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Fetching POP3 mail pauses the editor for a second (microfreeze)

[quote user="Brian Fluet"]Perhaps the "Check no more frequently than once every X minutes" setting then controls the frequency?[/quote]

Well, for me it's all pretty easy: Firstly, I don't really care whether I'm getting messages sooner or later since I prefer to not be interrupted when working on my machine. Secondly, if I feel the need to do an immediate check I manually trigger it, so keeping idle checks limited to 900 seconds = 15 minutes is my setting, especially since I once had a free account limited to this frequency anyway.

<p>[quote user="Brian Fluet"]Perhaps the "Check no more frequently than once every X minutes" setting then controls the frequency?[/quote]</p><p>Well, for me it's all pretty easy: Firstly, I don't really care whether I'm getting messages sooner or later since I prefer to not be interrupted when working on my machine. Secondly, if I feel the need to do an immediate check I manually trigger it, so keeping idle checks limited to 900 seconds = 15 minutes is my setting, especially since I once had a free account limited to this frequency anyway. </p>
			Michael
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I recently migrated from my venerable old laptop to a new Windows 10 machine.  I also updated to Pegasus 4.73 (build 639).  You don't want to know how old the previous version I was using was.

Some observations:

    [*]migration by directory copying the /Pmail/MAIL folder worked fine for me, 30GB of mail (23179 sent items, 5040 items in New Mail, 280 mail folders, all present on the new machine) - note that on the old machine the mail folder was /Pmail/MAIL/ADMIN (maybe that was a multi-user setup?), on the new machine I copied the contents of /Pmail/MAIL/ADMIN to /Pmail/MAIL and it seems to work fine

    [*]this brought a huge grin, I was dancing around the room, it is awesome that the same software works by a simple directory copy and hasn't changed the .CNM data structure in all these years, meaning I have my full email history intact (I've been using Pegasus since 1997) - top quality software. Well done David Harris!

    [*]an issued noticed in the latest version is that while Pegasus does a POP3 check, my typing in the new message editor is paused for approximately 1 second - it is briefly frozen.  The on screen editor then 'catches up' with what I was typing while it was paused, but it's annoying and disconcerting, it's not smooth to edit messages.  Old Pegasus didn't do this.  This feels like the POP3 check is maybe not running in a separate thread?

    [*]I am also wondering if these pauses are an artifact because of me changing folders see point 1 above, or something caused by Windows 10?  My Windows 10 installation is pretty clean, bloat eliminated and everything other application on this PC works smoothly without pauses.

 

Grateful for any help - it would be helpful just to know if other users are experiencing these pauses or micro-freezes, or if it's only me? 

<p>I recently migrated from my venerable old laptop to a new Windows 10 machine.  I also updated to Pegasus 4.73 (build 639).  You don't want to know how old the previous version I was using was.</p> <p>Some observations:</p> <p>[list=1][*]migration by directory copying the /Pmail/MAIL folder worked fine for me, 30GB of mail (23179 sent items, 5040 items in New Mail, 280 mail folders, all present on the new machine) - note that on the old machine the mail folder was /Pmail/MAIL/ADMIN (maybe that was a multi-user setup?), on the new machine I copied the contents of /Pmail/MAIL/ADMIN to /Pmail/MAIL and it seems to work fine</p> <p>[*]this brought a huge grin, I was dancing around the room, it is awesome that the same software works by a simple directory copy and hasn't changed the .CNM data structure in all these years, meaning I have my full email history intact (I've been using Pegasus since 1997) - top quality software. [b]Well done David Harris![/b]</p> <p>[*]an issued noticed in the latest version is that while Pegasus does a POP3 check, my typing in the new message editor is paused for approximately 1 second - it is briefly frozen.  The on screen editor then 'catches up' with what I was typing while it was paused, but it's annoying and disconcerting, it's not smooth to edit messages.  Old Pegasus didn't do this.  This feels like the POP3 check is maybe not running in a separate thread?</p> <p>[*]I am also wondering if these pauses are an artifact because of me changing folders see point 1 above, or something caused by Windows 10?  My Windows 10 installation is pretty clean, bloat eliminated and everything other application on this PC works smoothly without pauses.[/list]</p> <p> </p> <p>Grateful for any help - it would be helpful just to know if other users are experiencing these pauses or micro-freezes, or if it's only me? </p>

