Closed Bug 1425279 Opened 6 years ago Closed 6 years ago

Thunderbird currently is slow on Mac (Avira)

Categories

(Thunderbird :: Untriaged, defect)

52 Branch
defect
Not set
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

RESOLVED INVALID

People

(Reporter: tobi, Unassigned)

Details

(Keywords: perf, Whiteboard: [antivirus: Avira])

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_13_2) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/63.0.3239.84 Safari/537.36

Steps to reproduce:

Thunderbird currently is slow, eg when I move (drag) a message from one folder onto another or sometimes even just when I click on an email list item or on an email folder.

Mac OS X 10.13.2
Thunderbird 52.5.0 (64-bit)


Actual results:

Various steps are slow.


Expected results:

Everything should be fast (at least as fast as before).
What is "before"? This ticket is currently too vague to be acted upon...
Flags: needinfo?(tobi)
I'm noticing the issue since a few days, perhaps there was an update?

There are serious lags currently as described in the report.

Can you/anyone reproduce this?
Flags: needinfo?(tobi)
The problems sounds similar to mine, yes:

"I have been using Thunderbird for many years. Yesterday it was working perfectly. Today it is VERY, VERY slow. It takes 5 seconds to delete a message and another 5 seconds to load a message. The colored ball using comes up. I am running Thunderbird 52.5.0 (since Dec 4) on my iMac [MacBook Pro here], which is running 10.13.1 High Sierra (since Nov 5) [I'm on Mac OS 10.13.2 (17C88)]. Restarting Thunderbird or restarting my iMac doesn't help."

Also similar:

"I have used Thunderbird and Avira together for many months [years in my case]. The[n] all of a sudden I have this problem with Thunderbird [it's slow here as well] and [yes it could be related, it's does use some CPU, but I don't know whether it's related] SAVAPI."

Is there a bug report for https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1194726 ?

Can you/someone reproduce the issue? (on Mac OS High Sierra)

I hadn't changed anything. Perhaps the lags are caused by a recent Thunderbird update?
Flags: needinfo?(tobi)
> I hadn't changed anything. Perhaps the lags are caused by a recent Thunderbird update?

If you mean a code change in Thunderbird, no.

When performance behavior changes, it is often a change in the *combination* of the two, either AV updates or Thunderbird updates - and then the AV software behavior changes.

Are you using Avira?  If not, what are you using?
Flags: needinfo?(tobi)
> If you mean a code change in Thunderbird, no.

But yes, it could be caused by a change in the Firefox codebase.

> When performance behaviuor changes, it is often a change in the *combination* of the two, either AV updates or Thunderbird updates - and then the AV software behaviour changes.

Yep, it seems to be / might be a combination of the two.

> Are you using Avira?

Yes, I had written "yes it could be related, it's does use some CPU, but I don't know whether it's related": "Savapi"
Flags: needinfo?(tobi)
Can you/anyone reproduce this?
(In reply to Tobi Reif from comment #7)
> Can you/anyone reproduce this?

You need to adjust Avira or remove it so that it doesn't cause  a problem.  See https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:Testing:Antivirus_Related_Performance_Issues at "Avira antivirus"
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 6 years ago
Keywords: perf
Resolution: --- → INVALID
Summary: Thunderbird currently is slow → Thunderbird currently is slow on Mac
Whiteboard: [antivirus: Avira]
I can't turn off Avira's email scanning.

I've been using Thunderbird plus Avira for many years, there never were any performance issues.

It is a regression in one of the codebases.

Until it has been (reproduced and) fixed, you should not close the ticket. Please re-open it.
Status: RESOLVED → UNCONFIRMED
Resolution: INVALID → ---
I have/had the same exact problem. Using the free version of Avira. After disabling the real time protection the extreme lag (aka rainbow spinning wheel) stopped. Strangely there doesn't seem to be a problem with any other application, only the most recent version of Thunderbird.
TB v52.5.0
macOS High Sierra v10.13.2
MacBook Pro 8GB RAM
Avira Product version: 3.9.2.146, VDF version: 8.14.38.114, Engine version: 8.3.48.128

And saying it was slow doesn't cover it. Actually couldn't really do anything in/with Thunderbird. I also have been using the ThunderBird and Avira combination for a number of years. The problem started after the 23 Nov 2017 updated. Disabling what few security measures the mere mortal has shouldn't be the recommended solution either.
> I've been using Thunderbird plus Avira for many years, there never were any performance issues.

