771060 - Thunderbird 13 and 14 run slow on Windows 7 and dragging Thunderbird is laggy

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Thunderbird :: General, defect)

Description

[Scott Deagan]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:13.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/13.0.1
Build ID: 20120614114901

Steps to reproduce:

1. Open Thunderbird.
2. Send and Receive kicks in.


Actual results:

Thunderbird becomes "semi" non-responsive. For example, dragging the main Thunderbird window: click and drag, it remains where it is for about 10 seconds, then it moves. Huge lag between the time you drag and the time it moves. Also slow to perform other actions: for example, clicking on an item in the inbox will open that item in the preview pane about 10 seconds later (sometimes shorter, sometime longer). Feel like it's running on a single thread that's blocking the UI (not sure how else to describe it).


Expected results:

User actions should be instant. Works fine with Thunderbird in Ubuntu, I only have this problem in Windows 7.

Comment 1

[Ludovic Hirlimann [:Usul]]

It's kind of running on a single UI thread. Would be nice to have a stack or sample of the issue so we could look at why it's lagging (using http://mikeconley.ca/blog/2012/06/15/gecko-profiler-now-works-in-thunderbird-daily/)

Does it lags all the time ? even if you restart with addons disabled ?

Comment 2

[Scott Deagan]

Hi Ludovic - thanks for your reply. In answer to your questions:

1. No, it doesn't lag all the time, just most of the time. It always happens during a send/receive operation, but I do not believe it's limited to this event.

2. Yes, have started with addons disabled, it made no difference. I also tried installing Thunderbird 14 beta (RC2?), still sluggish/laggy/stuttery/semi-non-responsive.

I will install the "Gecko Profiler" when I get home from work and will provide the output. I can also record the issue and upload it to YouTube (will try to mask out my email contacts).

Comment 3

[Scott Deagan]

I tried installing the Gecko Profiler in both Thunderbird 13.0.1 and 14.x. It would not install:

"Gecko Profiler could not be installed because it is not compatible with Thunderbird 13.0.1".

Comment 4

[Scott Deagan]

I have uninstalled Thunderbird 13.0.1 and installed Thunderbird 12.0.1.

While there is a very slight indication of "micro-stutter" when dragging the 12.0.1 application around the Windows 7 desktop when it's doing a send/receive (i.e. it's not as smooth as dragging around Windows Explorer or Firefox), 12.0.1 is still responsive and very usable (unlike 13.0.1).

Comparison of 12.0.1 and 13.0.1 has been carried out using the same addons, the only difference being the version of Lightning (using Lightning 1.4 with 12.0.1).

Looks like some kind of regression bug has slipped through.

Comment 5

[Scott Deagan]

Looks like I spoke too soon. Thunderbird 12.0.1 started showing the same symptoms. Have now installed Thunderbird 11.0.

Comment 6

[:aceman]

Is Firefox running at the same time and using GPU acceleration? See in about:support.

Comment 7

[Scott Deagan]

(In reply to :aceman from comment #6)
> Is Firefox running at the same time and using GPU acceleration? See in
> about:support.

Yes, Firefox is running at the same time, I usually have both Firefox and Thunderbird open at the same time. When I entered "about:support" the following appears under the "Graphics" section: 2/2 Direct3D 10

Should I somehow turn off GPU acceleration in Firefox to make Thunderbird responsive?

Comment 8

[:aceman]

Yes, definitely try that. IN Options->Advanced->General-> use HW acceleration, then restart Firefox and Thunderbird.

Also try to check the state of GPU acceleration in Thunderbird, in Help->Troubleshooting info.

Comment 9

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

no response from reporter to comment 8, so closing.

If y ou still see this problem, suggest you start thunderbird started in windows' safe mode

- win7 http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Start-your-computer-in-safe-mode

Comment 10

[Scott Deagan]

I still see the problem, but have changed the way I use Thunderbird to work around it. I now avoid dragging the window around if I see Thunderbird is performing a "send and receive".