Q: Mail on Yosemite: crashes, slow and buggy.
I have already posted my experiences with Mail on Yosemite on several threads, and now I have decided to open my own thread about it, with the hope that Apple sees how many users are having the same kind of issues, and hopefully will address them in the next OS update.
Keep in mind that I am a web computer programmer, therefore I know, and I am sure that there is something buggy with this new version of Mail compared with the one on Mavericks, and I am sure Apple can fix it.
Here are the major flaws I have experienced:
1. Mail sometimes crashes, even when just typing a message which gives me frustration and madness!
2. Mail fetching and sending is terribly slow. New mail appears inside Mail after several minutes it is already appeared on my iPhone.
3. Updating the mailbox counters take forever. I have to literally leave Mail open for 15-20 minutes to see slowly updating the mailbox counters (!!!) That creates a lot of confusion from my part.
4. Slow deletion: If I delete 10 messages in a row inside a mailbox, then I go working on a different mailbox, and then get back to the previous one, the just deleted messages are back there! And they are getting "slowly" deleted after several minutes (10-20 minutes?)...
Well, it's impossible to work this way, it is just a mess. Managing email with my iPhone is much easier, which is insane.
The Activity window is always "working" with several processes going on all the time, no idea if that's normal or what. Why in the heck Mail has to keep synching a mailbox with inside just 20 emails for over 20 minutes??!!
I really hope Apple is going to release an update to fix all these issues, otherwise I will have to downgrade back to Mavericks. For me, actually, moving from Mavericks to Yosemite has been a big downgrade of performance, and a waste of time (hours!!) to figure out issues like this one.
My computer is a 2009 Mac Pro Quad-Core Xeon with 32GB ram, which has an insane amount of ram to have crashes and slowness with a simple program like Mail (!!) I have already tried everything: cleaning caches, regular OS maintenance, cleaning, rebooting in safe mode, reconfiguring Mail from scratch, etc. Something is wrong with the program itself.
If anyone is experiencing this kind of issues, please, post your experience on this thread, so we can have more chances to be noticed by Apple (if they ever look at these forums...)
Thanks in advance, and let's keep Mac OS improving!!
Best,
Fab.
Mac Pro Dual Xeon (2009), PowerMac G5, PowerBook G4 and iPhone, Mac OS X (10.5.6)
Posted on Dec 15, 2014 4:25 PM
Ok, today I have done a very interesting test, server side this time, to see exactly what's the difference between Mail on Mavericks and Mail on Yosemite from the "server side."
To do this test, I have used my wife's email account (named: laura) which is simpler than mine because she doesn't have any custom folders in her account; but still her account is over 1GB in size, so was a good candidate for this testing. Her account is on the same server of mine, and our server uses the Dovecot IMAP system. The experience from the user/clients side is astonishing: on Mavericks, everything works fast and smoothly; on Yosemite, I could experience the exact same issues I have reported at the beginning of this thread: slowness, redundant connections, slow deletion, fetching, etc.
Here is the test I have done server side: I logged onto our server, and monitored the dovecot log file, in particular the "dovecot-info.log" file which logs any action from the email client, and I must say, the difference from Mavericks and Yosemite is big, and looks like something is really wrong with Mail on Yosemite.
Ok, have a look at the following log lines, they have been recorded during three phases: Mail launch time, Mail checking mail time, and Mail quitting time:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------
ON MAVERICKS:
At launch time:
dovecot: Dec 24 11:44:26 Info: imap-login: Login: user=<laura>, method=PLAIN, rip=::ffff:68.4.218.18, lip=::ffff:66.29.157.26
dovecot: Dec 24 11:44:26 Info: imap-login: Login: user=<laura>, method=PLAIN, rip=::ffff:68.4.218.18, lip=::ffff:66.29.157.26
dovecot: Dec 24 11:44:27 Info: imap-login: Login: user=<laura>, method=PLAIN, rip=::ffff:68.4.218.18, lip=::ffff:66.29.157.26
dovecot: Dec 24 11:44:28 Info: imap-login: Login: user=<laura>, method=PLAIN, rip=::ffff:68.4.218.18, lip=::ffff:66.29.157.26
dovecot: Dec 24 11:44:28 Info: imap-login: Login: user=<laura>, method=PLAIN, rip=::ffff:68.4.218.18, lip=::ffff:66.29.157.26
dovecot: Dec 24 11:44:40 Info: IMAP(laura): Connection closed
At mail checking time:
NONE (nothing gets logged!)
