1288152 - not responding for up to 2 minutes. Many TB versions for over 1 year (12 pop accounts)

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Thunderbird :: Untriaged, defect)

Description

[mike]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64; rv:45.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/45.0
Build ID: 20160601155443

Steps to reproduce:

When saving an email all TB windows report not-responding between 30 and 120 seconds. Happens 30% of the time. It even happens for other reasons. It's been happening for over a year for many versions. I dread using TB.


Actual results:

All TB windows not-responding for 30 to 120 seconds


Expected results:

No not-responding. 

Appendum:
-----------

For many versions of Thunderbird over the years I get Thunderbird not-responding 40% of the time for over 2 minutes!!! Even for several individual emails. Have had latest versions of Thunderbird. I now want Thunderbird ESR but apparently it's not available. Do you have a debug version cause I'm getting fed up.

Especially happens when I do cntl-s to save email or even when I switch between composed emails.

There is no CPU used by Thunderbird, no Hard drive usage, no wifi bandwidth, no growth in RAM usage, etc.... during not-responding. No other softwares nor hardware affected.

I got so fed up that I've disabled all addons and plug-ins except for english and french dictionary and flash.

Latest Thunderbird, Win 8, Win 8.1, Anti-virus off, 8-logical core intel. Always latest updates. 16GB RAM. Thunderbird used 200MB.

Is there a way to disable the calendar it was giving me problems when it 1st came out.

Comment 1

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Are all the accounts pop? How many?
Or all the accounts imap? How many?

Have you ever asked for support in https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/products/thunderbird

Also, please start *Windows'* safe mode with networking enabled
- win8 http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/windows-startup-settings-safe-mode
Still In Windows safe mode, start thunderbird in safe mode
- https://support.mozilla.org/kb/safe-mode-thunderbird
Does problem go away?

Comment 2

[:aceman]

The calendar should be disableable in the addons manager, as all other addons.

Comment 3

[mike]

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk, NI for questions) from comment #1)
> Are all the accounts pop? How many?
> Or all the accounts imap? How many?
> 
> Have you ever asked for support in
> https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/products/thunderbird
> 
> Also, please start *Windows'* safe mode with networking enabled
> - win8
> http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/windows-startup-settings-safe-
> mode
> Still In Windows safe mode, start thunderbird in safe mode
> - https://support.mozilla.org/kb/safe-mode-thunderbird
> Does problem go away?

To keep everyone informed while I test TB safemode.
12 pop accounts
2 imap

Seems to work fine in thunderbird safe mode. Trying minimum addons enabled.

Comment 4

[mike]

Note: All the email accounts require manual check/download/send email. No auto checking/download of emails done.

Comment 5

[mike]

(In reply to :aceman from comment #2)
> The calendar should be disableable in the addons manager, as all other
> addons.

Thanks. After long fruitless searches over the year, I finally found it.

Comment 6

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

> ...
Seems to work fine in thunderbird safe mode. Trying minimum addons enabled.

(In reply to mike from comment #5)
> (In reply to :aceman from comment #2)
> > The calendar should be disableable in the addons manager, as all other
> > addons.
> 
> Thanks. After long fruitless searches over the year, I finally found it.

With what version?
And what did you find causing it at that time?

What version are you running now that you reopened the bug report?

Comment 7

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Also, go to account settings 
- in Server settings what is "Check for new messages every X minutes set to?
- in Copies and Folders, is what is "Keep draft messages in" set to?

Comment 8

[mike]

Update. 

I did some debugging over several months. 

All TB versions that I have used. My latest is 45.8.0.

Repeatable.

Open TB.
Click on Write to start a new email.
Click within body of text.
Enter 5 empty lines using Return-key
Using Up-Arrow key go up 2 lines
Do Cntl-S (save email)

Result: 
ALL tabs and ALL of TB unresponsive for over 80 seconds. 

Note:
ALL Addons disabled.
ALL Plugins disabled.
ALL Extensions never-activate.
DICTIONARIES: Only Dictionnaire Francais 6.0.2 (no updates available).

I suspect the Dictionary software on TB (not dictionary itself) doesn't like empty email with only Line-Feeds and no text.

Comment 9

[mike]

(In reply to mike from comment #8)
> Update. 
> ...
> I suspect the Dictionary software on TB (not dictionary itself) doesn't like
> empty email with only Line-Feeds and no text.

By Dictionary software: it may be the Spell-Checker. My TB Spell Check As You Type is set to checked/yes.

