Open Bug 1661980 Opened 4 years ago Updated 1 year ago

Folder pane scroll freezes or slows on 4K monitor

Categories

(Thunderbird :: Folder and Message Lists, defect)

Product:
Thunderbird
Component:
Folder and Message Lists
Platform:
Unspecified
macOS
Type:
defect

Tracking

(Not tracked)

People

(Reporter: hola, Unassigned, NeedInfo)

References

Details

(Keywords: perf, regression, regressionwindow-wanted)

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_14_6) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/84.0.4147.135 Safari/537.36

Steps to reproduce:

from beginin of install

Actual results:

I have 4 email accounts with several folders in Thunderbird 78.2.1, and also some rss, and when I am with a 4k monitor or computer (iMac 2017 4K), the sidebar is slow when scrolling. If I connect an external monitor and move the window to this monitor (full hd), scrolling works perfectly.

Did you also see this issue when running 78.2.0?
Does "sidebar" mean the list of folders?

Component: Toolbars and Tabs → Mail Window Front End
Flags: needinfo?(hola)

Yes, list of folders.
And as for the version, indeed: it happens since I have installed version 78.x.x. Until 68 everything perfect.

Flags: needinfo?(hola)

And how is 78.2.0 ?

Component: Mail Window Front End → Folder and Message Lists
Summary: Email accounts and folders sidebar freezes or slows on 4K → Folder pane freezes or slows on 4K

Like I said, it happens with any version of the 78.

What you could say, is it fails with 78.2.0 or 78.2.0 (I don't care about anything before 78.2.0 - they are broken)

I did not understand the "fails with 78.2.0 or 78.2.0" (for me it is the same).
In short, yes, even version 78.2.0 has that problem.
Hope my answers are helping to spot the problem.

Tried disabling hardware acceleration in the Thunderbird preferences?

Yes, I also tried that. Before opening this ticket I have already tried everything "typical" that can lead to performance problems.
Whether or not there is hardware acceleration, the same thing happens.
Just in case, my machine:
iMac i5 3,4GHz
32GB DDR4
Radeon Pro 4GB

I have not noticed such slowdown on a Windows 10 PC with 4K display. Tried this with 78.2.3.

So it is likely this is very Mac specific (iOS and its graphics driver.)

sorry for the confusion of comment 5.

Please make a short profile of activity scrolling the folder pane up and down.
Instructions https://github.com/thunderbird-conversations/thunderbird-conversations/wiki/Profiling-Conversation's-Performance

Flags: needinfo?(hola)
Keywords: perf, regression, regressionwindow-wanted
Summary: Folder pane freezes or slows on 4K → Folder pane freezes or slows on 4K monitor

Probably got the same problem under Mac OSX here.

I profiled the problem and made a video to demonstrate the problem.
Please observe how the scrolling of the messages is really smooth, while the folder scrolling is not smooth. As far as I remember, 78.2.2 is the first version exhibiting this behavior.

Video:
https://owncloud.trampusch.info/index.php/s/qmm3rGHGWbqmADG?path=%2F&openfile=1179989

The profiling has been done for the sluggish folder scrolling only:
https://share.firefox.dev/2GYU5ud

Thank you for your help!

Sorry, forgot to add that I reproduced this problem on the Macbook Pro Late 2017 15 inch built-in Retina display, which has 2880-by-1800 resolution according to https://support.apple.com/kb/SP756?locale=en_US

So this happens not only on 4k.

I can confirm that I have the same problem here (iMac Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2017). Scrolling in the folder pane is painfully slow, almost certainly due to the new folder icons.

(In reply to trampi from comment #11)

...
Video: https://owncloud.trampusch.info/index.php/s/qmm3rGHGWbqmADG?path=%2F&openfile=1179989

Unfortunately your video is no longer available.

The profiling has been done for the sluggish folder scrolling only:
https://share.firefox.dev/2GYU5ud

Approximately 1/4 of the time is spent on the Thunderbird start page.

(In reply to Tom from comment #13)

I can confirm that I have the same problem here (iMac Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2017). Scrolling in the folder pane is painfully slow, almost certainly due to the new folder icons.

Tom, can you find the regression range where this issue starts, using https://mozilla.github.io/mozregression/ ?

Flags: needinfo?(tdemedts)

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #14)

(In reply to trampi from comment #11)

...
Video: https://owncloud.trampusch.info/index.php/s/qmm3rGHGWbqmADG?path=%2F&openfile=1179989

Unfortunately your video is no longer available.

