Closed Bug 539641 Opened 16 years ago Closed 16 years ago

throbber and progress bar in status bar will not stop and continue to indicate mail download activity, associated with indexing

Categories

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, defect)

Product:
Thunderbird
Component:
Mail Window Front End
Platform:
x86
Windows XP
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
minor

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
RESOLVED WORKSFORME

People

(Reporter: gwbill, Unassigned)

Details

(Whiteboard: [needs retest v3.1 nightly])

User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.7) Gecko/20091221 Dealio Toolbar 3.1 Firefox/3.5.7 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729) Build Identifier: Thunderbird 3.0 (brand new download) The download activity indicators, the rotating "wheel" in the top right corner on the tool bar and the traveling blue status bar on the right end of the lower status bar never stop... never. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Just start up Thunderbird and the indicators start and never stop. There is no actual Internet downloading of mail going on. 2. 3. Actual Results: See above Expected Results: Indicators should stop when downloading is complete. It's pretty annoying.
Component: Build Config → General
QA Contact: build-config → general
Is Tool -> Activity manager still showing activity ?
Yes, the "wheel" and progress bar are still moving. It appeared to stop this morning. I received some mail and I moved three or four posts to archive (new 3.0 feature). The activity wheel and progress bar started up again and are still moving 12 hours later. My computer stayed on the whole time with the focus on Thunderbird (in the foreground) although it was on standby during most of that 12 hours. I am aware of the time that might be required for a first indexing of stored messages. When the indicators stopped this morning, I thought this indexing might have been the problem, but it now appears that if that was true, the whole indexing process was repeating after moving only three or four files and deleting approximately 12 others. I don't know, that is only a guess. I have about 300 stored messages. No further observations. GW Riedeman
Version: unspecified → 3.0
It is not clear, did you actually go to the Tools menu and select Activity Manager? (this is not the wheel/progress bar on the main window). This will bring up a separate dialog that may give a hint as to which processes are actually running.
No, I did not. I did not know I should have done so. However, they are NOT running this morning when I turned on the computer -- it was off about 7 hours. I have not deleted or moved any files yet, only opened them. If I get further unusual activity, I will add another comment here with information from the Activity Manager. If all stays normal, I will send a closure post in a couple days. Thanks for your very timely attention. Much appreciated. GW Riedeman
Both indicators, the progress bar and the the tool bar "wheel," started running without stopping this afternoon. Checked the Activity Manager. The progress bar at the top of the AM window is running constantly "Indexing Messages" above the bar and "Determining which messages to Index" below. It's been running for several hours without changing either message.
at 22:00 PST, TB progress indicators still running and AM still running with same messages. Went to program manager and ended all related processes. Shut down for night.
Started up this morning. Progress indicator and "wheel" started running with wame messages as my note of 19:03:51. Bppted computer about 08:00:00 AM PST. Ran all day, TB running in background all day. Progress indicator on status bar and "wheel" on right side of upper tool bar never stopped. Activity Manager did log all of the TB file activities I conducted, mostly moving to Trash or deleting. None were missed that I could see. However, Progress bar and "wheel" never stopped and kept the same two messages. It is now 11:10 PST (23:10:xx PST) and am now shutting down computer for the night. GW Riedeman
Tuesday January 19. Blue status bar on status line and "wheel" on upper tool bar continue to run most, but not all the time. When they are stopped, checking the Activity Monitor shows its activity bar still running and showing activity with the messages over: "indexing messages" and under: "determining which messages to index." Thunderbird actions are properly shown in the performed activity list, each with the duration (a few seconde) required by that action. So, the problem is still there.
Do you have really big mailboxes ? Are you connected to an exchange server ?
Mailboxes - about 100. Stored messages, about 800 No, I do not use an exchange server -- simple POP3 here This morning, the Tool Bar activity "wheel" is turning, the blue progress status bar is stuck fully on--to the right. The Activity Monitor progress bar is constantly running and all the operations conducted so far today are properly listed. GW Riedeman -- thanks for the help.
