1831673 - TB 113 very slow (3 minutes) startup on Mac. (macOS contacts)

Status: NEW

(Thunderbird :: General, defect)

Description

[Mitra Ardron]

TB 113 is very very slow starting - 2 to 3 minutes is typical for me.

I have a lot of messages but not outrageous including Inbox around 300 or so, 40MB but so it might be doing something over the message base.

I reported it on the discussion https://thunderbird.topicbox.com/groups/beta/T01a53e6c2c0a2015-M21f4ce8ca32d6f60a6296bfe so not repeating conversation that was there but note that diagnosis included trying Safe mode.

This problem has been there since March 17.

Comment 1

[JmG]

I can say the experience is not yours alone. I am on a much older machine (13 years and counting) but 2.5 minutes is still a long time.

Comment 2

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

This problem has been there since March 17.

This would coincide with 112.0b1.

Slow with calendars and without calendars?

Comment 3

[Mitra Ardron]

I'm wondering how to test this - if I go to Calendars there is just one, its location is a caldev address, which is my icloud calendar.

This was done a few years back - I'm not sure if I followed the instructions at
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3414939?answerId=17479458022#17479458022
or
https://frightanic.com/apple-mac/thunderbird-icloud-calendar-sync/

but anyway the "unsubscribe" is greyed out, so I'm not sure how to test. I did try switching synchronisation to Manualbut it still took several minutes to restart. Is there another way to test "without calendars"

The other candidate for issues would be the Address Book ?

The apple Address book is also connected, I could delete that, but I'm worried about not being able to reconnect it, since that was connected using the workaround published when TB wasn't asking for the correct permissions, and involved something like regressing to an old TB version which did ask permissions then switching the profile back to the new TB or something like that.

I'm not sure how to test this without risking data loss, any ideas?

Off topic - my number one priority for any changes in TB would be fixing the Mac OSX integration - without doing these two (geek only) hacks I believe TB is pretty much unusable to most Mac users as it doesn't otherwise integrate with their calendars or address book for their other apps or their phones.

Comment 4

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to Mitra Ardron from comment #3)

I'm wondering how to test this - if I go to Calendars there is just one, its location is a caldev address, which is my icloud calendar.

This was done a few years back - I'm not sure if I followed the instructions at
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3414939?answerId=17479458022#17479458022
or
https://frightanic.com/apple-mac/thunderbird-icloud-calendar-sync/

but anyway the "unsubscribe" is greyed out, so I'm not sure how to test. I did try switching synchronisation to Manualbut it still took several minutes to restart. Is there another way to test "without calendars"

The other candidate for issues would be the Address Book ?

The apple Address book is also connected, I could delete that, but I'm worried about not being able to reconnect it, since that was connected using the workaround published when TB wasn't asking for the correct permissions, and involved something like regressing to an old TB version which did ask permissions then switching the profile back to the new TB or something like that.

I'm not sure how to test this without risking data loss, any ideas?

It is possible to get a performance profile on start using https://profiler.firefox.com/docs/#/./guide-startup-shutdown. See also https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiling-thunderbird-performance

Off topic

Please don't mix - it's simiply lost here in an unrelated bug.

Comment 5

[Mitra Ardron]

Thanks for the pointers, I think that worked. I did in a terminal window

cd /Applications
MOZ_PROFILER_STARTUP=1
export MOZ_PROFILER_STARTUP
open Thunderbird.app    

Then when TB populated the window (3 mins or so later): Tools -> Developer -> Developer Toolbox -> Accept Incoming Connection -> Capture Recording -> (wait for profile window to open) -> Upload and selected to send extension detail but nothing else optional.

https://share.firefox.dev/3B4m4kY

If that wasn't what you wanted, let me know what to do differently.

Comment 6

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

https://share.firefox.dev/3B4m4kY

The majority of delay happens within nsAbOSXDirectory::Init. Other users have reported delays related to Mac address book. I would start there. I don't have a reference handy, but try disabling the Mac-Thunderbird contacts settings.

