Slow Web Client for One User

[soxfan]

I've got one user who has around 3.8 GB in his mailbox, so a lot of email but not a ridiculous amount in my opinion. He has been complaining a lot lately of very slow response with the Zimbra Web Client. Of course he also happens to be a user who hates the ZWC to the point where he resisted the change and stuck with Outlook via IMAP for far longer than anyone else. To his defense though I have watched him use the ZWC on his PC and also tested it on another workstation, and his account definitely seems to lag a bit more than mine or others that I have seen. His biggest complaint is the lag that occurs when he switches folders, say Sent to Inbox. The one thing I noticed on his account is that he has a lot (around 50) sub-folders off his Inbox.

I have tried re-indexing his folder (twice, in fact), but it doesn't seem to help much, if any at all. Anyone got any suggestions for things I can look at that might be causing a problem, or anything I can run to speed things up? Does anyone have thoughts about having lots of Inbox sub-folders as opposed to separate folders at the root of the account?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
John

[phoenix]

Originally Posted by soxfan

The one thing I noticed on his account is that he has a lot (around 50) sub-folders off his Inbox.

Why does he have all those folders in his Inbox? Has he tried moving them out of the Inbox into a more sensible, IMO, structure? What's the specifications of his workstation or does it happen from other PCs? Have you tried creating another mailbox for him and moving the data there and see if that has the same problem? You say he's been complaining a lot 'lately' has it only just happened or has he had this problem for a while? Which browser does he use? Does he have any add-ins that may be causing problems? Has he tried creating a new empty profile to see if that helps? Have you tried other browsers?

I have a 6GB Inbox (with no subfolders) that doesn't show this sort of problem?

[uxbod]

In preferences what is set for the number of items to fetch when scrolling ?

[soxfan]

Hey guys, thanks for the responses. I'll answer the 2nd post first.

In preferences what is set for the number of items to fetch when scrolling ?

He currently has this set to 200

Now on to Phoenix's many follow up questions...

Why does he have all those folders in his Inbox?

Because that's the way he likes it? Because that's the way he did it in Outlook? Because he is a typical user who sometimes does things that don't make sense to others? Any of the above / All of the above.

Has he tried moving them out of the Inbox into a more sensible, IMO, structure?

I have not suggested that he try anything more "sensible" yet. One of the reasons for my post was to see if anyone had any thoughts about performance with Inbox sub-folders as opposed to top level folders.

What's the specifications of his workstation or does it happen from other PCs?

He has an "older" system, but actually pretty typical for our users: P4 2.6 GHz processor, with 1 GB of memory. On a similarly configured VM that I tested on it definitely seemed "sluggish" to me. On my less than a year old Windows 7 64-bit laptop, which has a Core 2 Duo 2.26 GHz processor with 4 GB of memory it is "snappier", but I can't move around as easily as with my own account. Not sure I can justify a new system just for this reason.

Have you tried creating another mailbox for him and moving the data there and see if that has the same problem?

Have not tried this yet.

You say he's been complaining a lot 'lately' has it only just happened or has he had this problem for a while?

He has been complaining since day one of his Zimbra usage. I initially took it as a die-hard Outlook user getting used to the change, and not really wanting to, to be honest. As the complaints continued I thought he might need to cleanup his Inbox a bit. I think he was at 6-7 GB at the time. He is the type of person that likes to save everything. He's now "down" to 3.8 GB and he says he has noticed no speed improvement at all.

Which browser does he use? Does he have any add-ins that may be causing problems? Have you tried other browsers?

He is currently using IE7. I know, not the best choice, but unfortunately (IMO) it is still our default. When I first looked at his PC to see what was going on I noticed that he had either the Yahoo! or Google (maybe both) tool-bars installed. I disabled both, but that didn't seem to help. One of my next steps is to have him try Firefox.

Has he tried creating a new empty profile to see if that helps?

Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean here. A new computer/PC profile? A new browser profile?

As I mentioned in my original post, I'm dealing with a very reluctant ZWC user here. He is the type of user that is very set in his ways, and doesn't like change. Not the type of person I can "experiment" with (try this, try that, etc.). Even if I tell him that Firefox is faster and ask him to try it he may resist simply because Firefox is different than IE. I'd like to be able to show him a noticeable performance improvement. Oh well, I guess that's my cross to bear. Thanks for the help.

[phoenix]

Originally Posted by soxfan

Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean here. A new computer/PC profile? A new browser profile?

I meant creating an empty profile in FF (I forgot to ad 'if he uses it' ).

I can't really imagine why such an Inbox structure would cause a problem. I guess you could copy his information to a new account and move the subfolders out of that structure and if that makes any difference. Other than that I guess it might be time for bugzilla.

An additional thought, does the same problem occur when he's logged in from another PC? It might be worth checking his network connection is set to full duplex and that the MTU is set correctly. You can probably guess this is a desperate long-shot.

[hannes]

We seem to have the same problem with a customer. They mailbox is about 10Gb big and has lots of folders (~40 folders). We do have other mailboxes this big running without issues.

Did this above stated issue get resolved?

Thanks,
Hannes

[Guest]

Check for messed up shares...

This for me causes the biggest slowdown on any mailbox in Zimbra.

Usual issue user shares cal, mailbox, briefcase etc with other users.. other users then leave and the share remains as unknown user..

[hannes]

We got the issue solved. We backuped the mailbox and restored it with a prefix. The mailbox was a ton faster than the old one is with the very same data! We replaced the old box now.