527592 - warm start about 33 % slower than with Thunderbird 2.0 - 1sec for v3, 0.75s for v2

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Thunderbird :: General, defect)

Description

[Simon Bünzli]

Thunderbird 3 feels slower to start than version 2. According to my stop-watch, Tb2 took about 0.75s between clicking the icon and having it visible, while Tb3 takes a whole second (which is noticeable as a slight lag).

Also, during startup the cursor switches several times to busy and back, which also makes startup feel less smooth.

Comment 2

[Steve]

Thunderbird 3.0 too slow to be usable. Have used profile files on USB flash drive with Thunderbird 2 successfully with Windows XP and Ubuntu linux for some time. Now with 3.0 any action (eg mouse click on expand folder) takes min 2 seconds with Thunderbird 3.
Would like to see a usable version of 3 but having to revert to V2.x

Comment 3

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

steve, version 3.1 should be much, much better. Do you find it so?
also, you will find USB specific and other IO slowness described in other bugs.

TB startup slowness bugs:
 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?type1-0-0=anywords&field0-0-0=short_desc&type0-0-1=substring&field0-0-1=keywords&type1-0-1=anywordssubstr&value1-0-1=launch&resolution=---&classification=Client%20Software&classification=Components&query_format=advanced&value1-0-0=start%20startup%20starting%20starts&value0-0-1=perf&type0-0-0=anywordssubstr&value0-0-0=perf%20slow%20speed&field1-0-0=short_desc&product=MailNews%20Core&product=Thunderbird&field1-0-1=short_desc

gecko slowness bugs: 
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?type1-0-0=anywords&field0-0-0=short_desc&type0-0-1=substring&field0-0-1=keywords&type1-0-1=anywordssubstr&value1-0-1=launch&resolution=---&classification=Client%20Software&classification=Components&query_format=advanced&value1-0-0=start%20startup%20starting%20starts&value0-0-1=perf&type0-0-0=anywordssubstr&value0-0-0=perf%20slow%20speed&field1-0-0=short_desc&product=Core&product=Toolkit&field1-0-1=short_desc

Comment 4

[Steve]

I am still using Thunderbird, although have long ago given up the practice of keeping my profile on a USB stick and swapping between computers.
Currently, not much use for a client-side client except for when travelling outside net coverage, as a backup.
Add-ons are not keeping up with TBird releases. I haven't been able to use a French language spell checker for some time now.

Comment 5

[Worcester12345]

We're now on Version 14.0. 

How is the comparison now?

Thanks.

Comment 6

[Simon Bünzli]

(In reply to Worcester12345 from comment #5)
> How is the comparison now?

There have been no significant code changes in this regard, so the expected happens: Nothing has changed and Thunderbird 3+ (which includes 14) is still notably slower than Thunderbird 2 (still by about 33%).

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Extract Thunderbird versions 2.0.0.24 and whatever the latest release version is into their own directories and create an empty profile folder for both (e.g. as a subdirectory)
2. Run thunderbird.exe -profile "profile" (replace "profile" with the empty folder created above) for both versions.
3. Create an empty account (e.g. a News&Blogs account) and disable the default application check for both versions.
4. Close both versions and repeat step 2 to compare warm start timings.

Comment 7

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

Given the age of this bug, it is unlikely that we'll find out what regressed this, and that it probably isn't worth trying to find out either as so much has changed. Therefore I'm closing as incomplete.