(In reply to comment #10) > This morning, the Tool Bar activity "wheel" is turning, the blue progress > status bar is stuck fully on--to the right. The Activity Monitor progress bar > is constantly running and all the operations conducted so far today are > properly listed. Ain't sure I get that. Does that mean your happy with the way TB behaves ?
No, definitely NOT... On the TB page, the "wheel" at the right of the upper tool bar continues to turn continuously -- it never stops. On the TB page, the blue progress bar at the right side of the lower "status" bar either runs continuously or (as right now) stays frozen wide open (fully blue) and motionless. The Activity Monitor has it's own progress bar at the top with the legends "Indexing Messages" over the bar and "Decididing which messages to index" below the bar. The Activity Monitor also lists operations recently performed below the progress bar. Recently, the AM progress bar runs continuously AND the performed operations appear to be correctly logged. The Activity Monitor progress bar appears to be running at the same time that the "wheel" and progress bar on the TB page are active.
This Monday morning, "wheel" and progress bar still running. Activity Monitor correctly shows transactions properly and up-to-date while its progress bar keeps running.
I suggest a correction to the bug title "busy indicators will not stop and continue to indicate mail download activity" to read "busy indicators will not stop and continue to indicate mail IBDEXING activity" It appears pretty clear that the problem is not in sensing downloading, but is in indexing -- a new feature that may not be operating properly.
Came in this morning - Wednesday, 1/27/2010 - and "wheel" and Progress bar were quiet and remained so for a little while. The Activity Monitor progress bar was active with the same above and below text lines. Performed a few operations and left the room. An hour later returned and the "wheel" and Progress bar were running and have been all day and still tonight at 10:00 pm PST. Still very annoying.
Sunday night Jan 31, 2010, 11:15pm PST Still no change. "Wheel" continues running without stop and progress bar in status line still runs without stop. Computer was on all day Activity monitor still continues to correctly log actions but Progress bar at top runs continuously with the same two messages above and below the bar. Very annoying.
Terrific thread and hats off to GW Riedeman for sticking with this. I have this constant indexing thing going on with the wheel spinning and downloader progress bar always indicating activity and have had it for weeks and it is driving me crazy from the annoyance factor also. I figured if I blocked it from mind that tech would handle it in an automatic update. I go in Tools and Activity Manager, but no one cares for what GW Riedeman has to say as being serious either so I am content to watch this whole big bunch of jazz play out. Thanks for simply letting me post, and thanks again to GW Riedeman for being so polite under these stressful conditions.
No chage. The indicators are still whizzing along. Rarely, if ever stop. It's kinda fun whistling in the wind... but an awful waste of time if virtually nobody listens... (Thank you Mark... you're a welcome echo) BillR
Hi, I have the same problem since I updated to Thunderbird 3. It's definitely connected to the indexing process. The activity manager in the tools section shows no active tasks, the wheel is running, sometimes I see blue bars (showing different amounts of progress). But it never stops. Sometimes in the status line there is a message like "Indexing mail 1 of 2", but not always. It's even happening, that these messages come and go without any hint why! And always the wheel is running, running, running. And it's not always a cosmetic matter, often it slows down the whole application and leads to severe delays in using it (and it seems to produce huge memory usage, around 100 Megabyte, or is that ok?). I do have quite a fast computer with a lot of ram and fast harddisks, so it's sort of annoying, that everything is slowed down to much. I'm using POP3 and IMAP mailboxes in combination and some of them are rather big. But the status line is always showing, that just a couple of mails (1-5) are indexed, so there shouldn't be a problem with too large mailboxes? Thanks for help!! There must be more people experiencing this error, mustn't they? :-) Boris
No chage. The indicators are still whizzing along. Rarely, if ever stop. I'll keep dropping these stones into the well until I hear a splash. It's kinda like listening for extraterrestrial intelligence...
February 25, still the same annoying problem. Still spinning "wheel" and busy activity indicator on the status bar.
(In reply to comment #21) > February 25, still the same annoying problem. Still spinning "wheel" and busy > activity indicator on the status bar. Me too. Wheel spinning. Loading bar scrolling. Sequential indexing countdown of every file, shown numerically. Over and over again. This is a test. This is only a test.
For the record, I just noticed the "wheel" and status bar activity bar are quiet this evening for the first time in a couple months. The Activity Manager has all my operations logged, but it's "busy bar" is active and continues without stopping with the message "determining which messages to index."
