Long Delay when accessing address book in Thunderbird 1..5.0.7

Is your address book in the default location or on a network or is it an LDAP address book?

Greetings, HenryWilfred !

Sounds like you just downloaded Thunderbird v1.5.0.7.  You may have a bad install. You may want to backup your settings and do a clean install.

Backup your settings with MozBackup
http://mozbackup.jasnapaka.com/

Then uninstall and reinstall Thunderbird.  If no joy, uninstall Thunderbird. Then remove the data from the Profile folder in C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Application Data\Thunderbird

Then install Thunderbird.  Use Mozbackup to restore your settings. Then test.

Best wishes!

The address book is in the default location. -- labeled Personal Address Book.

This sounds very risky -- I cannot afford to lose my email and settings.

If you simply uninstall TB and reinstall a fresh copy of it, you will not loose your emails.  They are located in your Profile Folder, not your Programs Folder. However, using mozbackup as war1 suggests will backup every bit of emails and preferences for you.

Now, if you would like, we can look at some other options before we go that full route, but you should grab mozbackup anyway and do yourself a favor and backup those TB settings and emails.

1. What extensions do you have installed?
2. Is your Address book quite large?

FYI - http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_backup
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_manager
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Folder

Henry,

>> This sounds very risky -- I cannot afford to lose my email and settings.

If you backup your profile settings and emails with MozBackup, it is no risky at all.

I think we are on the wrong track. I do not have a bad installation of Thunderbird. I have followed your instructions - uninstalled TB, used mozbackup, reinstalled, reloaded the mozbackup file -- same problem. Start up TB, click on Address Book -- 15 second delay.

I have multiple profiles on TB. Some have very large address books -- and they do not experience this delay. Other thoughts?

Henry,

If not a corrupt file in Thunderbird, then there could be an extension interfering with Thunderbird.  In Thunderbird, go to Tools > Extensions. Disable one extension at a time to determine the culprit. (Right click on an extension and select Disable.)

Yes,  What AV program is running?

Close TB, select your AV, have it Pause (or turn off if you can't Pause it) it's Resident Shield, open TB, then open your Address Book and time it.

Uninstalling TB and reinstalling is part of the Standard troubleshooting of mozilla products.  Now that we have eliminated that it is not the installation, we can look at other things.

What extensions do you have installed?

1) Had only one extension - TalkBack (Mozilla). Found no way to disable it -- I uninstalled it. Did not fix the problem

2) I use AVG-Free Antivirus. I disabled all functions. Restarted TB -- no help.

I have 192 addresses in the book. I exported them -- then deleted all of them (thought maybe one of them was causing problems). Restarted TB -- still a 15 second delay first time the address book is referenced

Maybe I should learn to live with it????  It seems incredible to me that this does NOT happen in other profiles using the same TB software.  I must have a setting that is looking at network drives or something. I have seen delays in IE (3 years ago??) which I attributed to a network drive. I will check that possibility.

Scratch the Network Drive theory. I had one network drive where the PC is often powered off. I removed it.  No help.

Henry,

Create a new Thunderbird profile
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Manager

If it works, then you can move your emails over from the old profile.

I have spent several hours on this.  Thanks for your help. I suspect that something concerning prefs.js is at fault -- but I couldn't get ti to work.

I would be willing to put the TB BETA software on as a last resort. How do I do that. How long until a new release fixes this problem? I like TB but this has jaded me a bit.

Personally, at this point in time and for approximately 15 seconds or so, I would not go to the BETA  on this for your primary email client.
Even the download page warns against using it except for Developers and Testers.
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=444889&sid=065acb600343dc7817dccd57e2dcd1fa
But according to the Release Notes for 2.0 Alpha 1, the bug is fixed.
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/rumblingedge/archives/2006/05/2-0alpha1.html#addressbook
But again, I see the warning.  Please note: Anyone other than developers and testers should not download the Thunderbird 2 Alpha milestone release. It is intended for testing purposes only.