Comment 7

[Mitra Ardron]

How do you disable it ? I can't find a setting - I tried deleting the MacOSX book (from the "..." on the Address Book / MacOSX) and that didn't remove it. There used to be a setting somewhere for enabing the book, but I can't find it any more.

Comment 8

[Mitra Ardron]

Update - actually it didn't delete the MacOs from the Address Books, and now TB refuses to start at all after attempting to delete it, which is a much more serious bug - I had to restore my old profile to get it back. :-(

That of course is a much worse (data losing) bug - I've filed it as bug #1833285

@Wayne - was I correctly removing the Address Book as you suggested - a process that failed or is there a correct way that I couldn't find?

Comment 9

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

The workaround I was looking for is in bug 1662759 comment 28. To be clear, I really did mean only "disable".
Thanks for filing that new bug report.

Comment 10

[Mitra Ardron]

OK - I can confirm that turning off access to contacts makes it start up at a normal speed.

I have a fairly large contact list 7900 and about 50 lists, but I don't think that is unusually large.

Comment 11

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Same issue in version 102 - workaround bug 1810313 comment 4.
Another report at https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1417126

Comment 12

[Mitra Ardron]

Without knowing the code base, it seems that something that should be asynchronous is sychronous, i.e. even if TB has a stupendously slow process that does something like reading through all the address book entries at startup, there probably shouldn't be a need for the rest of the UX to wait for that.

Comment 13

[junk]

(In reply to Mitra Ardron from comment #12)

Without knowing the code base, it seems that something that should be asynchronous is sychronous, i.e. even if TB has a stupendously slow process that does something like reading through all the address book entries at startup, there probably shouldn't be a need for the rest of the UX to wait for that.

Same problem with MacOS Sonoma 14.0 and: over 1000 contacts in my MacOS Contacts directory. Depending to my internet connection it takes 20 - 60 sec to startup Thunderbird. It seems TB is waiting for the Apple Contacts.

After disabling the access, like St78 describes it, startup time is about 5 sec! I agree Mitra Ardron...

Comment 14

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

The good news is CardDav should work when the native Mac AB does not. Supporting Mac AB interface changes every few years and therefore breaks - hence CardDav is the future, and native support will probably be phased out If I remember correctly,

Comment 15

[Mitra Ardron]

Right, but there must be something seriously wrong with TB's use of the CardDav interface if it takes this long, it must be doing something iteratively across all of the cards, without caching the previous record, and unclear why its blocking everything else.

Comment 16

[Mitra Ardron]

This seems to have been fixed. Working now on TB 120.0b5 could someone else confirm, so we know its not just me ?

Comment 17

[Mitra Ardron]

OK - its not fixed, its just no longer connecting to the Mac Address book, which is a far more serious bug.

My Mac OS X Address Book shows up in the list of address books, but has zero contacts.

I seem to remember there was a checkbox to enable showing the MacOS it somewhere, but I can't find it - its not in Settings (at least not obviously).

On the OSX -> Settings -> Privacy -> Contacts, Thunderbird is no longer listed, I'm almost certain
that it used to be. I'm still running on Ventura (OSX 13.6) so it doesn't look like this bug is caused by updating OSX, just by updating TB

Comment 22

[Mitra Ardron]

I can confirm this is still a problem in 126.0b1, TB takes a few minutes to start on Macs with Mac Address book connected

Comment 23

[Philippp]

Just want to add that I am affected by this problem as well, since I upgraded my OSX. Currently using ThunderBird 115.10.1 (64-Bit) release version via HomeBrew. Disabling the use of OSX contacts circumvents the problem, but I need the contacts for work.
MacBook Pro 2019, OSX Sonoma, about 3000 contacts, startup of ThunderBird takes roughly 1 minute.

While ThunderBird is in that "slow starting" phase (blank white window and spinning beachball), I see two OSX processes using more CPU:
syspolicyd (ca. 38% CPU) and contactsd (ca. 16% CPU).