Yours is not an uncommon reaction/assumption. But past performance of antivirus is not a guarantee of future performance. And a change in application behavior does mean the problem is with the application - this has been proven in many times over**, which is confirmed by disabling the AV software. In short, they need to fix something.  There is nothing Thunderbird can do here.

** Please read the warning on this point at https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:Testing:Antivirus_Related_Performance_Issues#First_Steps
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 6 years ago6 years ago
Resolution: --- → INVALID
Summary: Thunderbird currently is slow on Mac → Thunderbird currently is slow on Mac (Avira)
Wayne, have you tried to reproduce the issue?

That would be the first step towards finding out whether the issue is in the Thunderbird codebase or not.

> which is confirmed by disabling the AV software

No this doesn't confirm that the issue is not in Thunderbird's code.

As you've said yourself: "When performance behaviour changes, it is often a change in the *combination* of the two" -

that does include the possibility that the regression is in Thunderbird's codebase.

By the way, I also had reported the issue to Avira, expecting both you and them to investigate and to fix the regression.
(Ideally Thunderbird developers would work together with Avira developers, then the two applications could work together better as well.)
Status: RESOLVED → UNCONFIRMED
Resolution: INVALID → ---
"You need to adjust Avira or remove it"

That is not good advice considering security aspects.
> Wayne, have you tried to reproduce the issue?  That would be the first step towards finding out whether the issue is in the Thunderbird codebase or not.

Sorry but I don't have a Mac. And even if I/we did we're not in the habit of spending our time attempting to resolve problems related to AV software which are historically always the vendor's fault.


> That is not good advice considering security aspects.

Right, no AV is not a good choice.  But there are lots of other choices.  If you want help from Thunderbird support then please visit https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/new/thunderbird  If they determine Avira is not at fault then we can reopen thsi bug.  Until then, there is no action to be taken in this bug.

That said, you are not without options...

(In reply to Tobi Reif from comment #14)
> "You need to adjust Avira 

Not adjusting is your choice. But it is a choice.

> or remove it"

which implies a third choice, moving to an AV that does work.  Fourth choice, get the vendor to fix their dang software.
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 6 years ago6 years ago
Resolution: --- → INVALID
p.s. not trying to be hard nosed here.  We want you to be satisifed, and the choices listed above are in our experience the fastest way to get you to a better working system.
Wayne, I would agree with you that it's Avira's problem if all applications are having the same issue. So in this case using your logic the performance would have to be reduced across the board for everything running on the Mac. The inconvenient fact is that this problem showed up after the most recent TB update. Plus only TB is affected and I have multiple types of email accounts configured (IMAP, POP3), and the problem affected the entire TB application. Firefox...no issue. Historically slow MS Word isn't any slower. Access to cloud drives no issue. Access via VPN no issue. I could go on. TB is doing something different in this release that is causing Avira to spend extra time doing its job.
Sorry, but again that is failed logic. Thunderbird is uniquely sensitive to poorly performing disk IO - not the case with most software - and AV IS the *classic* cause of such problems, bar none.  Again, please read the warning at the reference website.
Wayne the logic is not failed. All troubleshooting starts with analyzing what is different and what was the last known good configuration to narrow the search space for finding the problem. AV programs work across the entire computer, not just email. Therefore if the problem was solely an AV problem then the majority of applications would be affected because scanning is indiscriminate. In this case the real time scanning covers everything not just TB. I will add that given that the list of AV's where there are issues with TB is larger than the list that don't and it's been ongoing problem for years would indicate something different than TB isn't the problem. But again I speculate our perspectives will differ. Thank you for your time.
> scanning is indiscriminate

This is incorrect. You are forming theories based on partial information.  THere is a lot of backstory as to why AV might "break" when an application is updated.  AV software tends to live on the edge of doing the most they can without making things horrible for users. So one of the things they will do is internally excluded certain directories, file types or applications from certain types of scanning.  These AV exclusions can fail when an application is updated. So the AV isn't behaving as intended, but a user just sees that their application is performs like crap.
> Sorry but I don't have a Mac.

In order to finally leave the realm of the speculative (or "historical"), someone needs to try to actually reproduce (and then actually investigate) the reported issue.

Someone with a Mac.

The issue might very well be in the Avira codebase (that's why I had also reported it to them), but it still could be in the Thunderbird codebase instead.
Seems fast now.
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