LATEST: also found, Error Console "Not-Responding", and gives no new errors, nor new messages, nor new warnings.

LATEST: does require 2 up-arrow key-strokes to reposition cursor before doing Cntl-S. It takes over 5 seconds for Not-Responding to initiate. Software may have a pointer to empty-data. It doesn't like line-feeds AFTER the cursor on an email with only line-feeds.

As before: no noticeable increase or decrease in CPU use (basically 0%), no noticeable increase or decrease to RAM use, no noticeable Hard-Drive use.

Comment 10

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Please answer questions in comment 7.

And the other question related to "Seems to work fine in thunderbird safe mode. Trying minimum addons enabled.".  
Is that still true?  Or has it since proven to be incorrect?

Comment 11

[mike]

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk, NI for questions) from comment #7)
> Also, go to account settings 
> - in Server settings what is "Check for new messages every X minutes set to?
> - in Copies and Folders, is what is "Keep draft messages in" set to?

The following is the same in Safe-Mode or in regular-mode. In account settings, wherever I click on an existing account on left side of the account setting window, I get a pop-up window: "Account Wizard. An account with this name already exists. Please enter a different account name. (OK Button)"; I tried millions of things and always get that pop-up. I can't select anything of my accounts on the left side of Account Settings window !!! Yes, I did verify the bottom left for Account Actions; I seem to be able to ONLY create new accounts with the wizard. I can only edit the right side of Account Settings window for my DEFAULT account; i.e. Account Name all the way down to Manage Identities. I think Account Settings may have been a problem for a long time. But I never had to use it except maybe for the 1st install a long time ago. I use Options > Security > Passwords to change ID info. FYI, I have a master password on TB.

Re. "Seems to work fine in thunderbird safe mode. Trying minimum addons enabled."  Still true but I rarely go in safe mode. But I do sacrifice myself with minimum minimum addons !!! But for many weeks I've been running EITHER french dictionary or Auto Copy 2.0; only for debugging purposes !! Now I'm back to all addons disabled and dictionaries disabled. 

How do I get about:config in TB like in FF ???

Comment 12

[mike]

Nothing changed.

I followed the instructions in the following link. Deleted completely Thunderbird program from programs_x86; no Thunderbird in x64. Thunderbird Profile kept; only one profile exists. Installed the latest Thunderbird in a completely empty directory in programs_x86.

https://support.mozilla.org/t5/Common-Responses/Forum-Response-Clean-Reinstall-Thunderbird/ta-p/11218

How do I export email profiles/accounts via Explorer ??

Thanks

Comment 13

[mike]

Anybody here ?

Is there anything more I can start doing to resolve this continuing problem ?? 

For any questions, suggestions, comments, or answers please do feel free to reply. Thanks in advance.

Comment 14

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

I'm unclear as to your current state.
You have 12 accounts defined.
But when you go to account settings you still get the pop up?

Comment 15

[:aceman]

I see no mention if you tried to review the names of all the accounts and find the duplicate.

Comment 16

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

> The following is the same in Safe-Mode or in regular-mode. In account settings, wherever I click on an existing account on left side of the account setting window, I get a pop-up window: "Account Wizard

Very strange. Perhaps it is related to your other issues.

Does the problem exist if you *remove* the dictionary?
And, how big is your prefs.js file in the profile directory?

Comment 17

[Phoenix]

Resolved per whiteboard

Comment 18

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Perhaps related to bug 929281

Comment 19

[mike]

Original not-responding problem seems to have disappeared with a Windows 10 update over a year ago. This ticket is to be closed.

But, the other problem, see comment 11 is still an issue. But that is probably best to put it into an another ticket.  : 

Comment 11 :  "The following is the same in Safe-Mode or in regular-mode. In account settings, wherever I click on an existing account on left side of the account setting window, I get a pop-up window: "Account Wizard. An account with this name already exists. Please enter a different account name. (OK Button)"; I tried millions of things and always get that pop-up. I can't select anything of my accounts on the left side of Account Settings window !!! Yes, I did verify the bottom left for Account Actions; I seem to be able to ONLY create new accounts with the wizard. I can only edit the right side of Account Settings window for my DEFAULT account; i.e. Account Name all the way down to Manage Identities. I think Account Settings may have been a problem for a long time. But I never had to use it except maybe for the 1st install a long time ago. I use Options > Security > Passwords to change ID info. FYI, I have a master password on TB. "

Comment 20

[mike]

Addendum to comment 19 : I really don't believe that the resolution was due to a TB update as there were very few available ! It was almost certainly due to a Windows update.

