I give up. TBird is too slow. Moving to Outlook.
It's been nearly a year I think. A good six months, at any rate.
I filed a case on it about 3 months ago, but the "My Questions" list doesn't show it.
At the time, I was treated to an entire digest of how I was supposed to examine 100 tasks going on in my system to see if one of them was causing memory problems... As if!
But here's the thing:
1. NO OTHER PROGRAM ON MY SYSTEM experiences the kind of stalls that Tbird sees,
and they are all laboring under the same constraints.
2. TBIRD STALLS IN THE MIDDLE OF WRITING A MESSAGE -- TWO OR THREE TIMES, in some cases.
That is a simple inability to grasp the concept of MULTI-TASKING in software.
Background processes can stall all they want. Foreground processes should NEVER see them.
3. TBIRD DOES NOT DOWNLOAD MESSAGES UNLESS AND UNTIL I AM USING IT.
I can have it open on the desktop for as long as I want. But once I click in it, THEN I see the
"downloading messages" alert. That too is a SIMPLE FAILURE TO UNDERSTAND MULTI-TASKING.
If the program is running, it should have been downloading things in the background--not
wait until I am attempting to use it to DO something.
4. TBIRD SUPPORT APPARENTLY BELIEVES IT IS BEST TO BLAME THE USER.
Again, a simple failure to understand the concept of multi-tasking is the root cause of the
problems I have been experiencing. But reporting the issue did no good whatsoever.
Instead, I was supposed to spend a day diagnosing memory issues -- "issues" that DO NOT
AFFECT ANY OTHER PROGRAM on my computer.
So I gave up. I moved to Outlook. Sure enough, no stalls. Big relief. I have my inbox set up, and just imported my contacts. That just leaves a few years' worth of old messages I wish I could transfer. So I'll keep TBird installed, just to access those old messages, when I need them.
But as for daily use, no. It's history. I write this message to explain why, in hopes that someone will learn from it.
All Replies (12)
I can't see any report under your ID about slow operation. So there's nothing that I can see to try to help with. What AV do you use?
I wish you luck with Outlook. I'm deliberately using it at work (after using Thunderbird for many years, but now needing to fall into line with official doctrine) and hating it. Outlook is slow and clumsy.
Have you not yet realised that the strange layout in your postings here is due to a leading space?
Modified by Wayne Mery
Thanks, Zenos.
I used Outlook for many years at work, too. It took time to get used to, but after awhile I realized that while it lacked some features, it had others that TBird did not.
As for "slow and clumsy", no, not in my experience. I am finding it MUCH faster than TBird, for example.
- Thanks for the note about about the leading space, too. Who knew?
Forgot to mention:
As I mentioned, I never saw the report either. When I failed to respond with a detailed list of processes that might have been causing memory problems, perhaps it was simply deleted.
At any rate, the Mozilla Support page lists 5 questions I have asked over the years, none of which were the performance problem.
As I said, I'm merely passing on the notes for future use, in hopes that someone will find out what multi-tasking means, and figure out who killed it in TBird. (The program was fine for more than a decade. Then suddenly it stops being fine....)
EricArmstrong said
(The program was fine for more than a decade. Then suddenly it stops being fine....)
And that is usually down to your choice of anti virus. IT is the leading cause of slowness, failure to compact, slow and failing mail download and a host of other problems.
Most folk when confronted with this information either go into denial completely and start about nothing has changed, or tell us only Thunderbird is affected. or simply stop replying entirely.
Thunderbird is not as snappy as it could be, and in my opinion is slow to start. (I start in offline mode and it starts in about 5 seconds). But that is how it is.
Outlook however is always tested by Microsoft's "Partners" and is far less likely to suffer truly devastating problems with anti virus viruses and has been optimized to be as pretty as possible and to offer all those nice formatting conveniences that only actually work when you send mail to another outlook user. But that does not worry outlook users on the whole. They never see the dogs breakfast they click send on. When it comes back in a reply, they see it in Outlook, it looks oh so professional.
As for you previous question. I have no idea. We do not delete them simply because someone does not reply. If anything we close them to prevent copy cat posting of "me to" that drive me, and I assume other contributors, mad with emails on subject that have been inactive for months. They are auto closed after 6 months.
I really wish you guys would get out of the habit of blaming the user. (On the other hand, it's making me really glad I switched.)
READ THE REPORT.
