User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/79.0.3945.117 Safari/537.36

Steps to reproduce:

If Thunderbird is started, it takes a while before Thunderbird is completely started and the emails are retrieved. Interaction with Thunderbird is no longer possible during this time. It's like Thunderbird is completely freezing for a short time. This means that my Screen Reader (JAWS) will restart because JAWS thinks that the Screen Reader is no longer responding.

Since this problem bothers me a lot, I wanted to run Thunderbird at least in the background. However, that doesn't really help me either. If a new email arrives and I switch to Thunderbird with ALT + TAB, the window is not properly focused for a few seconds. After about 15 to 30 seconds I can interact with Thunderbird again, which means that I can navigate in the message list as usual and open emails.

When an email arrives, Thunderbird sends a system-wide notification that a new email has arrived. This message is announced by JAWS. These Thunderbird system notifications were mostly read twice. Since the latest beta, Thunderbird only responds after the second notification has been announced after a few seconds.

I am aware that Thunderbird can react more slowly to a lot of emails. For this reason, I have switched off the local synchronization of the emails.

I am not a programmer, but I have the feeling that it is due to event handling and or hyperthreading.

It also appears to only occur when assestive technologies such as screen readers are used.

Expected results:

Thunderbird should start quick as before and let me interact when E-Mails arrives.

it takes a while before Thunderbird is completely started and the emails are retrieved

Numbers would be helpful

If a new email arrives and I switch to Thunderbird with ALT + TAB, the window is not properly focused for a few seconds. After about 15 to 30 seconds I can interact with Thunderbird

And you didn't see this when using version 68? Or have you always been using beta?

I have switched off the local synchronization of the emails.

Do you still see this issue when using beta 74 ?

it takes a while before Thunderbird is completely started and the emails are retrieved

Numbers would be helpful

Round about 10000 E-Mails. It takes like 20 Seconds.

If a new email arrives and I switch to Thunderbird with ALT + TAB, the window is not properly focused for a few seconds. After about 15 to 30 seconds I can interact with Thunderbird

And you didn't see this when using version 68? Or have you always been using beta?

I'm only using the beta. But on my work PC, I've using the 68.x version. I didn't see this before 68.5.

I have switched off the local synchronization of the emails.

Do you still see this issue when using beta 74 ?

Yes.

I do recall that assistive technologies can slow things down.

Norman do you also see this slowness on startup using Thunderbird 68 or newer?

I haven't seen it this bad on windows with nvda but i have seen it on linux with orca if you have large folders.
I've never tried to pin it down but it would have been before v68.
I don't use jaws on a daily basis so can't comment until i get it installed again.

I am one of those who have a very large mailbox, albeit by Imap. Currently there are about 20431 e-mails in my inbox.

As I have already described in my remarks, it is not only that Thunderbird seems to be frozen when starting, but also every time new e-mails arrive. Only after a while I can switch to Thunderbird.

I would like to make my profile available, but there are also confidential data. So we have to find a way to reproduce it or create some kind of log files.

Ali, is it your opinion that this new report is different from your bug 1561838, where you wrote the problem started in 67 Beta and version 60 was unaffected?

Yes, I think that this bug is something different than what I originally reported. I disabled the synchronization of the IMAP directories, but Thunderbird still launches very, very slowly. Strangely enough, this is only the case with GMX starting with 70 Beta1. Currently I have about 30,241 emails in my inbox, but they are not synchronized offline.

I can also provide my entire profile to a trusted person. I'm afraid there is no other way.

A couple of thoughts here.
In bug 1561838 you mentioned you use NVDA as well. Is this also a problem with NVDA? or just with jaws?
There was also some mention made about this happening on multiple computers. Is this the case?
I can't reproduce this bug here with NVDA, and i don't have jaws installed to test.
My largest folder has around 27,000 messages in it.
With that having been said, i'm sure orca on linux would choak on this folder, i wonder if jaws and orca are doing something similar in the way they read message lists?
I'll have to see if i can get one of the orca devs to chime in on this.

As far as I can see here, the same thing is happening with NVDA.

When I start Thunderbird, I can't focus Thunderbird at first. Windows means that the window does not react. The title is always Start Page - Thunderbird (No Response), although I have not set up a Start Page. After a while the window is finally focusable and the display of the start page disappears. Only then the mails are really retrieved.

Just a reminder: the synchronization of the e-mails is disabled, so the e-mails are not available offline. Since then Thunderbird is also very fast in the navigation of the message list.

I can't reproduce this behavior with NVDA.
You didn't answer my question about if this happens on multiple machines or not, Does it?
I wonder if it has something to do with antivirus apps? Could you disable/remove any antivirus apps aside from windows defender, restart the computer, and see if the issue is still happening?

Unfortunately I do not have the possibility to test the same configuration with another computer. The fact is that I don't seem to have the problem on another computer, but there aren't that many emails there either and it's a different email provider.

I have now cleared the cache of Thunderbird. Now it seems that I no longer have the problem with the non-responsive windows. However, Thunderbird needs about 15 seconds until it opens the Thunderbird window.

Turning off Windows Defender didn't help either.

Please described your computer hardware

This problem occurs on all my computers, regardless of the hardware and software I have installed. It even does not matter which screen reader is used. I can reproduce the problem with both JAWS and NVDA (the latest versions).

Below is a list of my major hardware components from my home computer:

• Windows Version: 2004 (Build 19041.329)
• CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3770 CPU @ 3.40GHz 3.40 GHz
• RAM: 16 GB
• Graphic card: NVIDIA GeForce GT 610
• Mainboard: Asus P8B75-M LX
• JAWS Version: 2020.2006.12

I have to hand in the hardware configuration of my work computer, but as I said, I can reproduce it everywhere equally well.

This problem persists with Thunderbird 86.0 Beta3.

Parts of the problem seem to have been fixed. When new emails arrive, I am now notified immediately and Thunderbird no longer freezes.

However, starting Thunderbird can still take up to a minute.

Thunderbird still takes quite a long time to start. I'm talking about a time of about 30 seconds to a minute. However, JAWS no longer crashes in the meantime. However, I can only observe this with inboxes with very many emails.

(In reply to Ali Savas from comment #15)

Thunderbird still takes quite a long time to start. I'm talking about a time of about 30 seconds to a minute. However, JAWS no longer crashes in the meantime. However, I can only observe this with inboxes with very many emails.

Is this any better with 102.x? What Jaws version are you using with TB now?

Unfortunately, nothing has changed for me in this regard. Thunderbird 104.0B2 still takes a long time to start. As it looks, it is also due to GMX, but strangely only with Thunderbird.

I am using JAWS version 2022.2207.25 and the private beta of JAWS 2023, but I am not allowed to say anything about JAWS 2023 because of the NDA.

Is there possibly a way to log the startup process of Thunderbird?

I have completely re-set up Thunderbird with all my email addresses. I no longer have this problem.