168520 - mail client "hangs"; probably related to large number of file descriptors

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(MailNews Core :: Networking, defect)

Description

[Heiner Steven]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; SunOS sun4u; en-US; rv:1.2a) Gecko/20020910
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; SunOS sun4u; en-US; rv:1.2a) Gecko/20020910

I'm using Mozilla for reading my e-mail with 1 IMAP, 3 POP3, and
one news server. My ~/Mail directory contains ~234 e-mail folders.

I added

    user_pref("mail.check_all_imap_folders_for_new", true);

to my "user.js" preferences file.

After using it for some time (e.g. 15 mins) some features no longer work:

 o  It will not display newsgroup articles
 o  I can no longer delete e-mails (move them to the trash folder)
 o  I won't be able to get new messages from a POP3 server
 o  sometimes Mozilla (browser and e-mail) will just "hang" indefinitely

A system call trace ("truss") on the hanging process revealed an indefinite
loop:

/1:     open("/home/hs127178/News/news.uk.sun.com/sun.cde.users.msf", O_RDWR|O_C
REAT|O_TRUNC, 0666) = 257
/1:     close(257)                                      = 0
/1:     stat("/home/hs127178/News/news.uk.sun.com/sun.cde.users.msf", 0xFFBFD070
) = 0
/1:     lstat64("/home/hs127178/News/news.uk.sun.com/sun.cde.users.msf", 0xFFBFD
070) = 0
/1:     unlink("/home/hs127178/News/news.uk.sun.com/sun.cde.users.msf") = 0
/1:     stat("/home/hs127178/News/news.uk.sun.com/sun.cde.users.msf", 0xFFBFD108
) Err#2 ENOENT
/1:     open("/home/hs127178/News/news.uk.sun.com/sun.cde.users.msf", O_RDWR|O_C
REAT|O_TRUNC, 0666) = 257
/1:     close(257)                                      = 0
/1:     stat("/home/hs127178/News/news.uk.sun.com/sun.cde.users.msf", 0xFFBFD070
) = 0
/1:     lstat64("/home/hs127178/News/news.uk.sun.com/sun.cde.users.msf", 0xFFBFD
070) = 0
/1:     unlink("/home/hs127178/News/news.uk.sun.com/sun.cde.users.msf") = 0
/1:     stat("/home/hs127178/News/news.uk.sun.com/sun.cde.users.msf", 0xFFBFD108
) Err#2 ENOENT
/1:     open("/home/hs127178/News/news.uk.sun.com/sun.cde.users.msf", O_RDWR|O_C
REAT|O_TRUNC, 0666) = 257
/1:     close(257)                                      = 0
/1:     stat("/home/hs127178/News/news.uk.sun.com/sun.cde.users.msf", 0xFFBFD070
) = 0
/1:     lstat64("/home/hs127178/News/news.uk.sun.com/sun.cde.users.msf", 0xFFBFD
070) = 0
[...]

When I use "pfiles" on the "hanging process" to list the open files,
I see that it has either 256 or 257 file descriptors open.

Increasing the maximum number of open files from 512 to 1024 did not
fix the problem; the mailer still "hangs" with 256 or 257 open file
descriptors.

This problem is not pertinent to Mozilla 1.2a; I can reproduce it with
Mozilla 1.1 (Solaris 9/SPARC), too.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Start mozilla e-mail client
2. Get all e-mails for all 4 e-mail and the one News account
3. work with e-mail, e.g. select File/Compact folders

Actual Results:  
Sometimes Mozilla "hangs" (browser and e-mail client). When I iconify
the windows, and restore the original size afterwards, the windows
are not repainted.

Sometimes some functions will just stop working, e.g. I cannot remove
an e-mail, cannot get new e-mail, or cannot display the messages in
a news group.

Expected Results:  
see comments above

please see the "details" above for "truss" output

Comment 1

[Heiner Steven]

The problem is more easily reproduced with the

    user_pref("mail.check_all_imap_folders_for_new", true);

preferences settings. With this setting, Mozilla causes problems
within minutes of usage. When I list the number of files Mozilla
has open I see a number of about ~256 open file descriptors.

When I disable "mail.check_all_imap_folders_for_new", the problem
does not appear that fast, and Mozilla has about 67 file descriptors
open.

Could there be a file descriptor leakage in the
"mail.check_all_imap_folders_for_new" == true case?

Comment 2

[Heiner Steven]

The problem persists with Mozilla 1.3a:

    (Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; SunOS sun4u; en-US; rv:1.3a) Gecko/20021211)

Comment 3

[Heiner Steven]

The problem does not only occur with

    user_pref("mail.check_all_imap_folders_for_new", true);

but also if the "check this folder for new messages" property of
IMAP folders is used.

The problem is more prominent with my Mozilla 1.3a nightly build
than it was for the "official" Mozilla 1.1 release. I get the problem almost
immediately now.

Comment 4

[grylchan]

possible similar bugs:
bug 183877 or bug 190300

will mark as new based on reporters comments

Comment 5

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

Heiner Steven, is this bug still a problem for you?  Both of the related bugs mentioned in comment 4 were marked WorksForMe in Oct 2003, possibly due to the fix in bug 221023.

If this is no longer a problem, please mark this bug  Resolved | WorksForMe.

Comment 6

[Mike Cowperthwaite]

No response from reporter  => WFM