Re: [Evolution] Really super terribly awful slow performance "Generating message list"

[Adam Tauno Williams <awilliam whitemice org>]

Quoting Zan Lynx <zlynx acm org>:

First things first....

> So, am I doing something wrong, or have the Evolution developers
> forgotten the basics of O(n) data structure analysis

Really?  There is no need to be rude, accuse people of incompetence,  
or generally behave in a belligerant manner.

> Does anyone know why Evolution spends all of its time "Generating
> message list"?
> When I click on any folder to read it, it generates a message list.
> When I move a message to a different folder it generates a message list.

I *assume* you are talking about a local mail folder; since you don't  
say [maildir / POP / IMAP / IMAPX ]

> When I double click on a message in a folder that is not using the
> Preview pane, it generates a message list.

I do not see this behavior.  Not that Evolution 3.0.3 is devoid of  
performance issues;  3.0 has been a bit rocky, but is getting cleaned  
up a bit with every point release.

> This operation appears to consume up to 30 seconds of CPU time each and
> every time it runs. It's hell on laptop battery life using 30 seconds of
> speed boost every couple of minutes.

Really need to know the type of mail account to be able to offer any advice.

And are you doing anything hinky like accessing mail mounted via GVFS  
or using an encrypted home directory, etc...

> Yes, I have over 30,000 messages in the inbox. No, this should not cause
> any problem to a serious email program. mutt has no problem. Thunderbird
> has no problem. Now, Mail.app does have a problem but I don't consider
> it a serious email app.

No, I don't think 30,000 messages should be a problem [although I've  
found that deleting ~10,000 messages can take a serious bit of time].

> Evolution *used to* perform acceptably well, back in the 2.something
> versions when I used to run a Linux laptop in 2006. Now that I'm running
> the 3.0 version in Fedora 15 it appears to have turned to crap. What
> happened?

If you run top or gnome-system-monitor do you see anything *else*  
running?  I've seen this operation take *FOREVER* if the Tracker  
plugin is enabled [this, I'm convinced, is Tracker's fault, not  
Evolution's;  otherwise Tracker is great].