Re: recurrence of old problem with inordinate delays fetching mail

Hi Jack!

On 05/25/2021 10:57:31 AM Tue, Jack via balsa-list wrote:
> Hello all,
> =

> I've just returned from a three weeks vacation.=A0 While away, I only use=
d imap for all email access.=A0 I'm now trying to POP3 download all my emai=
l.=A0 All mail servers have gone fine except for gmail.=A0 There are a bit =
over 200 messages, and after somewhere around half of them were downloaded,=
 it started taking over twenty seconds for each additional message.=A0 Base=
d on watching top and on previous experience, I believe the problem is that=
 Balsa applies inbox filters after each new message is downloaded, and this=
 calls html2text on every message in the mailbox, but now I have over 150 m=
essages in my mbox inbox.=A0 In the short term, can anyone suggest a way to=
 find which one is likely causing problems?=A0 In the long run, would it ma=
ke sense not to apply filters to a mailbox until all pending actions are do=
ne - specifically fetching a whole bunch of POP3 messages?
> =

> I've also tried deleting a few messages at a time from the INBOX, but it =
just hung, presumably having problems rewriting the mbox file.=A0 I might t=
ry deleting all the remaining new messages from the INBOX and then copying =
one at a time from the IMAP inbox.
> =

> I have a vague recollection that in the past, the problem was caused by s=
ome HTML only message with invalid HTML that all browsers and other email c=
lients (TBird) handle fine.
> =

> (Hopefully I'll be able to find any answers to this by using IMAP for the=
 interim.)
> =

> Thanks for any suggestions.
> =

> Jack

The long-run fix could get complicated. I've opened an issue [1] where we c=
an discuss strategies for avoiding these kinds of delays.

In the short run, if the delays are indeed caused by on-reception filtering=
, you could perhaps just temporarily disable the filters.

Best,

Peter

[1] https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/balsa/-/issues/58