The profiling has been done for the sluggish folder scrolling only:
https://share.firefox.dev/2GYU5ud

Approximately 1/4 of the time is spent on the Thunderbird start page.

Sorry, did forget to remove the shared link expiration.
Here it is again, this time without a date expiration:
https://owncloud.trampusch.info/index.php/s/2CWgGGH6RZQLRHs

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #15)

(In reply to Tom from comment #13)

I can confirm that I have the same problem here (iMac Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2017). Scrolling in the folder pane is painfully slow, almost certainly due to the new folder icons.

Tom, can you find the regression range where this issue starts, using https://mozilla.github.io/mozregression/ ?

Interestingly, I cannot reproduce the bug with mozregression, even if I use the same profile. Any clue? My installed version of Thunderbird still has this issue. Would it help to remove and reinstall Thunderbird? Does Thunderbird store certain settings or preferences outside of the profile folder?

Flags: needinfo?(tdemedts)

(In reply to Tom from comment #17)

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #15)

(In reply to Tom from comment #13)

I can confirm that I have the same problem here (iMac Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2017). Scrolling in the folder pane is painfully slow, almost certainly due to the new folder icons.

Tom, can you find the regression range where this issue starts, using https://mozilla.github.io/mozregression/ ?

Interestingly, I cannot reproduce the bug with mozregression, even if I use the same profile. Any clue?

That stinks. But it's not unheard of.

What happens if you uncheck "show start page" in preferences? If the problem is still exists, please create another profile of the problem with that preference change.

My installed version of Thunderbird still has this issue. Would it help to remove and reinstall Thunderbird?

No I don't think so.

Does Thunderbird store certain settings or preferences outside of the profile folder?

No

Flags: needinfo?(tdemedts)

m_kato, do you have a 4k monitor and can reproduce the issue? (see comment 0, comment 16)

Flags: needinfo?(m_kato)
Severity: -- → S3

Here it is again, this time without a date expiration:
https://owncloud.trampusch.info/index.php/s/2CWgGGH6RZQLRHs

Hi, I looked at the video again. (I reported that under Windows10 I did not see any slowdown of scrolling of the folder list.)

An interesting observation is that under windows 10, BOTH message header list scrolling and folder list scrolling is jerky, i.e., fast some might say.
In that sense, there is no slow down of scrolling of the folder list.

I noticed that message header pane shows very smooth scrolling in the video.
(When I say "smooth scrolling" I am referring to the artificially slowed down smooth scrolling as opposed to jump scroll a few lines at a time to show news lines faster than scrolling a line at a time expecting that the user would like see more lines quickly. Smoothly scrolling is visually aesthetic although it is a pain if you need to scroll in a large list.
For old timers, DEC VT100 character console terminal has this smooth scrolling feature. It was cool, but I disabled it.)

I don't know if it is windows10 specific issue, but maybe "slow" may mean a different thing on the display of MacOS X.

Does anyone using Windows version of TB see such smooth scrolling of message header panel?
I don't recall seeing it for quite some years under windows10 and so I was not sure if one is supposed to see it under windows.
Or is there a user pref to change the scroll behavior?

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #19)

m_kato, do you have a 4k monitor and can reproduce the issue? (see comment 0, comment 16)

No, although I use 4K monitor (with HiDPI) on Linux and Windows, I cannot see jerky scroll. But since I use high performance desktop (Ryzen 9 3900X), it might be low end PC/mac issue... Thunderbird don't use GPU rendering (I guess that this is disable as default), so it depends on PC/mac spec and the setting of rendering.

Flags: needinfo?(m_kato)
OS: Unspecified → macOS

possibly duplicate of bug 1677380

Depends on: 1697999

(In reply to Nicolas from comment #22)

possibly duplicate of bug 1677380

yeah perhaps.

Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Ever confirmed: true
Flags: needinfo?(tdemedts)
Flags: needinfo?(hola)
Summary: Folder pane freezes or slows on 4K monitor → Folder pane scroll freezes or slows on 4K monitor
See Also: → 672835

hola, others,
would you say you still see this issue when using version 102?

Flags: needinfo?(hola)

I have had this issue all the way through to 110.0b3 on Linux (openSUSE/KDE) also. Just got used to it. 110.0b seems a little worse as after the freeze it jumps back.

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