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Consumer Products => Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security (legacy Pro Antivirus, Internet Security, Premier) => Topic started by: keywester on December 08, 2004, 07:38:40 PM

Title: thunderbird email protection performance degradation
Post by: keywester on December 08, 2004, 07:38:40 PM
I recently updated to v 4.5 home edition.  Subsequently, performance of Mozilla Thunderbird v 0.8 email has seriously degraded, such that previous sub-second response times are now consistently 4 to 6 seconds.
I have perused the Avast help and cannot determine how to resolve this.  For example, a start menu selection for the Avast email protection configuration was specified, yet I do not have this selection.  Also, I am unable to find anything in the settings options that allow me to turn off the email "protection".

At this point, I would like to retain the upgrade, but turn off the email protection, such that my response time returns to normal.  Is there a way to do this?  Or, do I simply need to back out the upgrade?
Title: Re:thunderbird email protection performance degradation
Post by: Eddy on December 08, 2004, 07:45:04 PM
I suggest you use the search option on this board. Keyword = Thunderbird.

Setup the mail correctly and their should be no problem.
Title: Re:thunderbird email protection performance degradation
Post by: keywester on December 08, 2004, 09:27:04 PM
I had already done exactly that, had about 20-some hits, breifly perused the lengthy threads, but did not see what I was looking for.  It is possible that in my haste I might have missed some pertinent info, but frankly rather than spend the required amount of time to thoroughly read through all of the infromation, I would simply back out the upgrade first.  I was posting in hopes that someone could save me some time.....
Title: Re:thunderbird email protection performance degradation
Post by: lee16 on December 08, 2004, 09:36:10 PM
keywester

I am receiving no slowing down of mails with Thunderbird 1.0 and avast 4.5.549, maybe try updating to the latest version of Thunderbird will help.

Also maybe making sure your not using secure authentication or SSL/TSL encryption, this will speed the scans up (i don't think avast supports them).

But if in the end you want to disable mail scanning open up the avast providers screen click Internet mail then press 'terminate' (see below).

--lee
Title: Re:thunderbird email protection performance degradation
Post by: Goner on December 08, 2004, 09:43:11 PM
keywester

I am receiving no slowing down of mails with Thunderbird 1.0 and avast 4.5.549,
are you using POP3 or IMAP ?? i can not connect to the IMAP server anymore using 4.5.549 with Thunderbird 1.0 ...
Title: Re:thunderbird email protection performance degradation
Post by: Lisandro on December 09, 2004, 01:38:33 AM
IMAP could have some trouble (incompatibility) with Standard Shield in some email clients... I think Alwil is trying to solve this.

The problem seems to be caused by Thunderbird using a special IMAP feature - downloading the messages by pieces - i.e. it doesn't download the whole message, it doesn't even download the particular attachments as whole - but it simply downloads the message cut into smaller pieces, one by one (at least I suppose so - theoretically, it may get the pieces even randomly - one here, one there...).

This feature, unfortunatelly, breaks avast! scanning - the virus is not recognized from a small piece of message only.
Title: Re:thunderbird email protection performance degradation
Post by: inthewildteam on December 09, 2004, 02:59:28 AM
You could try updating T/bird to ver 0.9 (not rc 1.0) it should still be available for download.

It's very stable for me with the latest avast! programme and sig updates.
Title: Re:thunderbird email protection performance degradation
Post by: Spyros on December 09, 2004, 09:58:24 AM
(not rc 1.0)

Version 1.0 is the final version, it is not a RC anymore.
And for me at least, it works much faster than 0.9.
Title: Re:thunderbird email protection performance degradation
Post by: Goner on December 09, 2004, 10:34:41 AM

The problem seems to be caused by Thunderbird using a special IMAP feature - downloading the messages by pieces -

it doesn't even get that far ; signing into the IMAP server and listing the messages already fails ...
Title: Re:thunderbird email protection performance degradation
Post by: Arup on December 09, 2004, 11:23:11 AM
Using Thunderbird 1.0 with Avast Home latest and can tell you that email scanning is way faster than my Outlook XP and finally I can use my Gmail POP access, earlier, Outlook and Gmail POP would not work, you could send mails but couldnt receive any.
Title: Re:thunderbird email protection performance degradation
Post by: keywester on December 09, 2004, 06:22:31 PM
Thanks everyone for the info - I guess that I will do the Tbird upgrade and see how much that helps.

Lee:  I have the Avast 4.5.459 home version also and my interface looks nothing like what you posted above, and I do not (appear to) have any options or selections to invoke that screen...  It simply says "simple user interface".

Technical:  fyi, the degradation is not only in downloading mail, it occurs in any actions performed, opening an email, even deleting emails.

Anyway, off to Tbird update land... thanx again
Title: Re:thunderbird email protection performance degradation
Post by: lee16 on December 09, 2004, 06:51:15 PM
Quote
Lee:  I have the Avast 4.5.459 home version also and my interface looks nothing like what you posted above, and I do not (appear to) have any options or selections to invoke that screen...  It simply says "simple user interface"

Ahh, sorry about that keywester, i didn,t really make myself clear i suppose, to open up that windows you need to double left click the "A" button in your taskbar next to your system clock. (see below)
Also before you try disabling the provider, try sliding the bar from high to normal, this may help.