Comment 21

[:aceman]

mike, if TB says you have duplicate account names, why don't you change the name of one of them to fix the error?
If you do not think you have 2 accounts named the same (it is not visible in the UI), maybe there is some remnant of some old account in your prefs.js file. You could look into it and compare all values of "mail.server.server*.name" prefs to find the duplicate.

Also, until the problem is solved, you can enter the setting of each individual account when right-clicking the account name in the left folder pane (NOT inside account manager) and then choosing Settings.

Comment 22

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

> Original not-responding problem seems to have disappeared with a Windows 10 update over a year ago. This ticket is to be closed.

Thanks for the update. Changing resolution to WFM

Comment 23

[mike]

(In reply to :aceman from comment #21)
> mike, if TB says you have duplicate account names, why don't you change the
> name of one of them to fix the error?
> If you do not think you have 2 accounts named the same (it is not visible in
> the UI), maybe there is some remnant of some old account in your prefs.js
> file. You could look into it and compare all values of
> "mail.server.server*.name" prefs to find the duplicate.
> 
> Also, until the problem is solved, you can enter the setting of each
> individual account when right-clicking the account name in the left folder
> pane (NOT inside account manager) and then choosing Settings.

Re. : 2nd problem of the Account problem. 
I think we have found the problem. But I'm surprised this duplicate account names was allowed in the past !!??

After years of trying out a million things : your comment rang a bell.
This seems to be the issue. Many years ago when Outlook Express was being killed I moved all my accounts to TB, all POP accounts. Many years later when I thought IMAP was stable I decided to test 1 of those accounts. I ADDED 1 new IMAP account based on my default POP account. The new added IMAP Account Name was the same as the POP one. I probably used the wizard, or maybe imported .vcf, and everything seemed to be great. I now checked today the prefs.js file for "mail.server.server*.name" and found the duplicates. I always thought TB used a unique number for each account even though they have the same Account Name. All my account names are all the email addresses. The wizard can be confusing with the sequential panels.

If I intentionally or accidentally right-click on an account that has the name used twice then the account manager becomes useless as I get the pop-up until I exit the account manager. I can only modify accounts that don't have duplicate account names. BUT once I click ANYWHERE on an account with duplicate names then I'm STUCK with pop-ups until I COMPLETELY exit account manager.  

This problem will be solved once I can rename my IMAP account names to something else to avoid duplicates. I'm afraid of renaming an account name as I don't want to lose thousands of emails.

--->> I await your confirmation on the procedure to rename duplicated account names without losing any emails. I plan to keep the POP AND IMAP accounts. I want to minimize the workload of restoring tens of thousands of emails.

FTR, This 2nd problem of accounts should be placed in a new ticket as the original 1st problem of non-response was resolved via an unknown Windows 10 update years ago.

Comment 24

[:aceman]

(In reply to mike from comment #23)
> Re. : 2nd problem of the Account problem. 
> I think we have found the problem. But I'm surprised this duplicate account
> names was allowed in the past !!??

Yes it was, but this was solved (forbidden) in Thunderbird 28.
 
> After years of trying out a million things : your comment rang a bell.
> This seems to be the issue. Many years ago when Outlook Express was being
> killed I moved all my accounts to TB, all POP accounts. Many years later
> when I thought IMAP was stable I decided to test 1 of those accounts. I
> ADDED 1 new IMAP account based on my default POP account. The new added IMAP
> Account Name was the same as the POP one. I probably used the wizard, or
> maybe imported .vcf, and everything seemed to be great. I now checked today
> the prefs.js file for "mail.server.server*.name" and found the duplicates. I
> always thought TB used a unique number for each account even though they
> have the same Account Name. All my account names are all the email
> addresses. The wizard can be confusing with the sequential panels.

TB uses different unique numbers for each account, the serverX identifiers you can see in the prefs.js file.
The account name is used solely for the UI. So while the names could be the same for multiple accounts, it would confuse the user in display about which account is which.
 
> If I intentionally or accidentally right-click on an account that has the
> name used twice then the account manager becomes useless as I get the pop-up
> until I exit the account manager. I can only modify accounts that don't have
> duplicate account names. BUT once I click ANYWHERE on an account with
> duplicate names then I'm STUCK with pop-ups until I COMPLETELY exit account
> manager.  

Yes, that is correct behaviour. You should fix the name of one of the accounts.
 
> This problem will be solved once I can rename my IMAP account names to
> something else to avoid duplicates. I'm afraid of renaming an account name
> as I don't want to lose thousands of emails.

