#313 High cpu-load and low response on of thunderbird when receiving, marking or replying to multi-encrypted emails

[FranzHeinz]

I am currently experiencing a problem with incomming emails encrypted with more than one key (the mails are encrypted with all the public keys of the recipients of a mailinglist via "Per-Recipient Rule"). One thing that could be interesting is that I am Owner of more than one private Key (because I am on the list with more than one email-adress).

Now since I updated to thunderbird 31 and enigmail 1.7 (on Ubuntu 12.04) every time I get a email from that mailinglist thunderbird goes to a cpu-load of nearly 100% and slows down the whole thunderbird for at up to some minutes without the possibility to interact with the program (Ubuntu greys the window and tells that it's not responding). When it responds again, it usualy doesn't take long and the whole thing slows down as descripted again. Alltogether it seems that the functionality isn't totaly corrupted - it 'just' takes a very long time (about an hour and more) to reply to emails like this.
The only possibility not to get into a repetition of this behavior is trying to evitate marking and/or opening the regarding emails. Every time a email comes in, the whole thing begins again - even not opening the mail (maybe because of the email-notification?).

I know from two other users of the mailinglist, that they are experiencing the same problem since updating thunderbird/enigmail. Of one of them I know, that the OS is Ubuntu 14.04.

One thing we (me and the user of Ubuntu 14.04) have in common is the following outputs in the "error console" of thunderbird. I don't know exactly if it has to do with it, but I post it here. Since we both use german versions of Thunderbird I don't translate the field names in order not to change anything.

Zeitstempel: 23.08.2014 00:02:44
Warnung: mutating the [[Prototype]] of an object will cause your code to run very slowly; instead create the object with the correct initial [[Prototype]] value using Object.create
Quelldatei: resource://gre/components/steelApplication.js
Zeile: 783

Zeitstempel: 23.08.2014 00:02:43
Warnung: mutating the [[Prototype]] of an object will cause your code to run very slowly; instead create the object with the correct initial [[Prototype]] value using Object.create
Quelldatei: resource://gre/modules/Preferences.jsm
Zeile: 378

Could not read chrome manifest 'file:///media/truecrypt64/ThunderbirdPortable/thunderbird/extensions/%7B972ce4c6-7e08-4474-a285-3208198ce6fd%7D/chrome.manifest'.

Since everything went fine before updating and the problem exists only with encrypted emails as described, I am pretty confident that the bug is referred to enigmail.

[Olav Seyfarth]

Could not read chrome manifest 'file:///media/truecrypt64/ThunderbirdPortable/thunderbird/extensions/%7B972ce4c6-7e08-4474-a285-3208198ce6fd%7D/chrome.manifest'.

There's something wrong with your setup if a registered manifest cannot be accessed.
Also, I doubt that Enigmail has anything to do with

resource://gre/components/steelApplication.js

Please set up a new Thunderbird profile and do a basic setup (including the mail addresses you need for that mailing list), install Enigmail and create the Rule manually. Please state if you still encounter the issue there.

[FranzHeinz]

Please set up a new Thunderbird profile and do a basic setup (including the mail addresses you need for that mailing list), install Enigmail and create the rule manually. Please state if you still encounter the issue there.

I set up a whole new Thunderbird with only enigmail and the Rule for the list.

I got the same problems again, ss soon as I receive my test-mail. Even using only one of the eMail-Adresses I use on the List doesn't make it go away.

The GnuPG used is the one installed on the System (Ubuntu 12.04) I use and so didn't change. But since it worked properly before updating Thunderbird/Enigmail I don't belevie the error is to find here.

[Olav Seyfarth]

Please check if this relates to bug 299 and if the information provided there is helpful to a solution ini your case.

If not (but that may be a good idea anyway), please temporarily uninstall 1.7 instead install the latest nightly through TB's AddOn manager. Get it from https://www.enigmail.net/download/nightly.php

If that also doesn't change it: To be able to look into it, we need detailled system info. Please use that minimal installation, enable debugging and restart TB, reproduce the issue once, shutdown TB. add the offending email, the output of gpg --list-keys, your pgprules.xml and prefs.js to the debug folder, DELETE/REPLACE all information you don't want to share from the files, zip it and send it to olav at enigmail dot net.

[FranzHeinz]

Hello,

I will try to reproduce the problem on a completely fresh Ubuntu with new eMail-Adresses, Keys and a dedicated Mailinglist.
First advantage would be avoiding to annoy the other affected list-users much more (got an eMail, that one of them spend 3 hours waitig to be able to delete 3 eMails I sent to do some testing on the issue).
Second benefit would be that I could give you the whole configuration without any personal data in the way.

Only, that I'm a bit busy this days, so that I will have to see, if I can get to do so in the next two days.

[Ludwig Hügelschäfer]

Did you have time to investigate further? How many keys are in your public keyring? How many keys are in your secret keyring?

[FranzHeinz]

Hello,

the Mailinglist-Provider doesn't seem to be very cooperative and so I didn't get a Mailinglist for testing, yet.

In the meantime one of the other affected users got me to know, that updating to verion 1.7.2 solved the problem on his system. So today I updated and tried to reproduce the problems - without success. The problems aren't there using Enigmail 1.7.2 (not with Thunderbird 31.0 neither with Thunderbird 31.1.0).

So at this moment it seems that the problem is actually solved.

In concludance I suggest to close this bug until there isn't anyone comming up with the same problems under the new version of Enigmail.

[Patrick Brunschwig]

The URL file:///media/truecrypt64/ThunderbirdPortable/thunderbird/extensions/%7B972ce4c6-7e08-4474-a285-3208198ce6fd%7D/chrome.manifest

is not related to Enigmail; that's a different extension.

resource://gre/components/steelApplication.js

is an API that Enigmail does not use

resource://gre/modules/Preferences.jsm

is the default Thunderbird module for preferences - Enigmail does not use it.