One day later. "Wheel" and activity bar back to running without stopping again.
Now March 8. Been gone for a few days. This morning, busy *wheel) is rotating but blue activity indicator in the status line is frozen at about 15% of travel. Activity Manager shows proper file activities for this morning and activity bar is frozen at about 50% of span.
This is reported by other people, and probably won't be resolved any time soon. For now, it is productive to comment in the bug _only_ if you see the problem go away.
Severity: normal → minor
Component: General → Mail Window Front End
QA Contact: general → front-end
Summary: busy indicators will not stop and continue to indicate mail download activity → throbber and progress bar in status bar will not stop and continue to indicate mail download activity
Summary: throbber and progress bar in status bar will not stop and continue to indicate mail download activity → throbber and progress bar in status bar will not stop and continue to indicate mail download activity, associated with indexing
I permanently deleted 100% of my mail and the problem went away. No one will have to trudge through reading about technical updates from me any longer. You know I am a 59 year old factory trained and highly certified auto technician for a major American car manufacturer? I didn't think so. I am the guy at the dealership they give new car noises to that the young bucks are too impatient to find. You know the devil in my life and what it is? When the car stops making noise while in my possession. I can't get on the phone with engineering and break the law riding around with my cell phone talking about present driving conditions and sharing ideas. It's like the T-bird mail laboratory shuts down to scientific test experimentation for conclusive results. Nothing to work with, but don't we all love break time? I'm going off to lunch and be non-productive alone and leave the comment choking to the impatient.
If the feedback goes away, so will any effort to fix the problem, an occasional tap on the horn is useful just to remind the mechanics I'm still out there. Mark is right... no info makes an apparently random "intermittent" problem very difficult. I have no knowledge of what's under the hood and can only report what I see for my user feedback to give the designers something to work with, however small. As of now, I'm only reporting things I see CHANGING, such as I did on my last two posts. I will continue to do so, but promise to be brief.
(In reply to comment #28) > If the feedback goes away, so will any effort to fix the problem, an occasional > tap on the horn is useful just to remind the mechanics I'm still out there. on the contrary, with constant posting you will find: a) people will be less likely to be interested b) people will tend to unCC from your bug c) you may eventually get your bugzilla privileges removed Please see "1. Commenting" of https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html > As of now, I'm only reporting things I see CHANGING, such as I > did on my last two posts. I will continue to do so, but promise to be brief. And those last two posts were not helpful to anyone in a position to move the bug forward. The information already in the bug is quite sufficient for now.
(In reply to comment #29) > (In reply to comment #28) > > If the feedback goes away, so will any effort to fix the problem, an occasional > > tap on the horn is useful just to remind the mechanics I'm still out there. > > on the contrary, with constant posting you will find: > a) people will be less likely to be interested > b) people will tend to unCC from your bug > c) you may eventually get your bugzilla privileges removed > > Please see "1. Commenting" of > https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html > > > > As of now, I'm only reporting things I see CHANGING, such as I > > did on my last two posts. I will continue to do so, but promise to be brief. > > And those last two posts were not helpful to anyone in a position to move the > bug forward. The information already in the bug is quite sufficient for now. I'm inclined to believe you are a text post moderator on a comment thread as opposed to being a technician. I see here the very first entry of the activity bar being frozen. I liken this to a pitch change or frequency occurrence of a noise. I'm not totally ignorant as our on board computers run with a reference voltage of .5v from the 12v. battery system. His hardware report is from a long cooled condition and changed the software output. I think you are squelching useful info and determining what investigating repair professionals would consider worthy data. Of course I have been wrong many, many times in the past and am not above admitting so now if I indeed am. I'm not wrong in saying you are a threatening sort with post privilege revocation as a hammer I think you need a license check on. That was uncalled for. The guy is simply crying for help. My fix was to toss the whole mess and I think you need to step back. Block me if that's all you have.
I am a triager, and I have no interest in blocking you. But the next person may feel different. The etiquette guidelines are documented for a reason, and they are enforced. Not to mention, with my leaving, you now see evidence of a) and b)