[quote user="archimedes1"][*]migration by directory copying the /Pmail/MAIL folder worked fine for me, 30GB of mail (23179 sent items, 5040 items in New Mail, 280 mail folders, all present on the new machine) - note that on the old machine the mail folder was /Pmail/MAIL/ADMIN (maybe that was a multi-user setup?), on the new machine I copied the contents of /Pmail/MAIL/ADMIN to /Pmail/MAIL and it seems to work fine[/quote]

Normally a copy of /Pmail/MAIL/ADMIN to /Pmail/MAIL/ADMIN is the only way it should work without some path issues so I'm curious exactly what your procedure was.  Did you do a clean, single user install before doing the copy? 

[quote user="archimedes1"][*]an issued noticed in the latest version is that while Pegasus does a POP3 check, my typing in the new message editor is paused for approximately 1 second - it is briefly frozen.  The on screen editor then 'catches up' with what I was typing while it was paused, but it's annoying and disconcerting, it's not smooth to edit messages.  Old Pegasus didn't do this.  This feels like the POP3 check is maybe not running in a separate thread?[/quote]

That is exactly what is happening.  It is a known issue that affects some users much more than others.  There isn't a solution.  Reducing the frequency of checking for new mail has helped reduce the annoyance frequency for me.

[quote user="archimedes1"][*]migration by directory copying the /Pmail/MAIL folder worked fine for me, 30GB of mail (23179 sent items, 5040 items in New Mail, 280 mail folders, all present on the new machine) - note that on the old machine the mail folder was /Pmail/MAIL/ADMIN (maybe that was a multi-user setup?), on the new machine I copied the contents of /Pmail/MAIL/ADMIN to /Pmail/MAIL and it seems to work fine[/quote]<p>Normally a copy of /Pmail/MAIL/ADMIN to /Pmail/MAIL/ADMIN is the only way it should work without some path issues so I'm curious exactly what your procedure was.  Did you do a clean, single user install before doing the copy?  </p> <p>[quote user="archimedes1"][*]an issued noticed in the latest version is that while Pegasus does a POP3 check, my typing in the new message editor is paused for approximately 1 second - it is briefly frozen.  The on screen editor then 'catches up' with what I was typing while it was paused, but it's annoying and disconcerting, it's not smooth to edit messages.  Old Pegasus didn't do this.  This feels like the POP3 check is maybe not running in a separate thread?[/quote]</p><p>That is exactly what is happening.  It is a known issue that affects some users much more than others.  There isn't a solution.  Reducing the frequency of checking for new mail has helped reduce the annoyance frequency for me. </p>

Hi Brian, thank you for your quick response. A nice welcome to the forum, as a long time fan of Pmail but new to the forums. 

[quote]Did you do a clean, single user install before doing the copy? [/quote]

Yes.  After that, I closed Pegasus and cleared the \Pmail\MAIL folder it had created, so that it is an empty MAIL folder.  Then I copied all the contents of \Pmail\MAIL\ADMIN from the old PC, to the destination \Pmail\MAIL on the new PC.  I created no ADMIN folder on the new PC.  The process has worked fine, I have all my mail fully accessible on the new PC.  All message metadata also looks to be correct, e.g. unread emails in the New Mail folder are still unread.  It even remembered the same on-screen layout (I guess that is held in STATE.PMJ ?)

Looking at PMAIL.INI on the new PC it includes these lines:

Internal username                = Single-user mode
Working home mailbox location    = C:\PMAIL\MAIL
New mailbox location             = C:\PMAIL\MAIL

The equivalent lines on the old PC show:
 
Internal username                = Admin
Working home mailbox location    = C:\PMAIL\MAIL\Admin
New mailbox location             = C:\PMAIL\MAIL\Admin

I did not edit PMAIL.INI.  So it looks like Pegasus Mail edited those mailbox locations itself. It must have done this when I next ran Pegasus on the new PC - I guess it tries to ensure that PMAIL.INI in the mailbox matches \Pmail\Programs\PMAIL.CFG?  Certainly I did copy the old PC's PMAIL.INI across as part of this process, because it has all my POP3 and SMTP settings and username and other preferences, I did not set those manually on the new PC.  Sending and receiving messages is working fine on the new PC.

