Subject: Pine 3.91 slow on opening INBOX ?

From: [email-masked] (jeff sumler)
Date: 8 Apr 1995 23:31:13 GMT

Hi--

I recall seeing sporadic threads about this problem a few months ago,
but unfortunately I didn't save any of the posts. We've recently
upgraded to pine 3.91 (HPUX 10, Ultrix 4.4, OSF/1 2.1) and on all
platforms it appears that the new version requires much more time to
open a user's INBOX than did 3.89. Since this problem is occurring
uniformly on all platforms, it seems safe to assume that the cause lies
in pine and not in an underlying IO problem. I'm collecting profiling
information from 3.91, but in the meantime was this ever resolved? That
is, was it ever pinned down as a pine problem? Any info would be
appreciated. 

thanks

jeff sumler

Systems Engineer, Indiana University
[email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (jeff sumler)
Date: 10 Apr 1995 18:12:55 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
Matthew Black <[email-masked]> wrote:
>In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (jeff sumler) writes:
>>Hi--
>This problem occurs sporadically at our site.  It only seems to happen when 
>our NNTP server goes/slows down.
>--matt

Several other people have sent me mail with similar stories. None of the
hosts in question here have declared nntp servers in pine.conf, so the
problem we're seeing is not related to delays in opening a connection to
a nntp server. Any other suggestions would be welcome . . . .

jeff sumler

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From: [email-masked] (Matthew Black)
Date: Mon, 10 Apr 1995 08:19:42

This problem occurs sporadically at our site.  It only seems to happen when 
our NNTP server goes/slows down.
--matt
==============================================================================
matthew black, systems analyst  | The opinions expressed herein are mine and 
california state university     | don't necessarily reflect those my employer.
cecs department                 |
long beach, ca 90840            | email: [email-masked]
===============================(c) 1994 by Matthew Black, all rights reserved=

---

From: [email-masked] (R. Stewart Ellis)
Date: 12 Apr 95 02:12:09 GMT

Mark Crispin <[email-masked]> writes:

 >On 10 Apr 1995, jeff sumler wrote:
 >> None of the

 >There is a known problem in Pine 3.91 relating to slow opening of mbox
 >format mail files.  The algorithm itself is OK, but certain C compilers
 >are known to generate code which runs very slowly.  So I changed the 
 >algorithm to an equivalent one which doesn't cause the problem.

 >This problem is fixed in the latest IMAP toolkit, 
 >	ftp://ftp.cac.washington.edu/mail/imap.tar.Z
 >Remove the imap/ directory tree in your Pine sources, and replace it with 
 >this new toolkit, then rebuild Pine.

This is unclear.  Does this account for slowness in non-IMAP situations
also?  Are there updated binaries available, since a lot of people just get
binaries from your ftp site.

-- 
  R.Stewart(Stew) Ellis, Assoc.Prof., (Off)810-762-9765   ___________________
  Humanities & Social Science,  GMI Eng.& Mgmt. Inst.    /   _____  ______ 
  Flint, MI 48504      [email-masked]               /        / /  /  / /
  Gopher,chimera,nn,tin,jove,modems, free code is best!/________/ /  /  / /

---

From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 1995 17:17:09 -0700

> binaries from your ftp site.

It accounts for the slowness in accessing an mbox format folder.  In 
non-IMAP situations, it is local file access to an mbox format folder.  In 
IMAP situations, it is the IMAP server's local file access to an mbox 
format folder.

We only release pre-built binaries for source releases of Pine.  We do 
not release development sources or pre-built binaries from development 
sources.  So, there will be no pre-built binaries with this fix until 
3.92 is released.

The IMAP toolkit is also distributed separately as 
	ftp://ftp.cac.washington.edu/imap.tar.Z
That distribution reflects the very latest version of our development 
sources, for the benefit of other non-Pine IMAP toolkit developers.  
Often it is updated multiple times a day.  For this reason, it is not 
practical to offer pre-built binaries for the IMAP toolkit, except as 
part of a Pine release.

---

From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 1995 11:32:28 -0700

---

From: Ian Russell Ollmann <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 1995 01:33:32 -0700

; In article <[email-masked]>,
; Matthew Black <[email-masked]> wrote:
; >In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (jeff sumler) writes: > >>Hi--
; >>I recall seeing sporadic threads about this problem a few months ago,
; >>but unfortunately I didn't save any of the posts. We've recently
; >>upgraded to pine 3.91 (HPUX 10, Ultrix 4.4, OSF/1 2.1) and on all
; >>platforms it appears that the new version requires much more time to
; >>open a user's INBOX than did 3.89. Since this problem is occurring
; >
; >
; >This problem occurs sporadically at our site.  It only seems to happen when 
; >our NNTP server goes/slows down.
; >--matt
; 
; Several other people have sent me mail with similar stories. None of the
; hosts in question here have declared nntp servers in pine.conf, so the
; problem we're seeing is not related to delays in opening a connection to
; a nntp server. Any other suggestions would be welcome . . . .

This is kindof obvious, but there is a marked slowdown if the user's 
inbox is really large -- say, for example, he/she never deletes any mail. 
We have had users that receive entire newspapers as mail every day and 
never delete any of them. The inbox can grow to be several MB in a few 
months. We have also had this slowdown problem when our NNTPSERVER goes 
down. The user can also declare an NNTPSERVER in .pinerc. Pine-help is 
sufficiently detailed for many to do this themselves.

				Ian
{SGI 4D/35, IRIX 4.0.5}

---

From: Matthew Black <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 1995 08:03:32 -0700

On the issue of why PINE is slow to startup...

> sufficiently detailed for many to do this themselves.

If you build pine with the mbox driver, then all user mail is immediately
copied to ~/mbox upon invocation.  Pine was built on my system with:
   ./build sgi EXTRADRIVERS=mbox

Now mail accumulates in the user's home directory rather than the mail
spool...unless they use Eudora which allows users to keep mail in the
spool.

--matt
============================================================================
matthew black, systems analyst  | opinions expressed herein are mine and
california state university     | may not reflect those of my employer
cecs department                 |
long beach, ca 90840            | email: [email-masked]
=============================(c) 1995 by Matthew Black, all rights reserved=