You can safely change the name of one of the accounts. It is just for the display in the folder list.
In the account settings it is the field "Account Name" in the first panel.
Be sure NOT to touch the "Server Name" field in the "Server settings" panel, if you want to keep fetching from the existing server and keep messages.
 
> --->> I await your confirmation on the procedure to rename duplicated
> account names without losing any emails. I plan to keep the POP AND IMAP
> accounts. I want to minimize the workload of restoring tens of thousands of
> emails.

Yes, you can do it now, only change the Account Name.
Usually the account name is in the form "user on server" or similar so it is just any string, it does not affect from which server (hostname) mail is fetched from.

> FTR, This 2nd problem of accounts should be placed in a new ticket as the
> original 1st problem of non-response was resolved via an unknown Windows 10
> update years ago.

There is no problem here. The duplicate account name warning was added intentionally in bug 40012.

Comment 25

[mike]

(In reply to :aceman from comment #24)
> (In reply to mike from comment #23)
> > Re. : 2nd problem of the Account problem. 
> > I think we have found the problem. But I'm surprised this duplicate account
> > names was allowed in the past !!??
> 
> Yes it was, but this was solved (forbidden) in Thunderbird 28.
>  
> > After years of trying out a million things : your comment rang a bell.
> > This seems to be the issue. Many years ago when Outlook Express was being
> > killed I moved all my accounts to TB, all POP accounts. Many years later
> > when I thought IMAP was stable I decided to test 1 of those accounts. I
> > ADDED 1 new IMAP account based on my default POP account. The new added IMAP
> > Account Name was the same as the POP one. I probably used the wizard, or
> > maybe imported .vcf, and everything seemed to be great. I now checked today
> > the prefs.js file for "mail.server.server*.name" and found the duplicates. I
> > always thought TB used a unique number for each account even though they
> > have the same Account Name. All my account names are all the email
> > addresses. The wizard can be confusing with the sequential panels.
> 
> TB uses different unique numbers for each account, the serverX identifiers
> you can see in the prefs.js file.
> The account name is used solely for the UI. So while the names could be the
> same for multiple accounts, it would confuse the user in display about which
> account is which.
>  
> > If I intentionally or accidentally right-click on an account that has the
> > name used twice then the account manager becomes useless as I get the pop-up
> > until I exit the account manager. I can only modify accounts that don't have
> > duplicate account names. BUT once I click ANYWHERE on an account with
> > duplicate names then I'm STUCK with pop-ups until I COMPLETELY exit account
> > manager.  
> 
> Yes, that is correct behaviour. You should fix the name of one of the
> accounts.
>  
> > This problem will be solved once I can rename my IMAP account names to
> > something else to avoid duplicates. I'm afraid of renaming an account name
> > as I don't want to lose thousands of emails.
> 
> You can safely change the name of one of the accounts. It is just for the
> display in the folder list.
> In the account settings it is the field "Account Name" in the first panel.
> Be sure NOT to touch the "Server Name" field in the "Server settings" panel,
> if you want to keep fetching from the existing server and keep messages.
>  
> > --->> I await your confirmation on the procedure to rename duplicated
> > account names without losing any emails. I plan to keep the POP AND IMAP
> > accounts. I want to minimize the workload of restoring tens of thousands of
> > emails.
> 
> Yes, you can do it now, only change the Account Name.
> Usually the account name is in the form "user on server" or similar so it is
> just any string, it does not affect from which server (hostname) mail is
> fetched from.
> 
> > FTR, This 2nd problem of accounts should be placed in a new ticket as the
> > original 1st problem of non-response was resolved via an unknown Windows 10
> > update years ago.
> 
> There is no problem here. The duplicate account name warning was added
> intentionally in bug 40012.

Thanks a lot, it seems to have worked but with some minor issues.

My default identical gmail POP and IMAP seemed to have worked as planned. And shows up in the activity manager when doing Get All New Messages.

But, my 2nd email address, non default, yahoo, with POP and IMAP did not show up in activity manager; more specifically the IMAP one. Had to reboot TB AND send an email to my yahoo account for the activity manager to finally show the yahoo IMAP activity. Don't know why the differences.

Pls close this ticket and PLEASE properly document these duplicate Account Names issue; especially for duplicate accounts created a long time ago.

Comment 26

[mike]

Pls update the requirements for unique account names in the wizard and other methods such as import .vcf . At least give a suggestion to making it unique. This could maybe become a future issue with TB backup restores of several accounts.