Thunderbird uses 101% of CPU at rest when mail.db.idle_limit is set to default 300000
Categories
(MailNews Core :: Database, defect)
Tracking
(Not tracked)
People
(Reporter: contact, Unassigned)
References
Details
(Keywords: perf)
Attachments
(4 files)
Activity Monitor showing Indexing
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:54.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/54.0 Build ID: 20170616092053 Steps to reproduce: OS : Linux Mint 18.1 Thunderbird : 52.2.1 Addons : none Thunderbird regularly uses 101% of my CPU. I followed the instructions in http://rainbow.chard.org/2013/02/19/thunderbird-high-cpu/ to edit the mail.db.idle_limit pref, which seems to have helped. However, according to the comment by Wayne on that thread, this issue should have been fixed in Thunderbird 38. Actual results: Thunderbird CPU usage has been reduced to under 10% when idle after I updated the mail.db.idle_limit pref. Expected results: I shouldn't have had to edit the pref, as the issue was said to have been fixed in Thunderbird 38.
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Comment 1•7 years ago
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Please see bug 1305314 comment 8 to help us debug, and post your feedback
(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk, NI for questions) from comment #1) > Please see bug 1305314 comment 8 to help us debug, and post your feedback hmm even resetting the mail.db.idle_limit pref back to the default value seems to not have brought back the issue. TB is running consistently at <1% CPU, with occasional bumps to ~5% (I'm not sure why). It does seem to go up to 25%+ when the application is brought to the foreground, though that seems to only be for a few seconds. However, after following the linked instructions for enabling debug logs, the open DB count is definitely changing. I don't see a way to attach a file to the bug, and I don't want to just past the logs into a comment, so please let me know if they would be useful. Thanks for the quick reply!
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Comment 3•7 years ago
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(In reply to contact from comment #2) > I don't see a way to attach a file to the bug, and I don't want to just > past the logs into a comment ... Yes, logs clutter comments, so please use "Attach File" at the top of the page.
I've had to wipe and reinstall Mint, so this is a fresh install of Thunderbird. I do now have a few addons - AddressBookTab gContactSync Lightning Provider for Google Calendar It seems to be holding steady at about 60% CPU usage all the time. So frustrating!
Here's the output of `$ top | grep thunderbird` for the same time that the logs are, starting with launch. It peaked around 109% while launching, which is also unreasonably high, though it didn't last long enough to get into the `grep` output.
After changing the mail.db.idle_limit to 3000000 (adding another zero to the default), it's back down under 1% CPU for most of the time. I thought this was supposed to have been fixed many versions ago?
The bug was fixed. The closing interval is now correctly at 5 minutes (300000 milliseconds), which is proved by your first log. There is first cleanup of the DBs at 21:17, the folder Inbox is kept open doe to being opened in a window. It is no longer open by the window at 21:21 and 21:22. It is only closed at 21:23. Similarly, folder Outbox is closed at 21:22 (5 minutes after start if the periodic checking). So the particular bug of closing DBs too fast was fixed in the past. In your log we can see: 1. You didn't access too many folders in the time the log was running, there are only 21 DBs (folders) at most in the cache (that is below the limit of 30). 2. Thus the folders are only closed due after 5 minutes due to inactivity, not because there are too many of them open (point above). 3. The cleanup run fits within one second of wall time (the last digit of the timestamp doesn't change between messages of a single run), thus you do not have too many DBs open and the cleanup is fast and can't be causing the permanent CPu use. So the CPU use can be caused by some other/new problem. That increasing the timeout helps with the problem is indicative, but does not mean the bugs found so far haven't been fixed as we claim. So I have some questions: The 'top' log is interesting, if I read it correctly and the 6th columns is RSS (resident set size) and shows that in a short 1.while the memory use of TB climbs from ~300MB to ~850MB. That is quite large. 2.So how many folders and accounts do you have in total? Are your accounts POP3 or IMAP? 3.When you let Inbox get closed by the DB purging (watch the Error console), and then you open the folder again (view it in the UI), how long does that take to show its contents? How many messages you have in the Inbox?
We do not question there may still be other bugs existing in this area as there are multiple reports. We want to get those fixed, but need more data to see what is going on. E.g. bug 1305314 has similar symptoms, but the user has hundreds of folders. If he accesses many of them regularly, the default limits may be too low for him, which is understandable. So if you have few folders and still have the problem, we need to get that info. Also please see in tools->activity manager, if e.g. the Indexing isn't still running on some folder. Also see if you may have bug 781304, some of the .msf files for folders being corrupt. Also please see bug 1305207 comment 10 if you can set up such profiling of TB. That would be very helpful.
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Comment 10•6 years ago
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I've not booted my Linux box in a number of months. In the meanwhile, I've reorganized my email account to move a lot of messages out of the Inbox. It's also now the only email account I have hooked up to Thunderbird. However, when I open Activity Manager, it's trying to Index nearly 200,000 messages. I didn't think I had that many in that account, but I'm guessing that's what's taking so much CPU. How do I get it to stop?
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Comment 11•6 years ago
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If you do not need the indexing, you can turn it off in Options->Advanced->Global search and indexing
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Comment 12•5 years ago
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Environment:
- Thunderbird 60.7.1 (64-bit)
- Add-ons: Lightning, Provider for Google Calendar, LookOut (disabled)
- uname -a: Linux veritech 3.16.0-7-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.16.59-1 (2018-10-03) x86_64 GNU/Linux
Symptom:
As per https://rainbow.chard.org/2013/02/19/thunderbird-high-cpu/ default mail.db.idle_limit of 300000 results in thunderbird becoming slow to respond. Restarting thunderbird temporarily clears the problem, but after a period of "normal" use (opening, replying-to, deleting, and moving messages from folder-to-folder) %CPU reported by top pegs to 100% for tens of seconds to several minutes then hovers somewhere in 60% - 80% range. After leaving the machine alone for several hours the fifteen minute load average settles around 0.80 where normally it would otherwise float around 0.10.
