
CPU and I/O runs at 30% and 1Mb respectively permanently after 1 or 2 minutes without getting down. What can cause this ? [maildir]
I am running TB 68.3.1 now for 2 weeks and my CPU never gets below 30% with a permanent I/O around 1 Mbps.
This was not happening with Rel 60 although it was lagging at use. I have 1 IMAP gmail account and 4 POP accounts. One of which have more than 30 Gb of messages (more than 15 years of messages). All accounts are now using one file per message. I have plenty of messages directories to classify them. I have tried starting in safe mode with no plugin/extension but after a few minutes CPU raise to 30 %
Modified
Chosen solution
Matt said
on the app menu you will see activity manager. Does it show Thunderbird doing anything?Read this answer in context 👍 0
All Replies (19)
Tools > Activity manager - do you see any constant or recurring activity?
Nothing special, look at the activities window below
Hmm, 30Gb of small files. Have you placed an exclusion in your anti virus product of choice for the profile folders? While I am not entirely sure how thetesting only "maildir like" storage system files are accessed by Thunderbird, but simply opening the folder MSF file probably prompts your anti virus to scan the contents of the folder for threats. I know in my case some of those folders have more than 150,000 files in them. Windows itself appears to struggle with them on my slow platters.
I have also turned of the option in filemanager > Properties for the profiles folders for windows to index the content. That almost ground my computer to a halt, and I never use windows search for file contents or mail anyway.
The files also now all have an EML extension, so it might be windows is treating them differently.
Hi Matt, I changed back my biggest account (with 95% of emails) to use mbox instead of maildir. Las, it is still the same situation. after 2 quiet minutes (once started), it goes up again (maybe a bit less...) see the cpu snapshop below
About Antivirus: I have no ways to modify the used strategy since my computer is administered by my Company and I have no right to change it (AVG strategy driven by System admininstrator)
You might ask them to set an exclusion for you.
And, if they have incoming mail scanning enabled then you are really screwed.
You might try a) disabling global search, if you don't use it b) making sure that your mail directories are not indexed by Windows (under advanced attributes of profile folder properties - help > troubleshooting > profile folder > open folder )
I disabled global search in Windows and deactivated the antivirus but still TB process is around 29% of CPU
on the app menu you will see activity manager.
Does it show Thunderbird doing anything?
I am more and more lost now: TB is becoming irresponsive after a few minutes: it just continuously grab memory and runs high in CPU (over 30%). I can't even access to the app menu. It just became unusable. I reset all options back to initial , I tried to run it in safe-mode, it all does the same: after 2 minutes, it becomes irresponsive and starts borrowing a lot of memory. It seems to be looping somewhere in the code. It borrows memory at high speed: 100 Mb per minute and it does not stop...
Chosen Solution
Matt said
on the app menu you will see activity manager. Does it show Thunderbird doing anything?
in the time when I can access to TB , activity manager shows indexing and blocks at 30% . See below
I repeat the issue: as soon as TB starts indexing some directory (even for few messages), problem appears: memory starts growing and CPU gets high as well and TB is unresponsive
leave the thing to hum for a while. See if the count changes or it just sits there thinking about it.
You removed 30Gb of messages and I would assume re added them with the account when you changed storage types. So the indexer has a LOT of stuff to catch up on.
If it does not look like it is making progress, close Thunderbird. Check the task manager that there is no process still running. Then follow the instructions to rebuild the global database. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/rebuilding-global-database
Deleting the file will start the indexing all over again, so you might appreciate why I am saying check to see if it is making progress.
nothing is improving . Index rebuild stops moving up after a few minutes and memory still grows: I leaved TB frozen and did not stop it for the last 30 mn: now memory consumption is > 1.5 Gb... and indexing is frozen
just for now, turn off the indexing.
Options > advanced > General and turn off the global indexer.
Modified
FWIW, I didn't find any maildir-specific bug reports that would match this issue https://mzl.la/3007mZ0
I am no more using maildir now I am using mbox. I did deactivate global indexing but again the TB process whilst not indexing anything still runs borrowing memory and CPU
see how far it can go: now it takes more than 2 Gb and still goes on...
Here are my last findings: -recreating empty storage for all my accounts did not change anything. TB was still freezing. -Installing beta V72.03 did not change anything. - installing version 60.9.1 made it crash instead of looping
So finally this is what I did: - create a new profile -recreate all my accounts - shutdown TB - copy all my accounts from former default profile to the new profile --restart TB on the new profile
- all is working fine now.
So I believe the issue is not in the account trees but somewhere in one of the numerous other files in the profile itself. I can forward here the entire directory (without all the messages trees) if that can help fix the bug.