On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 04:36:25PM -0800 Morris, Patrick wrote:
> On Wed, 11 Nov 2009, Robert Holtzman wrote:
>
> > On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 01:09:38PM -0800, Gary Johnson wrote:
> > > On 2009-11-10, Robert Holtzman <hol...@cox.net> wrote:
> > > > Mutt seems to change behavior from day to day. Yesterday it flew.
> > > > Today it hesitates after *every* key stroke, whether it's navigating
> > > > between mailboxes or within a mailbox, tagging a message, saving,
> > > > replying, you name it. The hesitation lasts for 3-5 seconds. It appears
> > > > to be reading headers but I'm not sure. I'm also not sure why it should
> > > > be reading headers when I try to tag, save, or reply. It even does it
> > > > when I hit "?" to call up a menu. Since I subscribe to a bunch of
> > > > lists,
> > > > some of them high volume, it would take all day to go thru them with
> > > > the
> > > > constant hesitations.
> > > >
> > > > I'm running 1.5.17+20080114-1ubuntu1 on ubuntu 8.04. I also have debian
> > > > on this box but haven't yet had a chance to check mutt on that.
> > > >
> > > > Any pointers appreciated.
> > >
> > > FWIW, I've never seen mutt hesitate after _every_ keystroke, but
> > > sometimes mine hesitates when performing operations that update the
> > > index display, as when scrolling. I discovered that this happened
> > > whenever I had one or more huge messages (on the order of a
> > > megabyte) displayed in the index.
> > >
> > > My mailbox in that case is my Unix NFS-mounted $MAIL file.
> >
> > I didn't have any messages anywhere near that long. A couple of Mb at
> > most.
> >
> > Want to hear the maddening part? When I fired up mutt later in the day
> > the problem was gone (until the next time).
>
> Mutt checks for mailbox changes frequently, which is why new mail can
> show up while you're doing things like scrolling around through a
> mailbox. If you're using a remote mailbox and the network connection's
> being flaky, or it's local and your hard drive is having fits, things
> can get pretty choppy.
Are you certain the performance problem is with Mutt?
There could be other processes using up memory or network services; when
those processes are running, Mutt is slow... when they're not, the
problem is gone (until the next time).
E.G. if I have a bunch of cron jobs scheduled for 2:00 PM, then using
anything else at that time may seem slow (which is why cron generally
defaults to doing things at times like 2:00 AM instead). I'm not saying
cron is your specific problem, but it conveys my idea.
--
"Le hasard favorise l'esprit préparé."
--Louis Pasteur