Work-around:
- As per https://rainbow.chard.org/2013/02/19/thunderbird-high-cpu/ changing the default mail.db.idle_limit of 300000 to 30000000 and restarting thunderbird eliminates the excess load and laggy behaviour.
- Changing the default mail.db.idle_limit from 30000000 back to 300000 and restarting appears to have had no effect, in other words the %CPU now remains low and the laggy behaviour remains absent.
Hypothesis:
In addition to the explicitly named configuration setting, another parameter is being altered in response to the mail.db.idle_limit when the default value is changed. After the new mail.db.idle_limit value is reverted back to the default value, this other unidentified configuration item closer to the actual offending piece of code (i.e. the real bug of interest) remains in the altered state and therefore the problem remains worked-around.
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Comment 13•5 years ago
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Correction:
I jumped to conclusions too soon, after reverting mail.db.idle_limit from 30000000 back to the default value of 300000 and restarting the problem has reoccurred. My hypothesis is incorrect, the bug remains attached to mail.db.idle_limit .
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Comment 14•5 years ago
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Please obtain a profile.
- Use Thunderbird 68 or newer - beta or current nightly build
- Install profiler add-on into thunderbird - get the add-on file from https://github.com/firefox-devtools/Gecko-Profiler-Addon/blob/master/gecko_profiler.xpi?raw=true and in Tools > add-ons click the gear to install add-on from file
- Follow instructions at https://profiler.firefox.com/ Also see videos based on Firefox, but applicable to Thunderbird.
- Create a profiler URL and post it here.
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Comment 15•5 years ago
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David, the reporter seems to be gone. So can you do the profile please. Modified instructions...
Use a modified value of mail.db.idle_limit that gives you at least some responsiveness but doesn't make the problem entirely go away.
- You must be using Thunderbird 68 or newer - betas from https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/channel/ or current nightly build from https://archive.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/nightly/latest-comm-central/
- Install profiler add-on into thunderbird 68 (or newer https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/channel/ ) - get the add-on file from https://github.com/firefox-devtools/Gecko-Profiler-Addon/blob/master/gecko_profiler.xpi?raw=true and in Tools > add-ons click the gear to install add-on from file
- Follow instructions at https://profiler.firefox.com/ (videos BASED ON FIREFOX at https://profiler.firefox.com/docs/#/./videos-intro ) - start the profiler and then induce the problem
- Publish a profiler URL and post it here.
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Comment 16•5 years ago
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I jump into the discussion but here is a profiling which hopefully you can use: https://perfht.ml/2qtaX42. I have 101% cpu usage from time to time (or frequently). I changed the mail.db.idle_limit to 30000000 but that doesn't really make the situation much better. Pretty sure things got much worst with thunderbird 68. I have 4 mailboxes with tones of emails in some of them. I can make the thunderbird freeze on demand as well, deleting 10000+ email does it for example but that I can live with since I decide when it happens, what's really annoying is when I compose an email, in the middle of writing a sentence, opening an email...
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Comment 18•4 years ago
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(In reply to Marc from comment #16)
I jump into the discussion but here is a profiling which hopefully you can use: https://perfht.ml/2qtaX42.
marc, thanks for the profile. Can you also reproduce this using version 78? If so, please obtain new profile using https://github.com/thunderbird-conversations/thunderbird-conversations/wiki/Profiling-Conversation's-Performance
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Comment 19•4 years ago
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all of these reports are reported against Mac and Linux - this, bug 1305207, bug 1305314 - it can't be coincidence, especially given those OS represent a minority of users.
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Comment 20•4 years ago
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Hello all -
Sorry to have disappeared but I changed countries, OS, and hardware. I'm still using Thunderbird but I'm no longer having these issues. I've got fresh installs of everything, and haven't had to edit any of the profiles.
For folks still having this issue, I'm sorry that I don't have anything more helpful to add. :/
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Comment 21•4 years ago
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(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #18)
(In reply to Marc from comment #16)
I jump into the discussion but here is a profiling which hopefully you can use: https://perfht.ml/2qtaX42.
marc, thanks for the profile. Can you also reproduce this using version 78? If so, please obtain new profile using https://github.com/thunderbird-conversations/thunderbird-conversations/wiki/Profiling-Conversation's-Performance
I recently upgraded to TB 78(.4.3) from TB 68, and TB has been sucking up 100% of an entire CPU core ever since. No idea what it's doing or why. I disabled the Indexer, and also tried updating mail.db.idle_limit to 30000000 as well. No change. Profile here: https://share.firefox.dev/3kOQ4Xu
Would love to find some way to get this fixed, as it's making my desktop nearly unusable, and I'm about this close to switching to another mail client.
Thanks,
DR
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Comment 22•4 years ago
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(In reply to David Rosenstrauch from comment #21)
tried updating mail.db.idle_limit to 30000000 as well. No change. Profile here: https://share.firefox.dev/3kOQ4Xu
In that case, please file a new bug report
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Comment 24•4 years ago
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If anyone can still reproduce with 78 where mail.db.idle_limit helps, please do comment
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Comment 25•4 years ago
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Hmmm ... and today,Thunderbird cpu is normal. Weird. Will report back if I see it again.
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