Avast WEBforum
Consumer Products => Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security (legacy Pro Antivirus, Internet Security, Premier) => Topic started by: TMAnonAnon on March 22, 2011, 09:55:17 PM
-
Getting and looking at emails in Thunderbird is slow (10-30second delays).
This slow email problem has been going on (for me) since last fall, only after I updated to TBird3!
Yes, I've looked for a solution and had tried many things but to no avail.
Today I went to disable mail real time shield (as done before) but I had clicked file system instead...
And TBird sped-up (to normal), when I went to enable I noticed what I actually disabled.
So, TBird speeds up if either the mail, or file system, real time shields (rts) are stopped.
Now I had looked at these forums (previously) and had configured the mail rts but with no noticable difference.
But I never read or tried any config changes with the file system rts to get TBird to speed up...
Anyone do such a thing successfully, or any suggestions on where to start?
-
I'm currently using WinXP 32-bit, Avast 6.0.1000 Free, Thunderbird 3.1.9
I wanted to clearly explain how TBird3 has a long delay from clicking on the email to when the screen refreshes and I can read the email contents.
I can use all other programs on the computer without any delays or problems. I can use any program before, during, & after these TBird delays without penalty. It is a TBird3 specific problem that is solved by stopping either the FSRTS (File System Real Time Shields), and/or the MRTS (Mail Real Time Shields) in Avast.
Now I've been changing options in the FSRTS...
And after I found where the logs are kept, I noticed that clicking an unread email produces a pattern of entries in the usntr.log
For Example: (Note I removed useless data, and altered sensitive data names for clarity)
12:23:01 Processing file C:\Documents and Settings\ABCD\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\abcdefgh.default\Mail\execulink.com\Inbox...
12:23:01 --> Finished [0] [processing took 78 ms].
12:23:21 Processing file C:\Documents and Settings\ABCD\Local Settings\History\History.IE5\MSHist012345678901234567\index.dat...
12:23:21 --> Finished [32] [processing took 0 ms].
And 20 seconds was how long the delay lasted too (from 12:23:01 to 12:23:21)
Changing folders in TBird or clicking an email that's already read will often also produce the delay.
And a couple seconds after the delay has ended, again there's an "History.IE5" entry...
For Example:
12:49:25 Processing file C:\Documents and Settings\ABCD\Local Settings\History\History.IE5\MSHist012345678901234567\index.dat...
12:49:26 --> Finished [32] [processing took 0 ms].
I don't even use IE.
So how can I turn off it's "History.IE5"??
-
I don't even use IE.
So how can I turn off it's "History.IE5"??
Yes you doWindows Explorer is a file manager application that is included with releases of the Microsoft Windows operating system from Windows 95 onwards. It provides a graphical user interface for accessing the file systems. It is also the component of the operating system that presents many user interface items on the monitor such as the taskbar and desktop. Controlling the computer is possible without Windows Explorer running (for example, the File | Run command in Task Manager on NT-derived versions of Windows will function without it, as will commands typed in a command prompt window). It is sometimes referred to as the Windows Shell, explorer.exe, or simply “Explorer”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Explorer
Make sure you are running XP SP3:
Support for Windows XP Service Pack 2 ends on July 13, 2010
http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifean31
-
Yes you do
:( NOOOOOoooooo..... !!! :'(
:P Okay, so I can't get rid of IE, I just don't use it to surf the web.
Thanks for the info YoKenny
-
I got TBird Speeded up enough to come back and reply.
I went into IE's settings and turned off the History, set it to 0 days, then cleared the history.
I moved the files from the Inbox to Achives folder. It took a few minutes to complete, and after a week I still find it annoying to go Achives.
Then I downloaded the addon "MultiXpunge". In TBird I clicked File -> Offline -> Work Offline
Then I ran MultiXpunge, after setting it to Empty Trash and Compact all folder.
That was a week ago and I can view most emails like I used too...
But only once every few hours do I notice it doing the 1/2 minute slow down.
Even then, it's usually because I clicked the Archives folder.
-
Just a quick update.
Clicking the Archive button, or archiving by any method creates the half minute delay.
During that delay Thunderbird looks frozen-up (but just as before), it doesn't affect any other software.
