
Every time I receive an email including 1+ images I can restart my computer
Hello,
since about 1 month or so (I guess there was an update) I really get trouble when I receive emails with big images attached. I think this is a new buggy preview but when images >3MB (and most images sent by cellphones nowadays are bigger) the whole computer slows down and is no longer usable.
The only soluten is to shut down the computer, log into the email mailbox via web interface, delete this email restart thunderbird and rush to delete this email in thunderbird too before thunderbird can even think about previewing this image again. Well, actually the preview worked really fine the last 20 years I use this program so thank you for this update containing such a nice "feature"...
The problem occurs on all my mailboxes and on 2 different computers, so I guess it's a bug, not a computer issue.
Todas as respostas (7)
Using the same anti virus on both computers by any chance?
When an email is opened, embedded images are written to the system temp folder so they can be displayed. Up until then they are in a text based mime encoded format that can not be displayed.
Most "slow" issues come from actions being taken on new files in the temp folder and usually this is an anti virus product as it is not very usual to backup temp folder of take other archiving activities on them. Another issue that really has not been seen much in the last 20 years as disk sizes have exploded is a lack of free disk space on the system drive that holds the temp folder. This is again becoming an issue with tiny (Relatively) SSD drives being used on system volume on cheaper consumer laptops.
Thank you Matt.
About the Anti-virus issue: Using 360 Total security on this computer and Avast on the other.
About the disk-space issue: right, files on the avast computer are probably pretty big, nonetheless there is enough free disk space left. On the 360 computer as well, but this one is not that old. Both are desktops.
Again, this problem appeared suddenly, not slowly. I'm pretty sure they changed something with the preview and pushed it in with an update. Though, mails with 3 images about 10 MB in size are not that uncommon nowadays that I could be the only one having this problem.
Try the disk cleanup suggested here https://pureinfotech.com/remove-temporary-files-windows-10/#remove_temp_files_disk_cleanup
one thing I have seen is things beginning to struggle is the temp folder is cluttered with old junk. Thunderbird tends to reuse a lot of it's temp file names with numbers appended if they are already there. This works, but if there is something preventing removal (again I look to AV as it is ubiquitous in scanning files in the temp folder on Windows) then the actual file system can actually get "clogged up" while a folders can technically have millions of files in it, experience indicates tens of thousands can be enough to cause issues on some devices. Unfortunately windows has no automated cleanup, like at reboot. So a manual clean out is just part of using windows and keeping the whole operating system running quickly.
another thing, is it any particular file format?
Well, I'm aware of the problem of big files slowing down thunderbird generally and I know what to do in this cases as I'm using thunderbird since the program was in a package with firefox I guess - can't remember it exactly. If I could bet I would put all in that the problem I talk about is not that one caused by too big mailbox files.
Yes, it occurs only with photos. jpeg photos. All other attachments work fine.
Perhaps send me one of the email causing you difficulty. to matt_au at GMX dot com.
Use the forward as attachment option. (down arrow beside the forward button.) so I can play with it exactly as you see it. I have no issue with email images, but I have to 30mb emails either, but if I have your email I might.
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