[Dovecot] Thunderbird very slow startup, 1.2.11, mbox, postfix local delivery to /var/mail

[Charles Marcus]

On 2010-05-07 8:00 AM, Stan Hoeppner wrote:
> There are no local mbox files.  Those are only created if one sets TB to
> synchronize IMAP folders to the local drive for offline use, which I do
> _NOT_ do.  That defeats the whole purpose of having a nearby (network
> latency and b/w wise) fast IMAP server.  If I wanted copies of all my mail
> on my workstation I'd run POP.  But I don't.  Thus, I don't synchronize.

<snip> You're right, my bad...

I generally set all of my folders to offline mode, but do *not* set my
accounts to Sync... that way, I basically get 'Sync on demand' (only
messages that I actually click on are downloaded).I do this mainly to
avoid having to download attachments repeatedly (in my business we deal
with a lot of large attachments).

So, I do have the mbox files, although they are generally very small
compared to how much mail is in the folder...

> It seems TB then spins at 100% CPU for 60+ seconds saying 
> "Downloading header x of 300". When it hits ~300, then there is
> finally network activity as TB seems to sort the messages into the
> proper IMAP folders, which is lightning quick compared to
> "downloading message headers".

The only other thing I can think of is some kind of AV on the local
computer, but it seems like that would affect OE too - unless you had
configured it to not scan OE connections...

> I don't recall having this performance issue with dovecot 1.0.15.  Just in
> case it's something I nurfed in my dovecot config, here's my dovecot -n
> output.

It would be good if you could confirm this, but, I think that if its a
config issue, its more likely a TB config issue (especially since OE
seems to not have a problem) - too bad TB doesn't have a way to dump the
config changes like dovecot/postfix...

Did you make any manual config changes to TB using about:config or
applying manual changes to user.js?

-- 

Best regards,

Charles