Thunderbird / Lightning (Seamonkey) - 'Checking Calendar 3 of 4294967299'

[Andi B.]

As some of you may know I'm not very satisfied with startup speed of the calendar on our platform. It may depend on the number of (repeating) entries I have in my calendars, or the number of calendars (2-6), or ...

Problem is when starting the calendar it takes about a minute or more to populate. For this time part of the system hangs (seems so). If I activate Lightning in SM then SM hangs and the whole WPS including the mouse pointer. When using Thunderbird (and disable Lightning in SM) only TB hangs for that long time. WPS (and other programs) works after a few seconds.

Now I added another calendar to TB and see this message at the bottom of TB window 'Checking Calendar 3 of 4294967299'. Maybe there is some problem with signedness? If TB really wants to check 4294967299 calendars this may be another reason why it takes so long.

I've to say in this case the real problem seems to be that our TB port can't handle a new authentication for the new calendar. As this is what I would expect at that time. It's the 4. (not the 3.) calendar that I added and this one does not have authentication information yet. Calendar location is something like 'https://kalender.gmx.de/begenda/dav/emailaddress@gmx.net/calendar' if this is of interest.

One side not - gmx.de cause I discovered with TB38 on Win that TB38 is not able to handle two authentications to calendars at the same domain (gmx.net). So I choice gmx.net, gmx.at, gmx.de. A general problem of TB38 not our port. Also the time delay at startup maybe a general TB38 problem that only is not so much annoying on other platforms than on ours.

Anyway, I'll try my best to keep my email and calendars working as good as possible on OS/2. And until now, most works still astonishing well. THANKS Dave (and bww and...). Maybe there are some hints for others in this thread.

[Dariusz Piatkowski]

Hi Andi,

I only use TB so I can't comment on the Seamonkey part of it.

Having said that, my experience with TB is very different and I am using Gmail email and Google calendaring functionality.

So...Apps-specific passwords is a way I deal with the 2-step authentication, this readily handles all of my calendars, including shared calendars. In fact my TB is configured to access multiple accounts along with the underlying calendar functionality.

The "load" time (I'll just call it that here) is nowhere near to what you are seeing. TB is up and running (and usable) literally within 15 secs from me selecting the icon. That brings up the email refresh and calendar views as well.

My machine is an older Phenom II X6 based box, SSD install although I do have a giant 1G JFS cache and a 1G internet feed, so network access is not a problem. My TCPIP monitor does NOT spike as this start-up happens, so at least in my case the size of the data pull is not the problem.

The typical TB memory consumption (after its been running for a day or so) is usually between 300-400M, and that compares OK to FF's 900-1100M after the same duration (mind you, I use FF much more intensively, whereas TB is a lot mroe static).

I'm afraid this probably does not directly answer any of the questions you posed though.

[Dave Yeo]

Hi Andi, interesting error, 4294967299 is exactly 100000000 in hex, likely not a coincidence, though I don't think it is a signness problem, maybe overflow?
Are you still using 38ESR? If so, I'd suggest trying 45ESR. Back up your profile first, it is possible if you revert back to 38ESR, you might have to manually revert Lightning (in extensions IIRC).
As for the port, I don't think the calendar code has been touched besides changing the DLL name to 8.3 format.
Have you looked at the error console when opening Lightning? Perhaps clear it first.
Unluckily, I don't really use calendar besides making sure it works, using gmx.com.
You might also experiment with disabling "Provider for Google Calendar" and "Timezone Definitions for Mozilla"
Searching, I don't really find anything about our old Lightning being slow.
Edit: Might want to test a different theme, probably not the problem. Ideally would be testing a new profile, not easy with your setup unluckily.
You could also go to about:support and look at any preferences that have changed. In TB, Help-->TroubleShooting Information.

[Andi B.]

...Are you still using 38ESR? If so, I'd suggest trying 45ESR.

Sorry for confusion, I'm running 45.8.0. I think this is the latest from you. Just tried a new profile (created under Win) but now Lightning 4.7.8 is disabled and I can't enable it. Maybe copied over from Win too. Have to search your latest lightning package....

You might also experiment with disabling "Provider for Google Calendar" and "Timezone Definitions for Mozilla"

Don't use them.

Searching, I don't really find anything about our old Lightning being slow.

More and more I think it has to do with the number of entries, even old ones, AND it seems the fetching of the gmx calendars is slower on OS/2 than on Win (same machine). As said, even with Win it tooks a while but it does not freeze the WPS there. So now I think what I see is the SIQ problem on OS/2 and the slower network-calender-refresh problem. Since using TB instead of SM it's usable at least, not perfect, not as good as with Win, but usable.

Edit: Found a file named 'lightning-4.0.8_Dave_....xpi' but that does not work with TB45

Edit2: Now got it to work with 3 external calendars. Lightning identifies itself as 4.7.9. Probably copied from Win. See pictures.