At quitting time (quitting Mail):
dovecot: Dec 24 11:47:46 Info: IMAP(laura): Disconnected: Logged out
dovecot: Dec 24 11:47:46 Info: IMAP(laura): Disconnected: Logged out
dovecot: Dec 24 11:47:46 Info: IMAP(laura): Disconnected: Logged out
dovecot: Dec 24 11:47:46 Info: IMAP(laura): Disconnected: Logged out
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------
ON YOSEMITE
At launch time:
dovecot: Dec 24 11:49:32 Info: imap-login: Aborted login: rip=::ffff:68.4.218.18, lip=::ffff:66.29.157.26
dovecot: Dec 24 11:49:32 Info: imap-login: Login: user=<laura>, method=PLAIN, rip=::ffff:68.4.218.18, lip=::ffff:66.29.157.26
dovecot: Dec 24 11:49:33 Info: imap-login: Aborted login: rip=::ffff:68.4.218.18, lip=::ffff:66.29.157.26
dovecot: Dec 24 11:49:34 Info: imap-login: Login: user=<laura>, method=PLAIN, rip=::ffff:68.4.218.18, lip=::ffff:66.29.157.26
dovecot: Dec 24 11:49:34 Info: imap-login: Aborted login: rip=::ffff:68.4.218.18, lip=::ffff:66.29.157.26
dovecot: Dec 24 11:49:34 Info: imap-login: Login: user=<laura>, method=PLAIN, rip=::ffff:68.4.218.18, lip=::ffff:66.29.157.26
dovecot: Dec 24 11:49:34 Info: imap-login: Aborted login: rip=::ffff:68.4.218.18, lip=::ffff:66.29.157.26
dovecot: Dec 24 11:49:35 Info: imap-login: Login: user=<laura>, method=PLAIN, rip=::ffff:68.4.218.18, lip=::ffff:66.29.157.26
dovecot: Dec 24 11:49:35 Info: imap-login: Aborted login: rip=::ffff:68.4.218.18, lip=::ffff:66.29.157.26
dovecot: Dec 24 11:49:35 Info: imap-login: Login: user=<laura>, method=PLAIN, rip=::ffff:68.4.218.18, lip=::ffff:66.29.157.26
dovecot: Dec 24 11:49:36 Info: imap-login: Aborted login: rip=::ffff:68.4.218.18, lip=::ffff:66.29.157.26
dovecot: Dec 24 11:49:36 Info: imap-login: Login: user=<laura>, method=PLAIN, rip=::ffff:68.4.218.18, lip=::ffff:66.29.157.26
dovecot: Dec 24 11:49:36 Info: IMAP(laura): Connection closed
dovecot: Dec 24 11:49:36 Info: IMAP(laura): Connection closed
dovecot: Dec 24 11:49:36 Info: IMAP(laura): Connection closed
dovecot: Dec 24 11:49:36 Info: imap-login: Aborted login: rip=::ffff:68.4.218.18, lip=::ffff:66.29.157.26
dovecot: Dec 24 11:49:36 Info: imap-login: Login: user=<laura>, method=PLAIN, rip=::ffff:68.4.218.18, lip=::ffff:66.29.157.26
dovecot: Dec 24 11:49:37 Info: imap-login: Aborted login: rip=::ffff:68.4.218.18, lip=::ffff:66.29.157.26
dovecot: Dec 24 11:49:37 Info: imap-login: Login: user=<laura>, method=PLAIN, rip=::ffff:68.4.218.18, lip=::ffff:66.29.157.26
dovecot: Dec 24 11:49:37 Info: pop3-login: Aborted login: rip=::ffff:66.29.141.253, lip=::ffff:66.29.157.26
dovecot: Dec 24 11:49:37 Info: IMAP(laura): Connection closed
dovecot: Dec 24 11:49:37 Info: IMAP(laura): Connection closed
dovecot: Dec 24 11:49:37 Info: imap-login: Aborted login: rip=::ffff:68.4.218.18, lip=::ffff:66.29.157.26
