HTML rendering in POP Peeper

[ECourts]

Does POP Peeper use an external HTML renderer to display HTML content?

I have the option set to always view mail messages in HTML - it has worked fine for many months. For a few days now, I am finding the POP Peeper often freezes (and I have to crash it and restart) when I want to display a mail, OR a message is blank or only partially displays, OR POP peeper crashes itself with a "Runtime error!". Viewing a message in text or rich text is always fine.

Nothing has changed (so far as I know) with POP Peeper. *IF* POP Peeper uses an external HTML renderer to display HTML content I could imagine that has been updated elsewhere and now has problems (although none of my browsers has any problem).

Any advice or suggestion to solve this problem would be appreciated...

Edwin

[mjs]

Until Jeff can get to your post, I'll just mention that your freezing (hang ups) could be due to temporary anomalies with your connection. If your find that trying to read mail doesn't completely display the entire message or sometimes not at all and if you're using POP Peeper version 4 then in the "View message" window menu click on "File" > "Re-download message" which should display the message on the 2nd attempt (as there could have been possibly either a timing issue loading the message or other connection anomaly at the time), that said this should not happen very often if at all.

Beyond this, Jeff will need to address your questions regarding how HTML is rendered as well as the fact that in your case POP Peeper is sometimes crashing with a "Run time" error.

[ECourts]

Thanks - I have a pretty solid 50Mb/s connection, so don't have concerns about that. The problem is too frequent (about 1 message in 10 - so much that I have switched off HTML by default), and until 3 days ago never appeared at all. Reboots and restarts of POP Peeper don't help. Curiously, I'm also having problems with my browser (Palemoon) since a recent update - it's hanging, using high CPU and not exiting normally. I've not addressed this yet, but if they share the same rendering engine there might be a link.

[Jeff]

POP Peeper uses IE; from what I understand, Palemoon uses Firefox. It's pretty safe to assume that Firefox doesn't use any IE technology, but that doesn't mean Palemoon doesn't. The similarities of the problems you're having with the two apps is suspicious, so it could be something like a corrupted system DLL that both apps use.

If you're not already using the POP Peeper v4.1 beta, you may want to try it. It changes the way that it uses IE to render it so that it can use a higher version of IE (that is, right now it's basically stuck on IE6 emulation, but v4.1 will allow it to emulate whatever version of IE you have, so if you have IE10, it will render with IE10 instead of IE6). To download the beta:
- in PP, select Tools / PPtweaker from the main menu
- Select the troubleshooting page
- Enable "include beta versions..." on the bottom
- Press OK
- From the main menu, select Help / About
- Press "Check version" and you should get the notification of a beta version, which you can follow to download

If you decide to try that, let us know what version of IE you have and whether it works or not.

Another suggestion:
- Try deleting your temp files AND temporary internet files by running "Disk cleanup" on your OS drive (C:)
- On an elevated command prompt, run:
sfc /scannow
(elevanted command: type cmd into start menu to find it, then right-click on cmd.exe and select "run as administrator")
-> this will verify the integrity of your system files to see if anything is corrupted

[ECourts]

I've done the upgrade (and the other checks, which were fine) and I'm afraid it's not helped. In fact it seems even worse. Now opening around one in five messages in default HTML, or opening in plain text message and clicking on the HTML view simply causes PP t crash....

[mjs]

I've done the upgrade (and the other checks, which were fine) and I'm afraid it's not helped. In fact it seems even worse. Now opening around one in five messages in default HTML, or opening in plain text message and clicking on the HTML view simply causes PP t crash....

Has PP been crashing during "Mail checks" also or does PP only crash when you open a message?

When PP crashes do you get any type of message from Windows at the time?

What version of Internet Explorer do you have?

Thank you for you help and patience, Jeff will be looking into this later today.

[ECourts]

It crashed when attempting to view a message. Previously I had HTML as the default view when opening a message and it regularly crashed when the message window opens (or more accurately the message window opens, there is pause with a blank window, then it falls over. It fails similarly if the default viewing is text, but I try to switch an open message to HTML view. No useful error message:

2015-07-31_181548.jpg (25.38 KiB) Viewed 12603 times

This is Windows 8.1 with IE 11.0.9600.17905 (which I don't normally use)

[mjs]

What version of Internet Explorer do you have (IE is used by PP to render HTML which shouldn't be a problem with PPv4)?

Is it one specific Email Client that this happens with i.e. Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail etc and if so which one?

[ECourts]

As I mentioned before I have Windows 8.1 with IE 11.0.9600.17905 (which I don't normally use)

The source of the mail does not seem to be relevant (I have a mix of POP3 and Hotmail mailboxes only)

I have just noticed that some mails are not rendering at all, despite having seemingly valid content (they open fine in my mail client) - the message window is simply blank. I also just got another type of crash:

[Jeff]

You said that it crashes 1 out of X times, but are the crashes/non-crashes consistent for the same message. For example, if you open a message that does not cause PP to crash, and the close it / re-open it 10 times, will PP be able to open it each time or will it eventually crash? Similarly, for a message that does cause PP to crash, if you try to open it again after restarting PP, will it crash again?