Comment 24

[[e-mail]]

I'd like to add my own details, hoping it might help resolve the issue.

I have a regular install of thunderbird, which as described in the bug report takes minutes to start. Starting thunderbird in safe mode doesn't help, and neither does rebooting the computer.

Starting from the command line (/Applications/Thunderbird.app/Contents/MacOS/thunderbird-bin), I can see thousands of errors like these:

2024-06-09 12:31:53.650 thunderbird-bin[39623:1813961] Rethrowing (from nts_ValueForProperty:) NSInternalInconsistencyException: Unhandled error (NSCocoaErrorDomain, 134092) occurred during faulting and was thrown: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=134092 "(null)"
CoreData: error: Unhandled error occurred during faulting: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=134092 "(null)" ({
})
2024-06-09 12:31:53.665 thunderbird-bin[39623:1813961] Rethrowing (from nts_ValueForProperty:) NSInternalInconsistencyException: Unhandled error (NSCocoaErrorDomain, 134092) occurred during faulting and was thrown: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=134092 "(null)"
CoreData: error: Unhandled error occurred during faulting: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=134092 "(null)" ({
})
2024-06-09 12:31:53.679 thunderbird-bin[39623:1813961] Rethrowing (from nts_ValueForProperty:) NSInternalInconsistencyException: Unhandled error (NSCocoaErrorDomain, 134092) occurred during faulting and was thrown: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=134092 "(null)"
CoreData: error: Unhandled error occurred during faulting: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=134092 "(null)" ({
})

After a few miuntes, the errors stop and thunderbird can be used normally, without any noticeable slowdown

I have been able to reproduce a similar issue with thunderbird nightly, without any associated email account. steps:

• isntall thunderbird nightly
• start from the command line (to see logs): /Applications/Thunderbird\ Daily.app/Contents/MacOS/thunderbird
• TB starts normally, without delay
• in the welcome dialog, click cancel
• tick the "use Daily without an email account" checkbox
• click the exit button
• => thunderbird seems to work fine
• click on the calendar, tasks, or chat tabs on the left: no issue
• click on the address book tab: TB freezes and errors like these flood the console:

2024-06-09 12:41:43.904 thunderbird[39676:1817851] Rethrowing (from nts_ValueForProperty:) NSInternalInconsistencyException: Unhandled error (NSCocoaErrorDomain, 134092) occurred during faulting and was thrown: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=134092 "(null)"
CoreData: error: Unhandled error occurred during faulting: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=134092 "(null)" ({
})
2024-06-09 12:41:43.923 thunderbird[39676:1817851] Rethrowing (from nts_ValueForProperty:) NSInternalInconsistencyException: Unhandled error (NSCocoaErrorDomain, 134092) occurred during faulting and was thrown: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=134092 "(null)"
CoreData: error: Unhandled error occurred during faulting: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=134092 "(null)" ({
})
2024-06-09 12:41:43.950 thunderbird[39676:1817851] Rethrowing (from nts_ValueForProperty:) NSInternalInconsistencyException: Unhandled error (NSCocoaErrorDomain, 134092) occurred during faulting and was thrown: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=134092 "(null)"
CoreData: error: Unhandled error occurred during faulting: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=134092 "(null)" ({
})

There are 4684 instances of the same error, which almost matches the number of cards in my address book (4228)

Thunderbird: 115.11.1 (64 bits)
Thunderbird daily: 128.0a1 (2024-06-08) (64-bit)
OS: MacOS ventura 13.6.7 (22G720)

Comment 25

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Is this gone for anyone when using Sequoia?

Comment 26

[Mitra Ardron]

I'm still on Sonoma - like many I'll wait for 15.1 as the .0 releases from Apple are often problematic (especially for non-Apple Apps)

Comment 27

[Peter]

The problem is still not solved OSX 15.1. Thunderbird 128.2.4