289369 - Building summary file for 20 minutes each time I start my Thunderbird program

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Thunderbird :: General, defect)

Description

[Bob]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win 9x 4.90; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040913 Firefox/0.10.1
Build Identifier: Thunderbird version 1.0 (20041206)

My Thunderbird cannot finish building summary for my mail folders. The status
line show "Building summary file for <folder name>..." and the progress
indicator goes about a quarter of the way over and then disappears, and then
starts over again. It will do this several times after I start the program. I
end up having to wait 15 to 20 minutes to even see my existing mail. At the same
time there is HDD activity, so it really doing something over and over again. I
use a pop3 server.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Wait for 20 minutes
2.
3.

Comment 1

[Scott]

I have been able to reproduce this on my user's system. They are using Win XP
Pro Corp. Ed. and this happens with both Thunderbird 1.0 and still after
upgrading to 1.0.2 release. The symptom is identical, except for the end result.
We are not allowed to view the Inbox. Instead, We get an error message "Unable
to write the email to the mailbox. Make sure the file system allows you write
privileges, and you have enough disk space to copy the mailbox. Well we have
over 170GB free on this new Maxtor SATA drive. We use GMail via POP3 access as
well as a DirecWay POP3 account.


(In reply to comment #0)
> User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win 9x 4.90; rv:1.7.3)
Gecko/20040913 Firefox/0.10.1
> Build Identifier: Thunderbird version 1.0 (20041206)
> 
> My Thunderbird cannot finish building summary for my mail folders. The status
> line show "Building summary file for <folder name>..." and the progress
> indicator goes about a quarter of the way over and then disappears, and then
> starts over again. It will do this several times after I start the program. I
> end up having to wait 15 to 20 minutes to even see my existing mail. At the same
> time there is HDD activity, so it really doing something over and over again. I
> use a pop3 server.
> 
> Reproducible: Always
> 
> Steps to Reproduce:
> 1. Wait for 20 minutes
> 2.
> 3.

Comment 2

[zazell kroeske]

I am experiencing the same problems. On my windows ME machine it takes ages to
build the summary file. there used to be over 8000 mails in that mailbox and it
loaded in a few seconds. but this 'bug' came out of nowhere and even after
cleaning out the mailbox to 2000 mails it still takes at least 10 minutes to
build the summary file. I use pop3 mailboxes and the latest milestone of Thunderbird

Comment 3

[zug_treno]

Maybe the same problem as bug 287913?

Comment 4

[cio]

I am also experiencing the same "building summary file" issue on my windows XP
system.  This occurs only at startup and continues for several minutes.
Following the completion of "building summary file".... my inbox and preview is
displayed.

Since this issue began, Thunderbird's general behavior has been erratic. Display
diasapearing, delete not working for one message - but ok on the next message.
No other applications (including Firefox) are effected.

I have been using Thunderbird since the earliest releases and had experienced
absolutely stable preformance and no problems prior to version 1.0.2 (20050317).
Two of my sys admins are now seeing the same problem.

Comment 5

[PJ Thompson]

I am having the same problem. Building summary file each time I start the 
Thunderbird. Uninstalled it. Reinstalled it...version 1.06 and when I 
reinstalled it AFTER using a reg cleaner it came back with all folders and 
emails intact. I thought this strange considering I also manually deleted the 
Thunderbird folder. At the same time, my ability to use the get mail button for 
getting both my accounts' emails stopped and had to use the dropdown. Up to 
this point the program has been flawless and I bragged profusely about it. Now 
I'm wondering about its stability.

Comment 6

[David :Bienvenu]

have you tried a recent trunk build, or the 1.1a2 build?

ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/releases/1.1a2

Comment 7

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

*** Bug 299198 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 8

[Hubert Huppertz]

I have the same problems with the newest version 1.0.7. At the same time, my ability to use the get mail button for 
getting both my accounts' emails stopped and had to use the dropdown as it was reported by comment#5.

Comment 9

[Glen Doe]

This just started about a week ago. It takes 5 or more minutes to load. What has happened?

Comment 10

[Gordon Gidluck]

Was using 0.9 on Win98.  I noticed the same problem. My inbox takes about 5 minutes to build everytime I start the program. 

It seems to me that it is rebuilding an index or something like that. Why does it need to do this if no new email has been added?

I just updated to 1.5RC1 and it does not seem to be better. 

