1631631 - Mac, TB 76.0b1 Interface (such as typing an email) stalls/blocks until checking for new email is complete (15 imap, 13 pop, news, irc, rss)

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(MailNews Core :: Networking: POP, defect)

Description

[Josh]

+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #1582958 +++

Steps to reproduce:

For the past couple of weeks, the Thunderbird interface completely stalls and becomes unresponsive at times. Sometimes when editing an email, for example, when you type a key, nothing happens for several seconds, and since I am on a Mac the beachball appears when you have the mouse over any part of the Thunderbird interface. I have learned to look at the status (bottom left corner of the main window), and it will indicate in some way that it is downloading email, such as "Connecting to ....".

Actual results:

When editing an email, suddenly and for no apparent reason, the typing a key results in nothing happening, and the beach ball appears (on a Mac) when you click on any part of the interface. The interface becomes unresponsive, until checking for email is complete (as indicated in the status message on the bottom left corner of the main window).

Expected results:

Typing a key should result in an immediate appearance of the typed letter, and the rest of the Thunderbird interface should be responsive.

Comment 1

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

If you look at Mac activity monitor, does the thunderbird process show "not responding"?
What happens if you disable global indexing at prefs > general (scroll to bottom) ?

Comment 2

[Josh]

Hi. I tried for a couple of days to catch 'not responding' in the Activity Monitor, but never saw it. It would be hard to catch that though.
I have disabled Global Indexing now.

Comment 3

[Josh]

So yes, with Global Indexing off, the left-hand folder pane will still freeze when scrolling, and the beach ball will appear when typing an email at random times. This seems to be associated with status messages like "No messages to download" in the bottom-left corner.

Comment 4

[Firefox Bug Husbandry Bot]

Because this bug's Severity has not been changed from the default since it was filed, and it's Priority is -- (non,) indicating it has has not been previously triaged, the bug's Severity is being updated to -- (default, untriaged.)

Comment 5

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

What happens if you disable both the automatic collection of new mail, and automatic save of drafts during compose?

Comment 6

[Josh]

So, I tried the following scenarios:

1. Turned off automatic downloading of new emails every X minutes for all accounts, and turned off automatic saving of drafts. The result was that the there were no lockups.

2. Turned automatic downloading every X minutes back on for my accounts, but left automatic saving of drafts turned off. In this case, the interface will lock up whenever automatic mail checking occurs (same behavior as originally reported).

I have 17 email accounts, if that helps, and some are still on POP, if that helps.

Comment 7

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

This reminds me of bug 929281.

If you see the problem when started in Windows safe mode, then we'llneed to recommend getting logs

Comment 8

[Josh]

Yes, looks similar. I'm on the Mac though. Turning off Autosaving Drafts provides some improvement.

To get logs, would I go to Tools > Developer Tools > Error Console?

Comment 9

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

It's unclear whether logs will be helpful. Error console is something else. But you could look there for anomalies.

Comment 10

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Can you list the accounts using the output of help > troubleshooting?
And, if you have no add-ons installed, would you consider trying version 78?

Comment 11

[Josh]

Attachment: Mail and News accounts.png

Comment 12

[Josh]

Attachment: Troubleshooting.txt

Comment 13

[Josh]

Hi Wayne,

Done, see attachments. I'm on the beta release channel so my current version is 79.0b2. I've only got 3 extensions, let me know if I should try turning them off.

With Best Regards,
Josh

Comment 14

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

What happens for you with 80.0b3 or 80.0b4?

Comment 15

[Josh]

Hi Wayne,

I'm on 80.0b3 and it says I'm up to date, so I may have to wait to comment on .0b4. But so far, I still notice freezeups. I have had all extensions turned off for a couple of weeks. Also separately, recently I have started to notice that after an hour or so, the left-side folder pane gets laggy when scrolling. Admittedly, I have a lot of folders.

Thanks and Best Regards,
Josh

Comment 16

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Try to capture a couple short periods of slowness with https://github.com/thunderbird-conversations/thunderbird-conversations/wiki/Profiling-Conversation's-Performance

Comment 17

[Josh]

Hi Wayne,
Here is a link to the left-side folder pane getting laggy. Should I open a new bug?
https://share.firefox.dev/2YaP33x

I will try to catch it when it freezes when checking mail, but I'll need to keep the Performance window open and hopefully be fast enough to catch it.

With Best Regards,
Josh

Comment 18

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to Josh from comment #17)

Hi Wayne,
Here is a link to the left-side folder pane getting laggy. Should I open a new bug?
https://share.firefox.dev/2YaP33x

Laggy scrolling?

I will try to catch it when it freezes when checking mail, but I'll need to keep the Performance window open and hopefully be fast enough to catch it.

Good idea

Comment 19

[Josh]

Hi Wayne,

So, this is a little tough to get these logs. When the issue happens, the interface is frozen and I can't get to the button fast enough. If I try to set it the Performance window up in advance, somehow it winds up behind other windows by the time the issue happens. I will keep trying. Maybe if I go offline in the morning when I have a lot of emails, then get set up and start logging, then go online, I'll be able to catch it.

Sorry for the delay. It's just tricky to make it come together.

Best,
Josh

Comment 20

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Understood.

Do you have any calendars?

Comment 21

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Do you have any calendars?

Are you in a position to use version 78?

Comment 22

[Josh]

Hi Wayne,

Sorry for missing your last. Yes, I have 4 calendars, only 1 gets heavy use. Also, I don't know how to get an exact count but I must have 300 email filters. I have been using the "Stop Filter Execution" step on most of them.

I kept trying to get the Performance log, but found that after I clicked to stop logging, the spinner came up and never went away. Usually the entire Developer Toolbox would disappear after that, and I would need to restart TB.

I'm on the beta release channel, so on 82.0b1. A while back I tried to revert, but when I installed v76, I got the message that changes had been made to my profile and it was no longer compatible, so I had to stay on the version I had. Do you know if v82 and v78 are compatible? If so I could switch.

With Best Regards,
Josh

Comment 23

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

I think you should be able to safely go from 82 beta to 78.

Comment 24

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Can you capture a profile of the compose delays with autosave disabled? And does it occur if indexing is disabled? (with your freezing you might need to just randomly enable the profiler before typing and then wait for the freeze to end)

Comment 25

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

It may be worth waiting for 78.3.3 or 78.3.4.

Comment 26

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Perhaps related, do you also have lots of tags related to using RSS? See Bug 1342054 - Large number of tags causes very bad tags preference UI performance (from autotaging RSS feeds)

Comment 27

[Phoenix]

Resolved per whiteboard

Comment 28

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

FWIW, 78.5. and newer have performance improvements