1. No other programs on my system experience any such difficulties. 2. Yes, things get slow for other programs, too. After a while I have to terminate some processes. BUT NONE OF THEM STALL IN THE MIDDLE OF A FOREGROUND COMPOSITION, in order to carry out what SHOULD be background tasks.
Please, either accept the report or delete it. I don't much care which. Just STOP BLAMING THE USER when you get a report you don't like.
Finally: 3. I started using Thunderbird in the 1990's. It is only in the last year that it became unusable, a few months after it was no longer associated with Mozilla. My suspicion is you guys lost some expertise you really need. But that's only a guess.
(fixed up natsty copy/paste formatting issues)
Modified by Wayne Mery
EricArmstrong said
I really wish you guys would get out of the habit of blaming the user. (On the other hand, it's making me really glad I switched.)
I am not blaming anyone, but if you feel that way I am terrible sorry. But facts are facts. When one or a couple of thousand folk out of millions suffer from a problem, the problem is on their desk, or in the chair. Until the cause is found absolutely no action can be taken to change the cause of the problem. Be it Thunderbird, Outlook or any other software product. I do not know why your computer was doing what it did. Neither do you. As we have no steps to reproduce, and no one else can reproduce the problem for you, we have nothing to offer a developer so they can fix it.
Really I do not care what software you use. Enjoy your life with Microsoft. I hope you get exactly what you want. I did not enjoy Microsoft mail products (I used them all at one time or another.) I had crashes, corruption and poorly formatted emails. But your mileage will hopefully vary from that. If you stick to only buying Microsoft you will find the products work seamlessly together.
You just provided great information that was not given out until now:
No one else is experiencing the problem.
That's really good to know. The adds weight to the idea that that problem is that this end.
Quick follow up. After moving to Outlook, the memory problems seem to have disappeared.
I keep thinking I have too many windows open, and expect to see that out-of-memory dialog at any moment, but it never seems to come up.
[Full disclosure: A bunch of Chrome windows got closed, as well. Running Chrome and Tbird on the same system seems to invite memory-limitation errors.]
> What AV do you use?
In a previous post Eric mentioned using our friend/enemy McAfee
Wayne Mery said
> What AV do you use? In a previous post Eric mentioned using our friend/enemy McAfee
So of course he is having issues with speed. Enough said.
EricArmstrong said
I really wish you guys would get out of the habit of blaming the user. (On the other hand, it's making me really glad I switched.) READ THE REPORT. 1. No other programs on my system experience any such difficulties.
This is unfortunately a poor conclusion, often made by non-technical users, in the absence of sufficient facts or experience with a wide variety of users/user environments.
Many users experience problems with various programs on their computers but for other users the behavior is fine. Just like not all PCs are alike or of the same quality - the fact is, not all user environments are the same - they are often vastly different - AV issues, faulty hardware, underpowered harware, etc. The list is virtually endless.
EricArmstrong said
2. Yes, things get slow for other programs, too. After a while I have to terminate some processes. BUT NONE OF THEM STALL IN THE MIDDLE OF A FOREGROUND COMPOSITION, in order to carry out what SHOULD be background tasks.
Here, you are right - Thunderbird should not stall.
But again, you make unrealistic comparisons. Very few kinds of software do what Thunderbird does. Contrary to popular belief, Thunderbird is NOT a glorified word processor.
That said, there will be improvements in the future, which will happen as more developers are hired (see below).
EricArmstrong said
Finally: 3. I started using Thunderbird in the 1990's. It is only in the last year that it became unusable, a few months after it was no longer associated with Mozilla. My suspicion is you guys lost some expertise you really need. But that's only a guess.
This "guess" is wrong on multiple levels, and I state the following for other passersby : 1. Thunderbird hasn't been run by Mozilla for about 5 years. 2. Everyone organization loses personnel over time. And sure, there has been loss of expertise in some areas. And there we had some thin times. But in the past few years some talented volunteers have been active. 3. More recently, in the past year we hired several developers, which is working out well. And we are now hiring more. See https://blog.mozilla.org/thunderbird/
Modified by Wayne Mery
> A bunch of Chrome windows got closed, as well. Running Chrome and Tbird on the same system seems to invite memory-limitation errors.]
Shocker.
Chrome is a memory and a CPU hog when many tabs are open. Firefox beats it hands down in resource usage. (I should know, I currently have over 500 chrome tabs open - but it comes at a high cost. I normally try not to have more than 50 chrome tabs open. I'm relying on Chrome at the moment only because I have a short term problem with Firefox)
Modified by Wayne Mery