It looks like TBird 3.x and Avast 6.x are still fighting for control over something when I archive...
-
Well I guess when you hit archive, then avast will be very active as these old emails are archived.
The avast icon should be rotating is this is the case and if you look at the file system shield details you will see the activity. Is this happening during the archive ?
So far I have never used the thunderbird archive feature so I don't know if this is correct.
-
So far I have never used the thunderbird archive feature so I don't know if this is correct.
I use it, no problem or delay here.
-
When you did was the avast icon rotating and chowing activity in the file system shield details ?
-
When you did was the avast icon rotating and chowing activity in the file system shield details ?
I never checked it, as there never was a problem.
Wait, I'll try.
Edit: No rotating, no activity...
-
I never tried it because I was never familiar with their concept of archiving emails.
I previously used OE6 and archiving wasn't really a concept there, so my email folder structure was very structured (migrated to thunderbird) and the last thing I would want would be for that structure to be lost if all emails after a date were dumped into a single archive.
-
Actually the Avast icon only fully rotates about twice, while the hard drive indicator light is lit up whole time.
There isn't much traffic, 1 orange stick a grid square high, appears about once every 3 or 4 grid squares apart.
The Last File Scanned: switches to scan the Archives.msf in my TBird profile, then it switches back to Inbox.
Pretty boring and unspectacular...
I'd think if Avast was the cause, then the icon would be turning non-stop. And it's scanning would slow down all other software on this PC. But what I experience is that only TBird has slowed to a stop.
I never had any problem like this with any version of TBird which I started using in late 2004.
So, I'm wondering if it's the way the new "Archive" "feature" works and perhaps some timing delay when an Anti-Virus queries TBird?
-
Actually the Avast icon only fully rotates about twice, while the hard drive indicator light is lit up whole time.
There isn't much traffic, 1 orange stick a grid square high, appears about once every 3 or 4 grid squares apart.
The Last File Scanned: switches to scan the Archives.msf in my TBird profile, then it switches back to Inbox.
Pretty boring and unspectacular...
That is pretty much what I would have expected if the archive functions opened the archives.msf and the transfer of emails to the archive would commence, so essentially the archives.msf file would only be scanned once or twice.
I'd think if Avast was the cause, then the icon would be turning non-stop. And it's scanning would slow down all other software on this PC. But what I experience is that only TBird has slowed to a stop.
I never had any problem like this with any version of TBird which I started using in late 2004.
So, I'm wondering if it's the way the new "Archive" "feature" works and perhaps some timing delay when an Anti-Virus queries TBird?
That is what would be happening if the delay was directly related to avast the icon should be rotating all the time. So it may depend on your system resources, Hard disk, RAM and CPU, etc.
One thing that I would consider is to defrag your hard disk if it has been a while since you last did it as this archives.msf could be quite fragmented.
What is your CPU % like when this is going on ?
The reason I ask is that the archived emails are also indexed so as to make searches easier, perhaps it is this indexing that is going on. Unfortunately I'm not at all familiar with the workings of thunderbird.
Other than this I'm at a bit of a loss as to what else to suggest.
-
About 4 weeks back I cleared all temp files with System Internals "cleanafterme", then defragged HDD using "Vopt 9". I had just started using this "Archive" folder a couple weeks ago as I read that it can speed TBird up.
Last Friday I had TBird work offline, then I ran MultiXPunge to empty trash then compact.
I only just started using MultiXPunge about 2 weeks ago, in the hopes that compacting everything would speed up TBird.
XP's Task Manager shows Thunderbird takes 78 to 83MB Mem Usage, 64 to 70MB Vm usage, ~150K Paged Pool.
The total Page File usage for the PC is 360MB (+/-10MB) out of 1GB available.
When Archiving an email the Task Manager's CPU Usage goes between 5% upto 32%.
Then just before the TBird freeze is over and TBird screen refreshes there's a very brief usage of ~97%.
So when Archiving there are 3 programs that use the memory during this process
AvastSvc.exe, thunderbird.exe, explorer.exe
AvastSvc seems to be working the most, sporadically alternating between the other 2 programs.
And it is AvastSvc that appears to have the 97% usage spike.