Comment 11

[Ray Booysen]

Commenters, can you confirm this on FAT partitions and not NTFS?

Comment 12

[u63580]

*** Bug 321978 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 13

[u63580]

This seems to be a genuine problem for several people (see the dupes) -> NEW

Comment 14

[junkaloo]

Doesn't take 20 min for me but takes many seconds when it used to take a blink of an eye! Seems to happen with the Sent folder too. Other folders seem okay.

This all started for me the day after April Fool's day.

I see the bug reported several times. So what's the solution?

Comment 15

[George]

I used to have this same indexing problem on TBird mail, however, after I installed Panda antivirus and did a system scan and virus cleanup it all went away, that makes me think that perhaps the problem is spam or spyware related.

Comment 16

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

*** Bug 333742 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 17

[Brent]

I also saw Thunderbird 1.5.0.2 take a very long time to "build summary files" when started on Windows ME.  Was still slow even after deleting all messages in the Inbox.  (Yes, the options were set to show all messages, not just new messages.)  In the directory C:/Windows/Application Data/Thunderbird/Profiles/???.default/Mail, the Inbox file was still over 300K, even though the Inbox supposedly empty.  Deleting that file restored the performance.

So this bug may depend on some other problem with the Inbox.

Comment 18

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

*** Bug 342209 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 19

[Brucefur]

Attachment: Building summary file for 20 minutes each time I start my Thunderbird program

Not sure I am doing this right, but I am hoping so, because I really don't want to lose all my letters. :o)

Comment 20

[Reed Loden [:reed]]

Comment on attachment 233726 [details]
Building summary file for 20 minutes each time I start my Thunderbird program

Please do not play with the flags. Flags are used with patches to show if a patch has been reviewed by the appropriate people or not, along with other things.

Comment 21

[dboeckman]

Having the same problem. While viewing inbox the number of new inbox messages increase without any new messages coming in. Seems to double.   Total messages also increasing without any new messages.   

Comment 22

[David :Bienvenu]

try deleting inbox.msf - or upgrade to 1.5.0.7

Comment 23

[dboeckman]

I'am a rookie,  I downloaded upgrade 1.5.07 it does not run.  Also where do I find inbox.msf and if I delete do I loose messages.

Comment 24

[David :Bienvenu]

it's in your user profile dir and deleting it doesn't lose any messages - it gets rebuilt automatically. Your inbox is in your user profile dir, something like c:\documents and settings\<user name>\application data\thunderbird\Profiles\<profile.slt>\Mail\server name

I don't know why 1.5.0.7 wouldn't run...

Comment 26

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

possible dupes: bug 209850, bug 337588
possibly related: bug 354105, bug 341116, bug 63840

Comment 27

[Art Magill]

I have version 1.0.7, and have troubles similar to other people.  I get the message "building summary files," but it only takes a minute or two.  This started a couple of months ago, and did not happen before that time. I eventually get my mail, but the delay is a nuisance. 

Comment 28

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

The more interesting question at this stage is who sees the problem using version 2 or a trunk build.

Comment 29

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Please comment whether you see your problem with version 2.
If not, then this may have been fixed by bug 337815.

Comment 30

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

no response, so => incomplete.

please still comment if you see this in a current release or trunk build

Comment 31

[Gordon Gidluck]

(In reply to comment #30)
> no response, so => incomplete.
> please still comment if you see this in a current release or trunk build

I did a reinstall of Win98 on this computer since I reported it. The problem remains. The current build is 1.5.0.14 .

I noticed that it took 5 minutes to build my summary file tonight when I started the program. On subsequent restarts of the program I don't see it happening. So it seems that it rebuilds the summary file based upon some condition (time interval of last access?). 

Anyway, the time to rebuild is likely based upon the number of messages to process in the Inbox. I have close to 3000. One workaround might be to move older Inbox messages to an Inbox Archive folder. 

Comment 32

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

a useful workaround, but 1.5.0.14 is not a current release.  1.5.x is EOL.  So the question is, does it happen with 2.x or trunk build?

Rebuilds can be caused by issues. And I see it frequently when I have two or more PCs accessing the same message store.  So what you see may be one of these, or it could be a valid bug.

Comment 33

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to comment #32)
> a useful workaround, but 1.5.0.14 is not a current release.  1.5.x is EOL.  So
> the question is, does it happen with 2.x or trunk build?
> 
> Rebuilds can be caused by issues. 

server issues.