dovecot: Dec 24 11:49:37 Info: imap-login: Login: user=<laura>, method=PLAIN, rip=::ffff:68.4.218.18, lip=::ffff:66.29.157.26
dovecot: Dec 24 11:49:44 Info: IMAP(laura): Connection closed
dovecot: Dec 24 11:49:44 Info: IMAP(laura): Connection closed
dovecot: Dec 24 11:49:44 Info: IMAP(laura): Connection closed
At mail checking time:
dovecot: Dec 24 11:50:17 Info: imap-login: Aborted login: rip=::ffff:68.4.218.18, lip=::ffff:66.29.157.26
dovecot: Dec 24 11:50:17 Info: imap-login: Login: user=<laura>, method=PLAIN, rip=::ffff:68.4.218.18, lip=::ffff:66.29.157.26
dovecot: Dec 24 11:50:18 Info: imap-login: Aborted login: rip=::ffff:68.4.218.18, lip=::ffff:66.29.157.26
dovecot: Dec 24 11:50:18 Info: imap-login: Login: user=<laura>, method=PLAIN, rip=::ffff:68.4.218.18, lip=::ffff:66.29.157.26
dovecot: Dec 24 11:50:24 Info: IMAP(laura): Connection closed
dovecot: Dec 24 11:50:24 Info: IMAP(laura): Connection closed
dovecot: Dec 24 11:50:24 Info: imap-login: Aborted login: rip=::ffff:68.4.218.18, lip=::ffff:66.29.157.26
dovecot: Dec 24 11:50:24 Info: imap-login: Login: user=<laura>, method=PLAIN, rip=::ffff:68.4.218.18, lip=::ffff:66.29.157.26
dovecot: Dec 24 11:50:25 Info: imap-login: Aborted login: rip=::ffff:68.4.218.18, lip=::ffff:66.29.157.26
dovecot: Dec 24 11:50:25 Info: imap-login: Login: user=<laura>, method=PLAIN, rip=::ffff:68.4.218.18, lip=::ffff:66.29.157.26
dovecot: Dec 24 11:50:25 Info: IMAP(laura): Connection closed
dovecot: Dec 24 11:50:31 Info: IMAP(laura): Connection closed
At quitting time (quitting Mail):
dovecot: Dec 24 11:52:14 Info: IMAP(laura): Connection closed
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------
So, what can we learn from the logs above? With the only exception of "quitting time", the two programs deal with the server in quite a different way (NOTE: the account is exactly the same with default settings!).
In particular, the red flag telling us that something is wrong is the following line:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------
dovecot: Dec 24 11:49:36 Info: imap-login: Aborted login: rip=::ffff:68.4.218.18, lip=::ffff:66.29.157.26
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------
Why Mail has to "abort" the login? All that looks to me a sort of bug from part of Mail, or some sort of "hidden" setting that has been changed compared with Mail on Mavericks, that causes issues with the mail server, dropped login sessions, therefore wasted network resources, time, etc... hence, the experienced delay in fetching, deleting and moving messages!
I hope someone at Apple can see this posting and do something to fix Mail as soon as possible, because this looks terrible to me and can't find an explanation but a BIG BUG in Mail on Yosemite. And, of course, the final result is a frustrating and slow experience with Mail.
Comments and thoughts are very welcome!
Posted on Dec 24, 2014 12:07 PM