 
I don't really see why copying the \MAIL\ADMIN folder into \MAIL wouldn't work ... it looks like the only place where the folder locations are specified is in PMAIL.INI as quoted above.  Everything else in the mail folder - all the CNM and PMM files - are fully portable.
 
I posted here the full procedure I followed.  If you think my approach should not have worked and might mislead other users, I should maybe add some caveats?  But I confim 100% that the above worked for me.   If anyone else is trying this, I suggest they should check the mailbox locations are correctly set as C:\PMAIL\MAIL (or whatever it should be) in PMAIL.INI on the new PC.  Hopefully it should be as simple as that.
<p>Hi Brian, thank you for your quick response. A nice welcome to the forum, as a long time fan of Pmail but new to the forums.  [quote]Did you do a clean, single user install before doing the copy? [/quote]</p><div><div><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Yes.  After that, I closed Pegasus and cleared the \Pmail\MAIL folder it had created, so that it is an empty MAIL folder.  Then I copied all the contents of \Pmail\MAIL\ADMIN from the old PC, to the destination \Pmail\MAIL on the new PC.  I created no ADMIN folder on the new PC.  The process has worked fine, I have all my mail fully accessible on the new PC.  All message metadata also looks to be correct, e.g. unread emails in the New Mail folder are still unread.  It even remembered the same on-screen layout (I guess that is held in STATE.PMJ ?)</span></div><div><p>Looking at PMAIL.INI on the new PC it includes these lines: </p> <div>Internal username                = Single-user mode</div><div><span style="font-size: 13.3333px;">Working home mailbox location    = C:\PMAIL\MAIL</span></div><div><span style="font-size: 13.3333px;">New mailbox location             = C:\PMAIL\MAIL</span></div><div><span style="font-size: 13.3333px;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-size: 13.3333px;"></span></div><div>The equivalent lines on the old PC show:</div><div> </div><div>Internal username                = Admin</div><div><span style="font-size: 13.3333px;">Working home mailbox location    = C:\PMAIL\MAIL\Admin</span></div><div><span style="font-size: 13.3333px;">New mailbox location             = C:\PMAIL\MAIL\Admin</span></div><div> </div></div><div> I did not edit PMAIL.INI.  So it [b]looks like Pegasus Mail edited those mailbox locations itself[/b]. It must have done this when I next ran Pegasus on the new PC - I guess it tries to ensure that PMAIL.INI in the mailbox matches \Pmail\Programs\PMAIL.CFG?  Certainly I did copy the old PC's PMAIL.INI across as part of this process, because it has all my POP3 and SMTP settings and username and other preferences, I did not set those manually on the new PC.  Sending and receiving messages is working fine on the new PC.</div><div> </div><div>I don't really see why copying the \MAIL\ADMIN folder into \MAIL wouldn't work ... it looks like the only place where the folder locations are specified is in PMAIL.INI as quoted above.  Everything else in the mail folder - all the CNM and PMM files - are fully portable.</div><div><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></div><div>I posted [url=http://community.pmail.com/forums/2/51814/ShowThread.aspx#51814]here[/url] <span style="font-size: 10pt;">the full procedure I followed. </span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> If you think my approach should not have worked and might mislead other users, I should maybe add some caveats?  But I confim 100% that the above worked for me.   If anyone else is trying this, I suggest they should check the mailbox locations are correctly set as C:\PMAIL\MAIL (or whatever it should be) in PMAIL.INI on the new PC.  Hopefully it should be as simple as that.</span></div></div>

[quote user="Brian Fluet"][quote user="archimedes1"][*]an issued noticed in the latest version is that while Pegasus does a POP3 check, my typing in the new message editor is paused for approximately 1 second - it is briefly frozen.  The on screen editor then 'catches up' with what I was typing while it was paused, but it's annoying and disconcerting, it's not smooth to edit messages.  Old Pegasus didn't do this.  This feels like the POP3 check is maybe not running in a separate thread?[/quote]

That is exactly what is happening.  It is a known issue that affects some users much more than others.  There isn't a solution.  Reducing the frequency of checking for new mail has helped reduce the annoyance frequency for me.

