[Bug 278487] akonadi eats my memory ;)

Frank Steinmetzger Warp_7 at gmx.de
Mon Sep 5 13:42:46 BST 2011


https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=278487


Frank Steinmetzger <Warp_7 at gmx.de> changed:

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                 CC|                            |Warp_7 at gmx.de




--- Comment #8 from Frank Steinmetzger <Warp_7 gmx de>  2011-09-05 12:42:45 ---
There are a number of related bugs, which makes it hard to decide where to
write this. I picked this one because it’s more recent.


Firstly: The reason for Akonadi running without KMail loaded is that KMail is
only one _possible_ frontend to Akonadi's mail storage. Fair enough, I
understand that reason.

But I, too, am quite appalled by Akonadi's recent performance, it's been
getting on my nerves big time over the last weeks (though, unlike the OP, I’ve
never run out of memory so far, having 3 GB or RAM). IIRC it was much better
with 4.6.0.


Secondly: in current KDE (4.7.0) it considerably delays desktop readiness after
login, it almost feels like Windows XP with Norton Internet Security and Nero
Suite registered for autostart. ;-p


Thirdly: Akonadi repeatedly seems to juggle around mails, as I get prolonged
disk load with accompanying CPU load on a regular basis. Maybe that's connected
with the automatic check for new mails.
I could be over-sensitive to this because my laptop is getting old and I need
to do some maintenance on the cooling system, and the additional load adds to
that problem. Plus, laptop HDDs aren’t so fast to begin with, so the system
becomes sluggish because loading of files is hampered.



Akonadi is supposed to be a database-aided cache, and for that it needs to make
sure the cache corresponds with the actual content after login. But surely
there must be ways to improve this.

Added to that as a forth point, even with the frequent system load to maintain
the cache, KMail still needs half a minute to display a mailing list folder for
the first time. Where is the advantage of the cache here? I was told in
#kontact to disable threading in order to speed that up, but (to me) threading
would only explain CPU load, not the amount of disk shuffling.


I don't have _that_ many mails, here’s a coarse measurement for my setup:
$ cd ~/.kde4/share/apps/kmail/
$ find mail/ dimap/ -type f | wc -l
14661

<ramble> I can imagine that many current KMail users are from old times that
stick with it because they are used to it, know its powers or want to stick to
KDE-only programs. But imagine a new user: all he will say is “I’ll use
something else, KMail is just too slow for me.” (and it’s not even KMail’s own
fault here) </ramble>

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