And again, if this were my setup, I would first use the Thunderbird Profile Manager to create a new empty Profile(naming it so I would recognize it as the new beta).  Leave my existing Thunderbird installed to where it is, download the 2.0 Alpha and install it to a NEW Directory, NOT the default one (which might overwrite your old version of 1.5.0.7, this is not what we want).  I would then Start the TB Alpha with the profile manager and selecting the New Beta profile, I would see how it looks before setting anything up.  Then you have to manually set up all your accounts as they were before, and then copy your mail, address books, filters, and other mail-related files from the old profile to the new one  as described here. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Combining_two_profiles
and http://kb.mozillazine.org/Migrating_settings_to_a_new_profile

Before you decide to do this, please confirm you have a good backup of your files and come back here with any questions.
As far as a released Stable version or update to 1.5.0.7, I can't say.  http://wiki.mozilla.org/WeeklyUpdates/2006-10-30#TB_2.0

Curious, though.  Were you able to edit your prefs.js and delete the offending lines or not?

I did edit pref.js and deleted 500 of the offending lines. It did not fix the problem.

Thanks for all your advice here. I appreciate.

HenryWilfred,

We have not heard from you. Did any comment help you solve your problem? Do you need any clarification? If an Expert helped you, please accept his/her answer above with an excellent or good grade.


Marc

I have been unable to resolve this issue. I appreciate all the help. I have uninstalled mozilla completely - used Mozbackup first, then installed a fresh TB - and restored the address book and email. Problem does not go away.

I can't spend any more time on it. I am living with it. If the new release fixes it, good -- if not, I am going back to Outlook.

a new twist to this story. This problem might be more than the address book. When I first load in TB, then go directly to search for a specific message -- I get a similar 12 second delay.  ???

Henry,

If you have not done so, consider installing the latest version of Thunderbird, v1.5.0.8.
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/

If no joy, go back to the earlier version of Thunderbird that is stable for you. (v1.5.0.5?)
http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/releases/1.5.0.5/contrib/solaris_tar_ball/

Henry, have you compacted folders in this account lately or ever?   See http://kb.mozillazine.org/Thunderbird_:_Tips_:_Compacting_Folders for more complete info and instructions but here's the gist of it.

Go to File->Work Offline.  After going offline, go to File->Compact Folders. Give it some time, it may take a while.  When it is complete, restart TB and see how it goes.

Good thought -- but I have compacted the folders.

I bring up TB - do an immediate search (even in a small folder) -- 12 second delay.

I bring up TB - click on Address Book -- 12 second delay.

Henry, did you take my suggestion to back to the version of Thunderbird that worked without delay for you?

war1,

No offense intended but for a 12-15 second delay why would you go backwards with a program?  Most updates to Thunderbird at this time involve security fixes as well as enhancement. Granted, a delay is not an enhancement but I would think I would prefer better security in my email program over speed.

I'm thinking it's more that AVG is scanning something causing the slow down but I haven't been over to the AVG forums to see if there are any similar complaints yet.

mtz1of4,

That is your choice, not the HenryWilfred.  I am not asking Henry to go all the way back to 1.0.x. v1.5.0.5 is only a couple fo security updates behind.  If the 15 second delay bothers him enough to write, it is worth going back to v1.5.0.5. This is a temporary fix until v2.0 comes out.

I am not clear on how to close this out. I have not been able to resolve this issue. I have tried a number of good suggestions. I am waiting for the next version -- if that doesn't fix it, I will go back to Outlook.

Thanks for the help. Sorry I couldn't get it resolved.

Henry,

What were the results of your trying our suggestions?  Did you reinstall Thunderbird?  What happens when you reverted to Thunderbird 1.5?  Or are you not interested anymore in speeding up your access to the Address Book?

If the latter, you can split the points among the experts for effort.  One of the solutions posted would have fixed your problem if you had tried it.

You can post a 0-point note in Community Support board with a link to this page to close this question and get your points back. Community Support board link is at the top right of the page.

I tried every suggestion -- nothing worked
- reinstalled multiple times, used moz backup
- removed extraneous lines from prefs file
- went to a previous version
- completely removed TB then used mozbackup to restore

problem did not go away

FYI, TB 1.5.0.9 just came out yesterday.  I haven't seen anything that would indicate a fix of your issue with it, but it may be worth a shot.