Moving between folders very slow, getting stuck very often

I’m using updated firefox and ubuntu.
Moving between different folders, reading and deleting, moving emails.
Then trying to go back to inbox works fine some times.
Others it goes really slow, like 10 seconds slow.
And what has ended up happening like three times in half an hour is that the whole thing gets totally stuck and just stops working. The screen stops showing any of the emails in the list and just doesn’t go to any folder I click.
I tried re-syncing the index and it has been working on it for like two minutes now.

Again, I’m pretty surprised anyone can use this at all at this state, it takes a few minutes to break it without trying.

Best,
Carlos

Hi @carlos – let me ask you a few questions to see if we can get to the bottom of this:

  • Do you have a large amount of mesages in your account?
  • Are you seeing any excessive CPU usage when this happens?
  • Are you seeing any errors in the Web Console in your browser?
  • Is there any network latency or other network issues?

Thanks,

– Geir

Hi,

Thanks for looking into the issue:

  • I have been using runbox for a while and I imported all my gmail messages. Not sure how many messages I have there but it is about 7GB of data
  • There are some processes called “Web Content” that take quite a lot of CPU, not running any other web app that should take much CPU. (not that I think a mail client should use much CPU to be honest)
  • The web console keeps going over and over about adding stuff to the index, it does it once, but it keeps doing it until it gets stuck… I’ll add some screenshots.
  • network latency and internet connection are working great. Runbox 6 and office365 (which I have to use for work) go really fast.

The console just keeps printing these:

Again:

And again :slight_smile:

Another thing that happens all the time is the emails in my inbox (and in other directories) keep multiplying and then been deleted or moving.

So mails that I have deleted or moved to other directories keep periodically being added to my inbox all at once. Then, they start disappearing slowly as the app keeps synching, but annoyingly slow. This process keeps repeating. Not only for the inbox but other folders as well.

Interestingly the number of emails that the folder contains, that you can see on the left part, is always right. In the case of the screenshots I included the inbox contained 13 emails. Runbox 6 and the left folder tree in runbox 7 both show those 13. However the list of emails in runbox 7 shows thousands of them. They will disappear slowly, and then reappear later all at once for no reason…

Runbox 7 Inbox:

Runbox 6 Inbox:

Another folder with 37 emails in it doing the same thing, showing hundreds of them that I deleted already:

One thing I was thinking about…
Where do you save all that index info?
Is that something that has to stay somewhere saved between sessions in the browser?

Because in my firefox is configured to delete everything that there is in my browser (history, cookies, etc…) when I exit to reduce chances of being tracked, and I use firefox’s temporary containers for the same reason.

However as stated runbox 6 and more feature loaded webmail apps like office365 and gmail work totally fine with this configuration. So if this is a problem for runbox 7 I would really prefer if you leave the option to access the legacy version for people like me that don’t like anyone to leave stuff in our browsers…
Additionally the whole idea of having a webmail client is so you can access your mail quickly from anywhere. I achieve that with any other webmail… is the idea that runbox 7 will take a long time to synchronize the first time you use it in a new computer?
Wouldn’t that be a step back?

Best,
Carlos

Thanks for those details and screenshots @carlos – we’ll have a developer look into this issue as we have intermittently been seeing similar symptoms.

The idea behind the Runbox 7 app is that storing the search index locally makes listing and searching instantaneous without any request being made to the server.

This can be demonstrated by starting to type into the search field (with a local synchronized index), and matching messages will be filtered immediately. It even works while your device is offline, and any cached messages can be opened then as well.

These data are stored in the browser’s local storage and can be removed either by clicking “Stop synchronization” in the bottom left corner of the app, or by deleting the browser’s offline data (available e.g. via Firefox’ History > Clear Recent History…).

More information about Runbox 7 and how data is stored can be found here:

https://help.runbox.com/runbox-7-webmail-new-features

– Geir

Just to be clear regarding the “first time synchronizing”. The first time you synchronize the serverside index will be downloaded. So it’s not like your webmail client has to download every message and add it to the search index. Only new messages and changes to folders, deleted messages and flag status will be synchronized later. If you have a lot of changes since last time you used the webmail client, you can delete the local search index and download a fresh from the server.

And you also always have the option to not use a local search index at all (and use the server for searching). This is the best if using a guest computer (where you also should use private browsing).

1 Like

That is really cool, not using the index solves all my troubles.
However, if I close the browser and start it again, runbox 7 forgets that I don’t want to use the browser.
As I said before my browser (firefox) deletes everything locally every time I close it.
Could you please add a way to configure runbox 7 server side to activate or deactivate the index?
That would be really cool and maybe that way I could start to actually use it.
Thanks!
Carlos

So you mean that the selection of not using the browser-index should be saved on the server, so that it does not prompt you everytime? The prompt the very first time you enter Runbox7 is about if you want to download the search index or not. is it this prompt you want to avoid, and rather have the default setting not to download the search-index locally?

Yes, exactly!
It would be great to be able to configure that.

Right now I’m getting asked that every time I start using the email, I think because my firefox deletes all it’s local storage (history, cookies, etc…) every time I close it.

It’s great to know that you can avoid synchronizing the device by clicking on the x there though, I didn’t realize that until now, and it 's much better than waiting until the index is synchronized and then stopping it.