[/quote]Thank you for confirming. I guess the severity of the issue depends on how quickly the remote POP3 server responds, and Windows 10 may add its own special delays which I was not experiencing on my old PC.  (My old PC ran Windows XP SP3, a.k.a. the last good operating system from Microsoft.)
[quote user="Brian Fluet"]<span style="font-size: 10pt;">[quote user="archimedes1"][*]an issued noticed in the latest version is that while Pegasus does a POP3 check, my typing in the new message editor is paused for approximately 1 second - it is briefly frozen.  The on screen editor then 'catches up' with what I was typing while it was paused, but it's annoying and disconcerting, it's not smooth to edit messages.  Old Pegasus didn't do this.  This feels like the POP3 check is maybe not running in a separate thread?[/quote]</span><p>That is exactly what is happening.  It is a known issue that affects some users much more than others.  There isn't a solution.  Reducing the frequency of checking for new mail has helped reduce the annoyance frequency for me. </p>[/quote]Thank you for confirming. I guess the severity of the issue depends on how quickly the remote POP3 server responds, and Windows 10 may add its own special delays which I was not experiencing on my old PC.  (My old PC ran Windows XP SP3, a.k.a. the last good operating system from Microsoft.)

It is a relatively recent observation (for me anyway) that a single user installation sets \MAIL as the new mail directory instead of a subdirectory of \MAIL, like \MAIL\ADMIN.  The fact that you can copy the contents of \MAIL\ADMIN to \MAIL like you did is good to know. 

I prefer copying data and select configuration files so as not to bring over any obsolete files from previous versions but I think they are harmless and your approach sure is easier.

Thanks for sharing the details.

<p>It is a relatively recent observation (for me anyway) that a single user installation sets \MAIL as the new mail directory instead of a subdirectory of \MAIL, like \MAIL\ADMIN.  The fact that you can copy the contents of \MAIL\ADMIN to \MAIL like you did is good to know.  </p><p>I prefer copying data and select configuration files so as not to bring over any obsolete files from previous versions but I think they are harmless and your approach sure is easier.</p><p>Thanks for sharing the details. </p>

Well, I'm only doing idle checks ever since I'm using Pegasus Mail, and I really hate applications and websites trying to distract me from what I'm doing all the time so I never encountered any such delays at all [:)]

<p>Well, I'm only doing idle checks ever since I'm using Pegasus Mail, and I really hate applications and websites trying to distract me from what I'm doing all the time so I never encountered any such delays at all [:)] </p>
			Michael
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IERenderer's Homepage
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[quote user="idw"]Well, I'm only doing idle checks ever since I'm using Pegasus Mail, and I really hate applications and websites trying to distract me from what I'm doing all the time so I never encountered any such delays at all [:)][/quote]

You're lucky Michael.  It seems that those most well equipped to troubleshoot the problem aren't experiencing it but you can tell from the posts that it can be interrupting and annoying to those of us who do.  I have experienced it on three different machines, local Pmail installations on each, noticeably worse on a slow PC, Win7 or Win10 didn't make a difference.

<p>[quote user="idw"]Well, I'm only doing idle checks ever since I'm using Pegasus Mail, and I really hate applications and websites trying to distract me from what I'm doing all the time so I never encountered any such delays at all [:)][/quote]</p><p>You're lucky Michael.  It seems that those most well equipped to troubleshoot the problem aren't experiencing it but you can tell from the posts that it can be interrupting and annoying to those of us who do.  I have experienced it on three different machines, local Pmail installations on each, noticeably worse on a slow PC, Win7 or Win10 didn't make a difference. </p>

Thanks to Michael's suggestion I switched to idle checks, and have not experienced the microfreezes since then.