It's the difference between me having to answer to $60,000 Lincoln owners and you not having to work for me for free. I actually love my job and take the difficult from the quitters.
I just want to comment on why this is an important bug and although it may even be working as intended, why it is a problem. The problem is two fold. I understand that the progress bar is actually reflecting activity by thunderbird and as such may be working as designed. The difficulty is that most people use the progress bar as an indicator that the latest message is done downloading and may now be viewed in its entirety. Providing feedback on an activity that requires no user action or knowledge (indexing in this case) via an indicator that is also used to indicate valuable knowledge to the user is inappropriate. One possible approach would be to add a second indicator for background tasks, and that might work, but it will also be distracting to the user to see activity on the screen that is not generally giving useful information. If you decide that info about background tasks is useful, be sure to allow the user to turn this feature off, if desired.
(In reply to comment #33) > I just want to comment on why this is an important bug and although it may even > be working as intended, why it is a problem. > > The problem is two fold. I understand that the progress bar is actually > reflecting activity by thunderbird and as such may be working as designed. The > difficulty is that most people use the progress bar as an indicator that the > latest message is done downloading and may now be viewed in its entirety. > Providing feedback on an activity that requires no user action or knowledge > (indexing in this case) via an indicator that is also used to indicate valuable > knowledge to the user is inappropriate. > > One possible approach would be to add a second indicator for background tasks, > and that might work, but it will also be distracting to the user to see > activity on the screen that is not generally giving useful information. If you > decide that info about background tasks is useful, be sure to allow the user to > turn this feature off, if desired. Thank you Brian Utterback. That was excellent commentary on how Thunderbird may be working perfectly and inappropriately. I hope it would not be cost prohibitive to give the user control over indicator display if it is indeed within the power of 'I don't know what name they deem the most honor of title' but I give it all up to them. Mark
The "throbber" and the blue activity bar here still continue to run continuously here without any of the stops I had seen previously. I have also removed about 2/3 of the mail stored. My observations suggest that the indicators are "broken" and don't indicate what the designer(s) believe. The previous two comments seem to make some sense, however I question if we need TWO indicators indicating the same thing, useful or not -- the "throbber" and the activity bar. At least each one should indicate only one thing. Personally, I think the activity bar should indicate ONLY the status of the mail -- in short, is there any uploading or downloading in progress or any other operation affecting mail validity. If there were some background activity going on,-- such as indexing -- of little or no interest to the user unless it affects the validity of the mail, perhaps that task would be better assigned to the "throbber" -- an small distraction easily ignored by the user if uninterested. The blue activity bar in the "Activity Manager" might be an appropriate indicator for active indexing, I don't know and have no opinion. IMO,that eternal, annoying moving blue bar, particularly if it indicates nothing of interest or importance to the user, should be eliminated. As a simple analogy, a burned out trunk (boot) light doesn't warrant a blinking red light on the dashboard... GW Riedeman
It is now April 9. The "throbber" keeps running; the blue Activity Bar keeps zipping across the display area. Very annoying and since they run all the time, they indicate nothing and don't deserve space on the monitor screen.
please backup your profile, test a build from ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/nightly/latest-comm-1.9.2/ and report results. I hope you will the problem is gone. The problem should be fixed by Bug 493848
Whiteboard: [needs retest v3.1 nightly]
I see this bug using: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.4) Gecko/20100608 Thunderbird/3.1
This problem has been fixed in the development version, and is now running correctly in my installation: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.4) Gecko/20100611 Lanikai/3.1.1pre Lanikai is one of the beta platforms for Thunderbird development. It has not filtered down into the released version of Thunderbird. It will probably show up in the next revision. GW Riedeman
WFM per reporter. If anyone else wants to test this please get 3.1.1pre at ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/nightly/latest-comm-1.9.2/
Status: UNCONFIRMED → RESOLVED
Closed: 16 years ago
Resolution: --- → WORKSFORME
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