has a solution to my issue.

System:
Windows 10 - up to date
Thunderbird 60.9.0 (32-bit) - not updating as I had issues with GContactSync when I did, so had to reinstall Thunderbird.

Addons:
GcontactSync
Lightning
Provider for Google calendar

Now my problem is Thunderbird is sluggish.
It will freeze up for 5 seconds and not respond, then carry on as normal, then may freeze up again and so on.
It happens browsing emails or starting a new mail.
For example, when I start a new mail, I start typing the email address and nothing happens. Then suddenly it will fill in the address and I can carry on.
It's not every time though.

Another example. I click on a mail to read it. Freeze... then display. But again not every time.

I tried starting Thunderbird in safe mode (i.e. no extensions), made no difference.

Is there a log I canget hold of to post here for you to have a look at?
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DanRaisch
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Posts: 127185
Joined: September 23rd, 2004, 8:57 pm
Location: Somewhere on the right coast

Re: Sluggish Performance

Post by DanRaisch »

How is the account (or accounts) set up in Thunderbird, as POP or IMAP? Find out using menu path Tools->Account Settings->Server Settings->Server Type at the top right of the dialogue.
hislordship
Posts: 9
Joined: June 11th, 2013, 2:13 am

Re: Sluggish Performance

Post by hislordship »

Mail accounts are all IMAP - they were always IMAP.

I forgot to mention that the same Thunderbird version on a Windows XP machine with the same accounts runs fine - no sluggish performance.
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DanRaisch
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Posts: 127185
Joined: September 23rd, 2004, 8:57 pm
Location: Somewhere on the right coast

Re: Sluggish Performance

Post by DanRaisch »

What security software are you running on that system?
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WaltS48
Posts: 5141
Joined: May 7th, 2010, 9:38 am
Location: Pennsylvania, USA

Re: Sluggish Performance

Post by WaltS48 »

I made an exception in Windows Defender to not scan Thunderbird and that helped a bit.

Sorry, I can't give detailed instructions. I had to go through hoops to find where to do that, and I primarily use Linux.
Last edited by WaltS48 on November 20th, 2019, 4:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
Linux Desktop - AMD Athlon(tm) II X3 455 3.3GHz | 8.0GB RAM | GeForce GT 630
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hislordship
Posts: 9
Joined: June 11th, 2013, 2:13 am

Re: Sluggish Performance

Post by hislordship »

Thanks everyone for the posts.
Sorry I haven't replied yet - been so busy at work!

All accounts are IMAP and can't be changed to POP as they are accessed on multiple devices by different people.

I'm using Windows 10 with Windows Defender since it was built in.
Now I should have thought of that as the culprit!
If I turn off REAL TIME PROTECTION in VIRUS AND THREAT PROTECTION SETTINGS the issue does go away..
Definite reason for the problem!

So now, what sort of protection do you recommend?
Just add an exception as mentioned?
I'm loathe to add another antivirus program to the computer as I've found it does slow the machine down in some cases (Webroot seems to be the least invasive from past experience).
wsmwk
Posts: 2833
Joined: December 7th, 2004, 6:52 am
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Re: Sluggish Performance

Post by wsmwk »

Add an exception for directory %appdata%\thunderbird (assuming that's where your profiles are located) and you should be good to go.
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tanstaafl
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Posts: 49647
Joined: July 30th, 2003, 5:06 pm

Re: Sluggish Performance

Post by tanstaafl »

I suspect performance problems are very configuration specific as I am running Windows Defender (with all protections enabled) and the commercial version of MalwareBytes anti-malware on Windows 10 and have had no performance problems. When I used other AV software I used to occasionally have to set exceptions for large strategy games such as CIV V, I haven't had to do that with Windows Defender because its integrated.

If wsmwk's suggestion doesn't help I suggest you consider replacing Windows Defender with the free version of BitDefender. It doesn't know about mail, just files, and doesn't have the feature creep of major AV's such as Avast! so its overhead is reasonable when I've used it.

Webroot is unusual in that It’ll run malware in a sandbox to test and analyse its behavior before reporting the information back. This uses fewer resources than traditional methods but causes lower protection scores. That is supposedly why labs like AV-Comparatives haven’t tested Webroot on Windows since 2012. So its hard to know how good it is.
hislordship
Posts: 9
Joined: June 11th, 2013, 2:13 am

Re: Sluggish Performance

Post by hislordship »

Thank you to everyone for the assistance.
Windows Defender is causing the issue, so I have excluded it using these instructions
https://www.startnet.co.uk/how-to-exclu ... ning-slow/
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