472576 - Email address auto-complete way too slow, freezes GUI thread

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 450134

(Thunderbird :: Address Book, defect)

Description

[David Taber]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.5) Gecko/2008120122 Firefox/3.0.5
Build Identifier: Eudora 8.0.0b4 (which I think is TBird 3.0 pre

I have about 5500 contacts in the T'Bird address book.  The data is all clean, with no duplicate email addresses.

When I'm addressing a mail, as soon as I type a partial address the autocomplete feature kicks in -- as it should -- and then freezes the GUI for many many seconds.  Strangely, the period varies from 3 seconds to almost 60, when searching for the same name over and over again.  You'd think it would get faster due to caching effects, but it seems to be totally random.

CPU utilization goes to 100% during this interval, and memory utilization goes up by 20 MB or so.  Feels like this is some sort of linear search, with no effective caching of recent addresses.

You'd expect at least an indexed search, if not a three-level search like this:
   - is this address string in the last 100 email addresses sent/received?
   - is this address string in the individual's address book?
   - is this address string in any other address book in T'Bird?


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. open email
2. type a name or email address string in any recipient line
3. wait while the GUI freezes
Actual Results:  
delays (apparently random) from 3 to 60 seconds

Expected Results:  
address complete within 3-5 seconds, GUI not blocked while search is in progress

As a work-around, offer an option to do auto-complete matching *only* against the last 500 addresses received or sent.  

If for some bizarre reason you want to see my address book or other system info, email me: davofanmail at comcast dot net

Comment 1

[Mark Banner (:standard8)]

We already know this can be improved, bug 450134 covers this.