--lee
Title: Re:thunderbird email protection performance degradation
Post by: keywester on December 09, 2004, 06:59:50 PM
thanks lee, but you know, I do not have that little icon for avast in the system area of the task bar - seems like I remember it being there long ago, like with a prior release, but have not seen it for a long time

any suggestion on what I can do to get the icon to reside there (I do have resident protection on and set at high) ?
Title: Re:thunderbird email protection performance degradation
Post by: lee16 on December 09, 2004, 07:04:10 PM
Hmm this us unusual, please try a repair of avast, this can be done by going to Start bar>control panel>add or remove programs>Avast! Antivirus>change/remove (button)>Repair.
Then restart/reboot your system, does this bring the icon back?

--lee
Title: Re:thunderbird email protection performance degradation
Post by: keywester on December 09, 2004, 07:20:46 PM
Lee;

I did the repair, rebooted, still no avast icon in the system tray... :-\
Title: Re:thunderbird email protection performance degradation
Post by: lee16 on December 09, 2004, 07:25:04 PM
Quote
I did the repair, rebooted, still no avast icon in the system tray

Only one option then, uninstall avast>restart your pc>re-install avast>restart your pc again.

The icon should then be back.

--lee
Title: Re:thunderbird email protection performance degradation
Post by: keywester on December 10, 2004, 01:04:11 AM
Lee / all:

Guess I must have had a "bad" install.  As you suggested, I uninstalled and reinstalled and it's now a whole new interface, with the icon in the system tray, etc.....  Before, it seemed to be a mixed up interface, with some inconsistencies of the old and new release, now it's ok...

And, with the good install and the Tbird upgrade, there is now no performance problem...

EDIT:  well the above resolution was last night after the reinstall/reboot, but today with normal startup, the systray icons are not present, and the performance slowdown is back.  Rather perplexing, and I am back to  strongly considering backing out the upgrade, unless someone can advise me as to what the underlying problem might be and how to easily fix it....?   :-\
Title: Re:thunderbird email protection performance degradation
Post by: keywester on December 14, 2004, 01:27:43 AM
Farewell Avasters, I gave up and rather than back out the upgrade (I had made several other installs and upgrades since then...) I decided to just uninstall and go with another antivirus alltogether (I did not feel it wise to forever stay with an old version of an AV...).

As indicated in the "edit" in the prior post, after the reinstall things looked good, but I think that maybe after the reinstall, the auto update was "on" and it must have updated something that caused it to regress to the problems outlined in the above posts.  I would have liked to resolve the problems, but just did not have the time to experiment with possible solutions.  Maybe someday I will be back, but for now it's ANTIVIR.

An interesting parting note.  I downloaded the AVAST uninstall module, followed the procedures, and after my PC was supposedly clean of AVAST, my firewall caught AVAST trying to "phone home"!!!

Hope you all have better luck than I did with 4.5, and meanwhile fare well....maybe I'll be back some day...
Title: Re:thunderbird email protection performance degradation
Post by: igor on December 14, 2004, 09:38:11 AM
An interesting parting note.  I downloaded the AVAST uninstall module, followed the procedures, and after my PC was supposedly clean of AVAST, my firewall caught AVAST trying to "phone home"!!!

What exactly was calling where?
Title: Re:thunderbird email protection performance degradation
Post by: keywester on December 14, 2004, 05:03:29 PM
igor

all that i can clearly recall at this point is that it was avast attempting an outgoing internet access - i was not real concerned about it at the time and did not really take note as to the exact site it was going after, seems like it was an avast.com address, but again, i've slept since then

the point of interest was that it occurred after the reboot after the complete de-install (using the downloaded avast utility to uninstall), so maybe it was trying one last "phone home" to indicate the unintstall?  i could remove the firewall block to see if it is still lurking, but if i do that i am not certain i would be informed of a subsequent attempt...
Title: Re:thunderbird email protection performance degradation
Post by: igor on December 14, 2004, 05:10:29 PM
When avast! is uninstalled, it should be completely removed - nothing should be left there (after restart).
So, if there really was any connection attempt, then either the uninstallation process must have failed badly (and avast! was checking for some updates, for example), or it wasn't really avast! that was connecting out.
Strange...

Title: Re:thunderbird email protection performance degradation
Post by: keywester on December 14, 2004, 05:50:46 PM
igor

i checked the firewall blocks and it was something like the "avast email scanner service", the 'ashMai' module for sure, that was blocked from outgoing access after the uninstall and reboot

this is the same critter that was apparently giving me such a hard time attempting to turn it off and of course working with emails was where i encountered the performance degradation, so it would seem that this module was problematic, on my machine anyway...

i just removed the firewall block to see if it might perchance still be around trying to do something, and will post back if it does...  (fyi, "avast setup" is still in the firewall rules as unblocked...)