AntiVirus Program causing Thunderbird Lag

User Help for Mozilla Thunderbird
clutepc
Posts: 4
Joined: November 18th, 2004, 7:20 am

AntiVirus Program causing Thunderbird Lag

Post by clutepc »

I just wanted to post a problem and a fix we noticed the other day with Thunderbird 0.9.
I've seen some other posts on this board about Thunderbird lagging.
When we installed the program it was lagging almost a full second when we were deleting messages and marking messages as junk.
We are using Panda Antivirus Internet Security and had the normal file protection set to scan all files and not the default setting of "Files with the Following Extensions"
Once we changed this setting back to the default setting the program performance was fixed.
Maybe this will give some of the users with this problem something to look into.
yushen
Posts: 12
Joined: September 3rd, 2003, 10:56 pm

McAfee VirusScan causing delay to read email in TB 1.0, 0.9,

Post by yushen »

clutepc wrote:I just wanted to post a problem and a fix we noticed the other day with Thunderbird 0.9.
I've seen some other posts on this board about Thunderbird lagging.
When we installed the program it was lagging almost a full second when we were deleting messages and marking messages as junk.
We are using Panda Antivirus Internet Security and had the normal file protection set to scan all files and not the default setting of "Files with the Following Extensions"
Once we changed this setting back to the default setting the program performance was fixed.
Maybe this will give some of the users with this problem something to look into.
There is also the same problem with McAfee VirusScan 7.1.0 Enterprise. When I visit a local folder when VirusSCan's on-access scan is enabled, it takes long time to read an email from a big folder. There are few work around.
a. Disable on-access scan. This always works. But it may leave hole for virus.
b. Exclude for scan the directory where folder resides. This works well for email that have been read.

Howver, for email that has not been read, exclusion of the directory of the folder does not work. It seems that for new email, there is another scannng mechanism that I have not understood. Please help, if you know a solution.

Thanks,

Yu Shen
hhhobbit
Posts: 16
Joined: December 16th, 2004, 7:13 am

Re: McAfee VirusScan causing delay to read email in TB 1.0,

Post by hhhobbit »

yushen wrote:
clutepc wrote:I just wanted to post a problem and a fix we noticed the other day with Thunderbird 0.9.
I've seen some other posts on this board about Thunderbird lagging.
When we installed the program it was lagging almost a full second when we were deleting messages and marking messages as junk.
We are using Panda Antivirus Internet Security and had the normal file protection set to scan all files and not the default setting of "Files with the Following Extensions"
Once we changed this setting back to the default setting the program performance was fixed.
Maybe this will give some of the users with this problem something to look into.
There is also the same problem with McAfee VirusScan 7.1.0 Enterprise. When I visit a local folder when VirusSCan's on-access scan is enabled, it takes long time to read an email from a big folder. There are few work around.
a. Disable on-access scan. This always works. But it may leave hole for virus.
b. Exclude for scan the directory where folder resides. This works well for email that have been read.

Howver, for email that has not been read, exclusion of the directory of the folder does not work. It seems that for new email, there is another scannng mechanism that I have not understood. Please help, if you know a solution.

Thanks,

Yu Shen


It is probably the firewall portion of McAfee that is doing you in.
emskorman
Posts: 666
Joined: February 4th, 2003, 8:59 pm

Post by emskorman »

hhhobbit
Posts: 16
Joined: December 16th, 2004, 7:13 am

Post by hhhobbit »

Thanks for the information. Is there any report on its compatibility with Kaspersky? They do updates every hour now. I should warn you that the work arounds on that page for Panda and McAfee recurses back to here which is not much help at all. Doing what they did with Panda leaves the email file open to be infected. I am sorry, but I don't like that. As part of a workaround, once you have sucked down all of the new email you should close the email program and scan the file in disinfect / delete mode. If it can't disinfect it, then it should delete it. Then start up your email program and read away with far more tranquility and peace. Is that a workaround? Recurse away, or more to the point if you curse away, then curse far away from me.

Also a BIG warning is in order here. If you uninstall NAV (actually any AV program), before you install another vendor's AV package be sure to go into the Registry and delete all of the keys to the old AV program and remove their Program Files first. Then you can install the other AV package. If the previous program did a reboot after the uninstall there is no need to reboot, otherwise I would do a reboot to be on the safe side.

A few notes need to be said about some of these packages.

eTrust EZ:
------------
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/11971/info/
The compatible version you list is even OLDER than the ones listed as having a problem. Make sure you use the latest version, or use the workaround for older versions. I don't think there is that much difference between the older and newer ones.

AVG:
-------
http://www.grisoft.com/
As far as I can tell, it is one of the fastest AV scanner out there and it has a very small CPU overhead for resident portion. I have observed it finding stuff that McAfee and NAV miss, but the converse is probably also true. I would advise that if you go with this package to go with the pay version. Of course it is highly recommended.

Avast!:
---------
http://www.asw.cz/
Avast! is a good AV program. It is slower than AVG but is faster than McAfee and much faster than than NAV. The children like that funky Spiderman skin. I have it on one of my machines - need I say anything more?