Also, do this:
First, you'll need to enable "Advanced Options" if not already enabled:
1) On the main menu, select Tools / Options
2) On the general page, top-right, enable "Advanced Options"
3) Press OK
Next:
4) In the Accounts list (left-side of PP's main window), right-click on empty space (ie. below the last account). If you have too many accounts, maximize the window; if you still have too many accounts, scroll to the very bottom and there's a very small space at the bottom that's not the part of the last account. You'll know you have the correct context window if the command mentioned below exists
5) From the context menu, select "Server info (all)..." -- note the "(all)"
6) Select, copy and paste the result from the window in your reply here. It will look something like this:

------
Messages: 7503
Server size: 330642 KB
File size: 209551 KB

Last DB Maint (global): 05/19/15 15:21:53 (72 days)

Note that it's very important that you select the "server info (all)" value and not the one from a specific account (which will not include the word "all") -- I may not be able to tell the difference in what you paste.

[ECourts]

I need a bit of time to do the multiple checks on single messages, so I'll do that tomorrow as it's late here now, but here is the other detail you need:

------
Messages: 72610
Server size: 16466958 KB
File size: 1379975 KB


Last DB Maint (global): 07/31/15 12:04:58 (0 days)

[ECourts]

OK, I found the time

Initial tests indicate the problem is not consistent with the same message.... HOWEVER, in a whim I disabled off the WOL plugin option and since then I've opened about 20 messages, some of which crashed before, and not only do the messages open to display more quickly, but I have not had a crash since...

Looks like WOL is to blame.... I'll check this more over the weekend...

Edwin

[ECourts]

Even without WOL, I'm still getting crashes, not always the same. It's definitely not consistent between messages. Sometimes they open, sometimes opening causes the crash.
Just FYI the PC I am using was upgraded from Win 8.1 to Win 10 yesterday, and the crashes still happen.

[mjs]

I need a bit of time to do the multiple checks on single messages, so I'll do that tomorrow as it's late here now, but here is the other detail you need:

------
Messages: 72610
Server size: 16466958 KB
File size: 1379975 KB


Last DB Maint (global): 07/31/15 12:04:58 (0 days)

Good morning ECourts,

You're data sizes are relatively large and I noticed that you had a "DB Maintenance" done less than 2 hours prior to your post time of this message above in this topic. Did you do a Compact of the PP databases at that time (7/31 @ 12:04)?

Would you please post once again the current "Server info (all)"? That is right-click in empty space of the "Account list" (left side panel of PP interface) and select from the context menu "Server info (all)..." and copy/paste the result in your reply here as you had done before.

How many total "new" emails on average would you estimate that you typically get per day?

Considering that it's the weekend I will contact Jeff in regards to the information you've posted so possibly he will be looking into this later today, in the interim if you would be able to provide the answers to questions above, including once again the "Server info ('all')" data as of today, this might be of some help to Jeff.

[ECourts]

I monitor 32 POP3 accounts and 1 Hotmail account, mostly every 5 minutes. It's difficult to estimate the number of mails a day, but I'd say something of the order of 200-300 a day across all accounts. I've not done any database maintenance that I am aware of, at least not manually. POP peeper runs in the background (and has for many years) - I use it to download the first 200 lines of each mail and then I can review and delete mail unwanted mail messages before I subsequently download (a now significantly reduced number, after I've manually filtered and deleted unwanted mails) messages into my mail client (Thunderbird) - note that I retain the messages on the respective servers, even after client download - about every 6 months I tidy up the mailboxes and delete old messages (again, using POP Peeper). Sometimes the mail header is simply enough to decide to junk a mail, and I need to review the content before I can make a decision. For many years I used text-only viewing but now so many messages are HTML formatted that I need to render the content to understand the message and make my decision to retain/delete the message. I've used HTML viewing without any problems for over a year now without problems. I've not added any accounts prior to or since the problem.

Here is the latest server info:
------
Messages: 72781
Server size: 16499695 KB
File size: 1383489 KB

Last DB Maint (global): 07/31/15 12:04:58 (2 days)

Let me also just say that POP Peeper is an extremely valuable tool in my Email armoury. I doubt I could live quite so efficiently without it. This problem is very irritating (please don't consider that a complaint - more simple frustration!)

Edwin

[Jeff]

The amount of data you have stored in PP is almost certainly the problem. When you disabled the plugin (WOT?) you probably just freed up a little memory and bought yourself a little time before you started hitting memory issues again. PP is not very memory-efficient at the moment, and it's something I plan on giving high priority to after v4.1. In the meantime, move as many messages as you can by either deleting them or moving them into another folder that PP does not monitor. Moving large messages will help more.

You can use the "file size" from the "server info (all)" value to gauge it. Lower is better and try to keep it below 1GB (ie. 1,000,000 KB) at the most.

[ECourts]

Thanks! - I'll do some housekeeping tomorrow, and let you know how it goes...

Once I delete some messages, do I need to compact the database? (how?)

Edwin

[mjs]

.... Once I delete some messages, do I need to compact the database? (how?)

You will find the settings for this in the PP main menu at: "Tools" > "Options" > "Storage" tab (the default setting is to compact every 90 days), to answer your question - in the event you're deleting a lot of email then yes, it would be recommended to compact the database.

[ECourts]

I've got the database size down to around 800Mb, and although I've not exhaustively tested it the problem seems to have gone away. Messages open/render noticeably quicker too.

Thanks for your assistance...

Edwin

------
Messages: 42303
Server size: 9634845 KB
File size: 818462 KB


Last DB Maint (global): 08/03/15 12:58:37 (0 days)

[ECourts]

Reducing the database size seems to have fixed the problem - I've not had a crash since - thanks to those that assisted!

Pending a more permanent fix in the longer term, might I suggest a warning message if the database starts to get of a size where memory problems are likely to arise?

Edwin