Hmmm, according to Vopt9, the Archives.msf is 2MB and Archives is 610MB, and both are fragmented, so I'll defrag those files and let you know if it makes TBird run better.
Thank you
-
Compacted Archives folder, cleaned up temp files (Cleanafterme), ran Vopt 9, updated Avast from 6.0.1000 to 6.0.1091, restarted PC.
But there's still no difference when Archiving or visiting the Archives folder and files.
But at least I had gotten TBird usable again, as per my earlier (April 11th) post where I wrote."I got TBird Speeded up enough to come back and reply."
Thanks everyone for having a look and giving me somethings to try.
-
You're welcome.
The avastSvc.exe is the main avast scanning engine and would spike as it controls all the resident scanners. It is set to a fairly hight priority to be able scan what has to be scanned and return control to the other applications.
Whilst this is happening if the hard disk light is constantly flickering that is showing that there could be a bottleneck at that point. But there isn't a whole lot you can do about that (short of getting a newer faster hard disk, but this is costly in time as you would have to transfer all your existing data and programs. It depends on what type IDE or SATA, format is used (FAT32 or NTFS, which is better) the rotation speed, 4500rpm, slow to 7,200rpm fast and the amount of cache/buffer the hard disk has, 8MB minimal 16MB and 32MB now becoming more common. This buffer/cache is fast memory that allows the hard disk to effectively catch up.
On XP, 1GB RAM should be enough, 2GB would be better for overall performance. This would mean more could be done in memory and less pagefile used (this is on the hard disk), so would contribute to any bottleneck.
-
I don't think the HDD is the problem, it's about 1.5 years old, Seagate Barracuda ST3500418AS, SATA 3Gb/s, 7200rpm, 16MB cache, and has about 75% free space.
Only 1 GB RAM and XP seems to always have free memory, so it's probably plenty in this case.
The Swapfile has it's own separate partition (XP Drive D: )
I'd say the biggest part of the bottleneck is from the old computer itself, with a P4 3Ghz single core CPU (no hyperthreading).
But you gave me an idea and I'll run Spinrite later on to make sure the HDD surface is fine.
Thanks DavidR
-
You're welcome.
-
I got TBird Speeded up enough to come back and reply.
I went into IE's settings and turned off the History, set it to 0 days, then cleared the history.
I moved the files from the Inbox to Achives folder. It took a few minutes to complete, and after a week I still find it annoying to go Achives.
Then I downloaded the addon "MultiXpunge". In TBird I clicked File -> Offline -> Work Offline
Then I ran MultiXpunge, after setting it to Empty Trash and Compact all folder.
That was a week ago and I can view most emails like I used too...
But only once every few hours do I notice it doing the 1/2 minute slow down.
Even then, it's usually because I clicked the Archives folder.
Thanks for the hat Tip on Xpunge. :) I just installed it in Thunderbird. If it works like it claims then it should be a nice addon for Thunderbird. Has a four star user review rating over at Mozilla's Thunderbird Addon website.
-
You're welcome.
The avastSvc.exe is the main avast scanning engine and would spike as it controls all the resident scanners. It is set to a fairly hight priority to be able scan what has to be scanned and return control to the other applications.
Whilst this is happening if the hard disk light is constantly flickering that is showing that there could be a bottleneck at that point. But there isn't a whole lot you can do about that (short of getting a newer faster hard disk, but this is costly in time as you would have to transfer all your existing data and programs. It depends on what type IDE or SATA, format is used (FAT32 or NTFS, which is better) the rotation speed, 4500rpm, slow to 7,200rpm fast and the amount of cache/buffer the hard disk has, 8MB minimal 16MB and 32MB now becoming more common. This buffer/cache is fast memory that allows the hard disk to effectively catch up.
On XP, 1GB RAM should be enough, 2GB would be better for overall performance. This would mean more could be done in memory and less pagefile used (this is on the hard disk), so would contribute to any bottleneck.
The speed of a hard drive in a computer system is affected by two main factors. There is the transfer rate of the hard drive and there is the speed of the interface bus. It does no good to get a faster hard drive, if the hard drive interface bus will not support the full speed of the new drive.
http://www.hard-drive-help.com/hard-drive-upgrade.html (http://www.hard-drive-help.com/hard-drive-upgrade.html)
cheers :)