Thunderbird not responding, then taking ages to do anything

User Help for Mozilla Thunderbird
darkworlds
Posts: 16
Joined: January 7th, 2005, 4:37 am

Thunderbird not responding, then taking ages to do anything

Post by darkworlds »

I use Thunderbird as a front end to GroupWise 5.2.

It has bean working without any problems for at leas 6 months now, but for some reason this morning all users using Thunderbird all experienced the same problem. At first when you clicked on a mail the program stopped responding. Finally this stopped but now it is taking 11 - 15 seconds to either delete or even move a mail message.

The GroupWise system seams to be fine. My first thought was an issue with connecting to the server but mail is coming in, and surely this wouldn't cause the time delay with items that are already in the Thunderbird system.

I have compacted my inbox etc... But it hasn't helped. It seams strange that all users running Thunderbird are affected.

Does anybody have any ideas?
Guest
Guest

Post by Guest »

Hello darkworlds and welcome,
try this,
If compacting didn’t help and everything is still slow,etc.,
Close Thunderbird. Find and delete all of the files with the .msf file extension in your profile folder/Mail http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Folder#Thunderbird. You must have "View hidden files and folders on" http://spywarewarrior.com/viewtopic.php?t=272 and you need to set "hide extensions for known file types" off (just below View Hidden) if you are using Windows. These are your mail summary files and do not hold any messages themselves. They will be rebuilt the next time you open each folder in Thunderbird.
and if compacting and deleting the .msf didn’t help last resort is the following:
1. Move any mail in your Inbox - that you want to retain - to subfolders of Local Folders. Backup your profile. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_backup

2. Close down Thunderbird

3. Navigate to your Thunderbird Profile Folder on your system and DELETE the 'Inbox' and 'Inbox.msf' files for this account. They will be rebuilt when you relaunch Thunderbird. If you have more than one account, make sure you do this in the proper account. All messages will be deleted in this process. If you do make a mistake, I hope you made the backup I suggested in step 1.
(excerpts from Daifne’s threads)
LB
darkworlds
Posts: 16
Joined: January 7th, 2005, 4:37 am

Post by darkworlds »

Thanks for the help, but it didn't work. It's all rather strange. An Email cones in, you click on it and it appears initially in the preview pain but the program then freezes for about a minute and a half. After that time its fine and you can go in and out of it without any problems, but when you try to delete it or move it to another folder it takes another minute to do it.
butting
Posts: 3
Joined: October 14th, 2004, 7:38 pm

Post by butting »

Observed here on 5 PCs (out of 30-ish), all reported to me as faults just today. Thunderbird versions 1.0.7 and 1.5, no extensions (except -possibly- NNWODC), Win2K and WinXP, mail retrieved from onsite Postfix/qpopper and offsite who-knows-what. Delays ranged from 5 seconds to 2 min observed and 20+ min reported; users have had Windows ask if they want to terminate their apparently-unresponsive program.

Four of the compacts appear to have solved things, but the other reverted to 15-second delays (on an 800-message inbox, IIRC) in short order. I'll be checking that one particularly closely tomorrow, as well as three of the others (the fourth is the boss's, and is currently overseas with him...), and then force-compacting everyone else Just In Case.

SPECULATION AHEAD.

This flurry is Really Bloody Suspicious, IMO. There haven't been any Windows Updates in the past two days that might otherwise suggest OS misbehaviour, the date looks a fair way from any edge conditions (ditto seconds-since-epoch in both Win32 and Unix), and there don't seem to've been any messages common to the affected systems.

I can't be the only one thinking the reports of this are far enough past happenstance and coincidence that it warrants being treated as seriously as enemy action. Is it possible there are environmental issues triggering a latent bug? Could something have possibly changed in certain not-quite-RFC MTAs or MUAs resulting in non-RFC messages, or at least messages with headers unexpected enough to trip up Thunderbird's header parser? Or could this simply be a karmic application of Rule 1 to apply balance during the current IE crisis?
star64
Guest

Post by star64 »

Happening on my Mac. Started this morning. Tried reinstalling software. No change. Hope someone has an answer soon.
texaspete
Posts: 12
Joined: December 2nd, 2005, 2:20 pm
Location: United Kingdom

Post by texaspete »

Darkworlds,

You don't happen to use Sophos Anti-Virus do you?
darkworlds
Posts: 16
Joined: January 7th, 2005, 4:37 am

Post by darkworlds »

As a mater of fact, yes my entire network is protected by Sophos. I take it your's is as well?
texaspete
Posts: 12
Joined: December 2nd, 2005, 2:20 pm
Location: United Kingdom

Post by texaspete »

It is!

Sophos is screwing with Thunderbird. You can tell if you open Task Manager when Thunderbird is 'frozen' and see that a process called SavService.exe is consuming a load of CPU time.

The problem is a virus definition update that they released last night at approx 20mins past midnight (UK Summer Time).
The file is called rbot-ctj.ide. If you delete it from Sophos Anti-Virus folder and restart the PC the problem goes away.

When I spoke to Sophos at around midday, they said they knew about the problem and were working on and updated rbot-ctj.ide file.
Banana Peels
Posts: 11
Joined: December 14th, 2004, 9:58 am

Post by Banana Peels »

I'm having a similar problem. I open TB 1.5, it retreives the mail from our mail server, then it freezes, totaly unresponsive. I can't even try to compact folders or do anything else. Our network and PC's are protected by Sophos as well.
potbelly
Guest

Post by potbelly »

Ah, good work Texaspete, that does appear to be the problem!
Banana Peels
Posts: 11
Joined: December 14th, 2004, 9:58 am

Post by Banana Peels »

texaspete - Thanks! It worked for me as well. You saved the day. I appreciate the help.
darkworlds
Posts: 16
Joined: January 7th, 2005, 4:37 am

Post by darkworlds »

I have just tried your suggestion, and it worked for my users as well. Thanks for your input texaspete. You just saved me from downing my Mail server.

I don't know how you got to the bottom of it, but we all appreciate your help
texaspete
Posts: 12
Joined: December 2nd, 2005, 2:20 pm
Location: United Kingdom

Post by texaspete »

No problem.

> I don't know how you got to the bottom of it
When I spotted SavService going mad I decided that the only thing that had changed was Sophos (which updates every night). I removed each of the ide's that were released yesterday in turn until I found which was causing the problem.
Guest
Guest

Post by Guest »

It is happening the same to me, but I'm not using Sophos though. I'm using Panda localy. Could it be a related problem?
Guest
Guest

Post by Guest »

It is possible. Does you’re Anti-Virus software update on a daily basis? If it does try removing the latest updates from it's directory and reboot.

If this fixes the problem then there must be something in the way that this virus is being detected. Contact your software vendor.
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