Lag in Typing in Yosemite's Mail w/ External Apple Keyboard

OK, I just did a screen movie with both the compose window and the Activity Window side by side. Here are the messages that flash by:

Saving Draft

Communicating with server

Updating cache directory

Synchronizing "Drafts...

Changing flags

No delay in typing while those messages were playing.

I've also been trying to get a decent screen recording of Mail misbehaving. If someone gets a particularly convincing clip, I'd be happy to attach it to the bug report I filed.

Kirk out

My money is on it being related to draft saving.

As I mentioned earlier, I have noticed the File menu title flash blue (the way that it does when using a keyboard shortcut) when the delay happens and this may be borne out with Klahane's observation.

It would be interesting to observe if the delay happens before a draft has been saved - as I just put in my bug report, it doesn't seem to happen to me until I have typed a couple of lines of text.

From now on, I'm going to keep an eye on the Draft count and from an initial test, it looks like the delay is absent until after the first draft is saved.

i've tried:

rebooting, with wifi off, and working in mail (nothing else opened, and i'd removed the mailunreadmenu bundle). problem occurs.

switching outgoing server. still happens. validated my fonts in fontbook; no fix.

i see the beachball momentarily too; 3 times in a short period of time just now....like mail is trying to do something.

posted a bug report. not much faith that the genius bar is worth a trip tho. will instead keep an eye on this thread...

Just done several more tests and I am 99.9% certain that it is autosaving which causes the problem. I can't prove it because I don't know of a way to disable it.

This is happening for me with an external, wired Apple extended keyboard AND with the internal keyboard of my 15" MBP.

Has anyone tried this with a Test User?

I did some more screen recording with Snapz Pro.

I have now seen the Activity messages I listed above several times when there was no delay.

I've also seen the delay with no activity messages.

I also recorded Console, and can see Handoff events (lasting 0 seconds), but no coordination with any typing delays.

Snapz Pro isn't fast enough to keep up with my typing. Maybe a movie camera would be a better method, but at this point, I don't think we'll find anything with these crude methods. To see what Mail's doing we'd need some way to be in a verbose debug mode.

Or maybe it's another app entirely. I'll try Activity Monitor next.

No, nothing notable in Activity Monitor. Even going frame by frame (30 fps) in Final Cut Pro, I can't see any change in CPU usage when Mail typing hung.

It's possible that a process called taskgated appeared during the hang, or maybe iCloudHelper. But it's too hard to see exactly when the hang occurred, and neither peaked above "0" CPU.

i tried a test user account, and my default (and unused) icloud email account. and so far, not a single laggy moment. but the problem (at least here) is so random, it's hard to be absolutely sure of what is (and isn't) happening. will play with the test account some more, see if the issue comes up at all...

(tried to edit my previous post)...meanwhile..

more mysteries. no lag when i am in my icloud mail in my test OS X account. but when i tried the same EMAIL (icloud address) in mail in my REGULAR OS X account...the lag happens. so...??? not the app, seems to be related to mail in my OS X account. so, LOL, am more confused than i was when i started investigating. am gonna leave it for the experts.... 😕

I've witnessed this on my fully updated MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012) as well, but haven't seen it in a while. Perhaps the problem disappeared when I turned off LCD font smoothing in System Preferences > General.

Looks like there are other reports of a relationship between LCD font smoothing and slow typing: https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1295606?tstart=0

Just spent an hour and a half on the phone with Apple, bumping up to a senior Mail specialist. They did a screen share and two separate support folks saw the lag while listening to me type. No need to create further screen captures, I think. They have a link to this thread now. They are reviewing the posts and calling me back tomorrow.

I'm seeing no real pattern - short emails and long, writing with either of my accounts selected, toggling "Store Draft Messages on the Server" (under mailbox behaviors) on and off.

TEST USER: I set up a Test User, set up both my .Mac and another IMAP account, and no lags at all. Switching back to my regular user brought back the lags.

MAIL ACTIVITY: With Activity window in Mail showing, I often see a lag when activity pops up, but most of the time there's no activity, and lots of lags.

WIRELESS: I've got a new MBP with no ethernet port. I thought it might be related to being on wi-fi, so bought a Thurnderbolt-to-Ethernet adapter. No difference.

SPELL CHECK: System Prefs > Keyboard > Text: check or uncheck Correct Spelling Automatically. No difference. Just lots of misspelled words. ;- )

OTHER SOFTWARE: Checked typing in Pages, Notes, Numbers, and Safari (right now). No other applications exhibit this behavior.

I'll post again with any updates/suggestions from Apple for us to try.

Erick

Excellent, Erick - thank you for doing this and providing the prompt update.

Apple will often pass the buck when you create a new user account and the issue goes away. In this case, the fact that the text entry lag/delay doesn't happen in other applications and only appears in mail is an important data point for others who may be speaking to AppleCare or the "Genius" Bar staff.

Kirk out

interesting that you're not seeing the lag in a test account; same thing here. thanx for torturing apple, look forward to what they tell you...

Same lag in Apple Mail typing: MacBook Pro 15" Retina mid-2012 ever since Yosemite. Didn't realize it was a common problem (until I found this thread today) but had tried many of the suggestions in the thread, nothing helped. Because of the lag, one keeps hitting backspace, typing the same letters again and worrying about the condition of the device even though everything else is super. Typing in other apps is no problem.

BUT: on my late 2009 iMac 27" desktop using Yosemite that was installed from a Yosemite flash drive created on the MacBook (thus derived from the same Yosemite download) there is no lag in typing a new Apple Mail message. Starting a new message on the iMac, no typing lag; then resuming the same message on the MacBook and the typing lag is still there!

Apple: Whats up?