Neither AVG nor Avast! have integrated firewalls. Use the free version of ZoneAlarm if you are poor, and move up to the pay version thereafter. This advice also holds for other AV packages that do NOT have integrated firewalls as part of the AV package.

An even better workaround is to install Linux (you can dual boot on the same machine) and read your email there. At present there are no problems with anything but worms on BB software on Linux. It is totally immune to all Windows viruses and Trojan Horses (a caveat for WINE used to be in order here, but nobody I know uses WINE any more). So the final workaround is the best - READ YOUR EMAIL IN THUNDERBIRD ON LINUX! Other than the initial shock of using and learning Linux your life will be much more peaceful.
emskorman
Posts: 666
Joined: February 4th, 2003, 8:59 pm

Post by emskorman »

This is the only post I could find on TB and Kapersky. It's something but not very helpful. Sorry.
redshift0
Posts: 2
Joined: February 11th, 2005, 9:25 am

Thunderbird/McAfee fix?

Post by redshift0 »

I may have a fix, or else a big mistake! :wink:

I am using Thunderbird 1.0 and McAfee 8.0 and had serious delays when receiving even short messages--even though my inbox was empty.

In my imapmail folder there was both an INBOX.msf and an INBOX file. Although I regularly move all messages to other folders and compact my inbox, the INBOX file was very large 56Mb. I opened it with notepad, and it was full of ancient junk. I'm not sure if it's a vestige of when I was running Mozilla mail? In any case, I renamed it INBOX.old (leaving .msf alone).

After doing this, I am experiencing no delays, and everything *seems* to be running fine.

Have I done something boneheaded?
emskorman
Posts: 666
Joined: February 4th, 2003, 8:59 pm

Post by emskorman »

The inbox.msf file is an idexing file that conatins no email. If deleted it will regenerate when TB is relaunched. The inbox file actually contains the email. When you delete it or rename it the email is deleted or moved. If there are ever difficulties with your inbox again, try compacting your folders and then deleting the inbox.msf file. As long as you didn't need the mail in your old inbox there is no harm in renaming that file.
redshift0
Posts: 2
Joined: February 11th, 2005, 9:25 am

Post by redshift0 »

Thanks for that reassurance.

I don't understand why INBOX was not empty (in fact contained messages going back at least a year) even after clearing and compacting my inbox on a regular basis. Is there a way to check the compaction status of other folders?

Things had gotten so slow that I had reached the point of turning off my on-access scan in McAfee when I was retrieving mail.
wolfgrrl
Posts: 80
Joined: December 8th, 2004, 5:06 am

Post by wolfgrrl »

I switched from AVG to Kaspersky due to system crashes.......all is well now on that end. I used AVG for years but the 7.X versions are just crappy now.

Kaspersky works very well with TB and I notice no lags at all! Great AV program with frequent updates!
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Avoura
Posts: 14
Joined: February 24th, 2005, 3:23 am
Location: London, UK
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Post by Avoura »

Any idea if Thunderbird is compatible with F-Secure? I ask because I was using Panda but had too many problems, so uninstalled that and now am using F-Secure, which does allow me to send emails okay (Panda would not) but it keeps hogging the CPU which slows down everything, which is not normal, surely? It happens mostly when using Thunderbird. I checked in the Task Manager, it is not Thunderbird that hogs the CPU, it is F-Secure, perhaps it is scanning all my emails all the time?
David King
Guest
Guest

Post by Guest »

No clue - I haven't used F-Sevure in years........
emskorman
Posts: 666
Joined: February 4th, 2003, 8:59 pm

Post by emskorman »

redshift0 wrote:Thanks for that reassurance.

I don't understand why INBOX was not empty (in fact contained messages going back at least a year) even after clearing and compacting my inbox on a regular basis. Is there a way to check the compaction status of other folders?

Things had gotten so slow that I had reached the point of turning off my on-access scan in McAfee when I was retrieving mail.


Often when folders don't empty properly it's because the .msf file is corrupted. Deleting the .msf file usually does the trick.
jimmyhump
Posts: 6
Joined: March 19th, 2005, 6:00 am

Post by jimmyhump »

yushen wrote that excluding a folder for the On-Access scan helped only for e-mails that have been read but the delay was still there for unread e-mails. I found that excluding the Thunderbird application data folder from the On-Access scan works for read and unread e-mail. After excluding the directory, all of my performance issues went away. The details of what I did can be found here:

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=238375

Thanks yushen.

James
Jaymac
Guest

Thunderbird & F-Secure

Post by Jaymac »

F-Secure IS 2005 causes exacly the same symptoms in T/Bird if the AV scanning level is increased from Normal to High, which is something you normally wouldn't do unless you were paranoid.

The F-Secure package is the best all-round internet security package I have used. The only weakness is the optional anti-spyware component which I believe is based on Lavasoft's Ad-Aware technology.

Spy Sweeper does the business for spyware!
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