Later I'll also try some tests to see if I can isolate this some more.

 

PS  How are you guys dealing with formatting issues when posting on this forum?  Seems like every post I write, the editor adds unwanted HTML codes including font-size changes.   I know BBCode and haven't experienced this on other phpBB forums.

<p>Thanks to Michael's suggestion I switched to idle checks, and have not experienced the microfreezes since then.</p><p><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Later I'll also try some tests to see if I can isolate this some more.</span></p><p> </p><p>PS  How are you guys dealing with formatting issues when posting on this forum?  Seems like every post I write, the editor adds unwanted HTML codes including font-size changes.   I know BBCode and haven't experienced this on other phpBB forums.</p>

Ooops!  I missed the "idle checks" relevance in Michaels' post.  Sorry for the inappropriate post.

Now I need to check my problem installations.

<p>Ooops!  I missed the "idle checks" relevance in Michaels' post.  Sorry for the inappropriate post.</p><p>Now I need to check my problem installations. </p>

[quote user="Brian Fluet"]Now I need to check my problem installations.[/quote]

Hope it helps, Brian [;)]

<p>[quote user="Brian Fluet"]Now I need to check my problem installations.[/quote]</p><p>Hope it helps, Brian [;)] </p>
			Michael
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IERenderer's Homepage
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[quote user="archimedes1"]PS  How are you guys dealing with formatting issues when posting on this forum?  Seems like every post I write, the editor adds unwanted HTML codes including font-size changes.   I know BBCode and haven't experienced this on other phpBB forums.[/quote]

What browser do you use? I'm not experiencing any issues and usually don't need to care using Firefox ...

<p>[quote user="archimedes1"]PS  How are you guys dealing with formatting issues when posting on this forum?  Seems like every post I write, the editor adds unwanted HTML codes including font-size changes.   I know BBCode and haven't experienced this on other phpBB forums.[/quote]</p><p>What browser do you use? I'm not experiencing any issues and usually don't need to care using Firefox ... </p>
			Michael
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IERenderer's Homepage
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[quote user="idw"]

[quote user="Brian Fluet"]Now I need to check my problem installations.[/quote]

Hope it helps, Brian [;)]

[/quote]

After looking at this I remember not fully understanding how it would work and never pursued it.  It seems to me that its usage would be to set a relatively short time period (say 60 seconds) when "Idle" is enabled so that a check is done shortly after going into idle state but does that mean that checks are done every 60 seconds when PMail is idle? 

Perhaps the "Check no more frequently than once every X minutes" setting then controls the frequency?

[quote user="idw"]<p>[quote user="Brian Fluet"]Now I need to check my problem installations.[/quote]</p><p>Hope it helps, Brian [;)] </p><p>[/quote]</p><p>After looking at this I remember not fully understanding how it would work and never pursued it.  It seems to me that its usage would be to set a relatively short time period (say 60 seconds) when "Idle" is enabled so that a check is done shortly after going into idle state but does that mean that checks are done every 60 seconds when PMail is idle?  </p><p>Perhaps the "Check no more frequently than once every X minutes" setting then controls the frequency? </p>

[quote user="archimedes1"]PS  How are you guys dealing with formatting issues when posting on this forum?  Seems like every post I write, the editor adds unwanted HTML codes including font-size changes.   I know BBCode and haven't experienced this on other phpBB forums.[/quote]

I had to give up on using Vivaldi.  A remember the problem being specific to trying to include a quote from another message in a post. 

It's Firefox only for me now.

<p>[quote user="archimedes1"]PS  How are you guys dealing with formatting issues when posting on this forum?  Seems like every post I write, the editor adds unwanted HTML codes including font-size changes.   I know BBCode and haven't experienced this on other phpBB forums.[/quote]</p><p>I had to give up on using Vivaldi.  A remember the problem being specific to trying to include a quote from another message in a post.  </p><p>It's Firefox only for me now. </p>
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