Thanks for two replies

My ISP servers for various accounts are "mail4.host-it.co.uk" (pop), pop.googlemail.com and imap.googlemail.com.

I am trying out excluding the profile (in Roaming) from the "file" and "mail" anti-virus protection components; I hope this is correct as the terms and text are a bit ambiguous!

Will report back

Peter

Dear Wayne,

I just wanted to sign off - I found that one of the "performance" items in the Kaspersky settings was not set and this made a bit of an improvement.

The slowing down, still propelled by the excessive CPU usage, still slows things down but not on every fetch of the mail. However one has no predictive capacity - it just happens.

As already mentioned, it all seems linked to the indexing of new mail which perhaps triggers a largely unnecessary Kaspersky scan.

So I can live it with it!

Anyway, many thanks for your efforts; it is comforting to have someone who tries to understand to talk to.

With best wishes

Singletesigma

One correction: I followed your suggestion and set the Kaspersky "file AV" to exclude the Thunderbird profile file "Thunderbird\Profiles\ule9ggxx.default\" ( which I hope is the correct one).

It seems a bit better but still has periods when it monopolises most of the CPU time without doing much.

If do come up with any further ideas about the performance, I would like to hear them and test them.

best wishes, Singletsigma

These are some general recommendations to avoid trouble with anti-virus software.

Create an exception in your anti-virus software for the Thunderbird profile folder, so that the anti-virus real-time scanner will not scan it. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Thunderbird

Don't let your anti-virus software scan incoming and outgoing messages.

Don't let your anti-virus software scan attachments.

Don't let your anti-virus software intercept your secure connection to the server.

Remove any add-ons your anti-virus software may have installed in Thunderbird.

Keep it working. http://kb.mozillazine.org/Keep_it_working_-_Thunderbird

Dear Christ1, Many thanks for your reply. There are two points to make.

a. for information; I posted my last message for completeness since I had made a mistake in my previous message. It might help someone in similar trouble. b. Following the unfailingly helpful replies that I have received from your colleagues, I was disconcerted by yours and indeed wondered whether you were perhaps being facetious? What your recommend may well work, it will also leave me quite open to attack via email which is probably my weakest point. I work on my own and bought the most secure internet security package that I could so that I could feel reasonably secure. It seems irresponsible to recommend shutting off the incoming email from the AV scanning altogether.

On Thunderbird - I have noticed today that it appears to provoke scans when it indexes messages which it does even when no messages are downloaded. It does seem to me that while Kaspersky may be responsible for the near freezing of the PC, it is not helped by the profligate way that Thunderbird must be structured such that it requires so much indexing.

Anyway, I would like to thank you and your colleagues once again. It is a help to have someone else thinking about things.

Singletsigma

it will also leave me quite open to attack via email which is probably my weakest point.

It won't. This question has been asked countless times. You can research yourself why not scanning your mail by anti-virus software won't put you at risk.. The article below may be a good starting point. http://thundercloud.net/infoave/tutorials/email-scanning/

Dear Colleague, Many thanks for yours and for the article. I shall turn off the mail scanning and see whether there is an improvement.

One possibly relevant observation: in looking at the usage with the Task Manager - when Thunderbird is consuming a high percentage (30% or more) of the CPU, which causes the slow down, Kaspersky is consuming perhaps 1%. In other words all the activity is in Thunderbird and not the protection. Are we chasing the wrong culprit? Best wishes Peter

Three points.

a. Happy New Year., we hope you had a good festive season.

b. My Kaspersky subscription came up for renewal and I have renewed it. I have turned off the email scanning and the file scan for the email file. I thought there was some improvement but this morning's experience has shown that I was wrong.

c. Every time mail is collected or even when one is simply writing an email, Thunderbird suddenly occupies more than 30% of the CPU and typing can stop altogether. At that time, Kaspersky uses nothing.

It seems to me that there is a genuine problem within Thunderbird and we should perhaps stop hiding behind Kaspersky.

I shall reduce the number of calls to the server and try to plod on with it. However I am beginning to feel that the continual expectation of trouble and frustration when it occurs may not be good for my health - and I still hope to complete a multi-year project for my web site before I am forced to bow out!

Thanks once again for your efforts and, sincerely, a Happy New Year.