TBird 3.0, slowness on Mac OS X 10.5.8 on PowerPC?

I'm running Thunderbird 3.0 [Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X
10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.1.5) Gecko/20091204 Thunderbird/3.0] on Mac OS X
10.5.8 "Power PC" architecture.

I've noticed that the new Thunderbird is running very slowly. It
seems to be a generalized slowdown. It can take a few seconds to
respond to a mouse click sometimes. When I type in words in the
quick search field, it takes a second or two before the characters are
echo'd. It's like typing at 110 baud (bits/second), for those who
used computers in the late 1970's. When I run top, I see TBird
maxing out at 100% cpu a lot during routine operations. The slowdowns
*don't* seem to be related to activity display in the "Activity
Manager" (aka the activity monitor)

I'm using SSL/TLS IMAP mailboxes with a lot of mail in them. And
there's a lot of email kept in local folders (archives). I have the
"Enable Global Search and Indexer" feature turned off. Under account
specific settings->Synchronization & Storage, I have "Keep messages
for this account on this computer" enabled.

On a Windows XP computer (with roughly the same settings/accounts as
above), TBird 3 seems to be responsive, although it does seem to use
more resources.

Is anybody else experiencing problems like this? Any suggestions for
what to look for or fix?

Thanks in advance
Ben Slade
Chevy Chase, MD

I tried safe-mode and dropping/recreating the .msf files. No
significant difference. Also, I already had global indexing turned
off.

I'm wondering if the new TBird 3.0 is just slower because of core
changes (new Gecko 1.9.1 rendering engine, new search engine, new
client local database driver). See
[url]http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/about/press/archive/2009-12-08-01[/url]

I wonder if there's anyway to profile where TBird is spending it's
time? Probably requires compiling the source code and getting some
sort of Javascript debugger (since a lot of TBird is implemented in
Javascript, from what I understand)

Ben

On Jan 3, 11:45*am, Nir <nir....@hotmail.com> wrote:[color=blue]
> On Sunday 03 January 2010 10:05 PM, bslade wrote:
>
>
>[color=green]
> > I'm running Thunderbird 3.0 [Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X
> > 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.1.5) Gecko/20091204 Thunderbird/3.0] on Mac OS X
> > 10.5.8 "Power PC" architecture.[/color]
>[color=green]
> > I've noticed that the new Thunderbird is running very slowly. * It
> > seems to be a generalized slowdown. * It can take a few seconds to
> > respond to a mouse click sometimes. * When I type in words in the
> > quick search field, it takes a second or two before the characters are
> > echo'd. *It's like typing at 110 baud (bits/second), for those who
> > used computers in the late 1970's. * *When I run top, I see TBird
> > maxing out at 100% cpu a lot during routine operations. *The slowdowns
> > *don't* seem to be related to activity display in the "Activity
> > Manager" (aka the activity monitor)[/color]
>[color=green]
> > I'm using SSL/TLS IMAP mailboxes with a lot of mail in them. *And
> > there's a lot of email kept in local folders (archives). *I have the
> > "Enable Global Search and Indexer" feature turned off. * Under account
> > specific settings->Synchronization & Storage, I have "Keep messages
> > for this account on this computer" enabled.[/color]
>[color=green]
> > On a Windows XP computer (with roughly the same settings/accounts as
> > above), TBird 3 seems to be responsive, although it does seem to use
> > more resources.[/color]
>[color=green]
> > Is anybody else experiencing problems like this? * Any suggestions for
> > what to look for or fix?[/color]
>[color=green]
> > Thanks in advance
> > Ben Slade
> > Chevy Chase, MD[/color]
>
> Does starting Tb in safe mode[1] make any difference in performance?
>
> [1]<http://kb.mozillazine.org/Safe_Mode#Mac_OS_X>
>
> Additionally you can also see this article about performance degradation
> due to msf (index) file corruption
> <http://kb.mozillazine.org/Application_not_responding>
>
> *signature.asc
> < 1KViewDownload[/color]

On Jan 4, 9:48*am, Leonidas Jones <LeonidasJo...@netscape.net> wrote:[color=blue]
> bslade wrote:[color=green]
> > I tried safe-mode and dropping/recreating the .msf files. * No
> > significant difference. * Also, I already had global indexing turned
> > off.[/color]
>[color=green]
> > I'm wondering if the new TBird 3.0 is just slower because of core
> > changes (new Gecko 1.9.1 rendering engine, new search engine, new
> > client local database driver). * See
> >[url]http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/about/press/archive/2009-12-08-01[/url][/color]
>[color=green]
> > I wonder if there's anyway to profile where TBird is spending it's
> > time? * Probably requires compiling the source code and getting some
> > sort of Javascript debugger (since a lot of TBird is implemented in
> > Javascript, from what I understand)[/color]
>[color=green]
> > Ben[/color]
>
> /snip/
>
> Can I suggest that we bottom post, to preserve the continity of the thread?
>
> One thing I'm not seeing here is the processor. *Is it a G4 or a G5,
> what speed, iMac, Powerbook, Powermac or what?
>
> Lee[/color]

This is using a Power Mac G4 with dual 867 Mhz PowerPC CPUs & 2 gbytes
of mem ( [url]http://support.apple.com/kb/SP63[/url] ) with the most recent
version of OS X.

Ben

On Jan 4, 10:30*am, Ron Hunter <rphun...@charter.net> wrote:[color=blue]
> On 1/4/2010 7:56 AM, bslade wrote:
>[color=green]
> > I tried safe-mode and dropping/recreating the .msf files. * No
> > significant difference. * Also, I already had global indexing turned
> > off.[/color]
>[color=green]
> > I'm wondering if the new TBird 3.0 is just slower because of core
> > changes (new Gecko 1.9.1 rendering engine, new search engine, new
> > client local database driver). * See
> >[url]http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/about/press/archive/2009-12-08-01[/url][/color]
>[color=green]
> > I wonder if there's anyway to profile where TBird is spending it's
> > time? * Probably requires compiling the source code and getting some
> > sort of Javascript debugger (since a lot of TBird is implemented in
> > Javascript, from what I understand)[/color]
>[color=green]
> > Ben[/color]
>
> If anything, it seems faster to me. *If you aren't already, make sure
> you try it in safe mode to eliminate extension and theme influences.
>
> --
> Ron Hunter - rphun...@charter.net[/color]

I made a copy of the profile directory tree ( ~/Library/Thunderbird/
Profiles/<randomized_profile_name> ) into another login dir tree on my
Mac, then ran Thunderbird using the copied profile data under that
separate login. I deleted most of the addresses in the address book
(about 3700), and lots of saved mail in local folders (thousands,
going back several years). It didn't make any difference in terms of
performance.

Ben