Help → http://localhost:8080/ takes AGES to load

http://localhost:8080/ takes AGES to load

I'm a long time user of POPfile. I've always noticed that when I need to enter the history to tweak something, it takes ages (30 secs?) for IE to load the file http://localhost:8080. I've always put this down to my ancient computer; however this week I've installed the latest build (untrained) on my shiny brand new PC, and it's exactly the same.

May be a separate issue, but the newly installed IE9 warns me "Intranet settings are turned off by default, do you wish to enable them?" - I don't understand whether I should or shouldn't? Could this affect the loading speen? I'm a home user with a network of several PCs.

Thanks

freddiefruitbat
01/20/12 08:36:20
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  • Message #1613

    Are you using the Windows version of POPFile? By default "Concurrent POP3 connections" are disabled which means POPFile cannot update the UI while it is processing requests from your email client. This can make the UI appear to be slow to respond. If you are not using POPFile's SSL support then you can try enabling concurrent POP3 connections on the "Configuration" page in the UI.

    How many messages are there in your "Recent Messages" history? http://localhost:8080 displays the first page of the "Recent Messages" history. POPFile obtains the information for the history pages from its database so if you have increased the history page size from the default of 20 messages then more database queries have to be performed before the page can be displayed.

    Is it only the history page that is slow to appear? Try these links to other UI pages:

    http://localhost:8080/security

    http://localhost:8080/configuration

    brian
    01/20/12 13:53:54
    • Message #1615

      Are you using the Windows version of POPFile?

      Um... presumably? Don't know what else there is available to me but I've got POPFile 1.1.3

      If you are not using POPFile's SSL support then you can try enabling concurrent POP3 connections on the "Configuration" page in the UI.

      I don't know whether I am or not TBH - haven't adjusted any defaults anyway. (Should I be?)

      How many messages are there in your "Recent Messages" history?

      Just the default 20

      Is it only the history page that is slow to appear? Try these links to other UI pages:

      http://localhost:8080/security

      http://localhost:8080/configuration

      That last one took 1.5 mins to load - and that's with my Outlook client not running, to be sure of no 'interference' from it!

      I haven't tried it with other browsers as IE9 is the only one I have installed [a financial website I use a lot insists on it unfortunately :( ]

      freddiefruitbat
      01/20/12 18:34:07
      • Message #1616

        I've installed POPFile 1.1.3 on a test system and found that the POPFile UI appears within about three seconds in the following cases:

        (a) When there was no IE9 window open I right-clicked POPFile's system tray icon and selected the "POPFile UI" option. It took less than 3 seconds for the IE9 window to appear and display the history page (with 20 entries shown).

        (b) When there was no IE9 window open I clicked the "POPFile User Interface" shortcut in the Start Menu and once again it took about 3 seconds for IE9 to appear with the history page (with 20 entries shown).

        (c) Starting IE9 and selecting a "Favourites" entry from the IE9 menu resulted in the UI's configuration page appearing within about 2 seconds.

        (d) With IE9 open, clicking a desktop shortcut to the UI's configuration page resulted in the page appearing in less than 3 seconds.

        (e) Using IE9 to access this forum topic I clicked on the alternative UI links I mentioned earlier and the pages appeared in less than 3 seconds.

        IE9 displayed the "Intranet settings are turned off by default." message with buttons labelled "Don't show this message again" and "Turn on Intranet settings". I did not click either of those buttons so that message kept appearing during my tests.

        My test system is not a very powerful one (Windows Experience Index = 3.9):

        Windows 7 Home Premium Service Pack 1 (32-bit)
        AMD Sempron 2 GHz CPU
        2GB RAM
        The only browser installed is IE9.

        Concurrent POP3 connections were not enabled and there was no email program running during all of these tests.

        I used a small database (1,271 KB) and 1,033 messages in the message history for these tests.

        Have you checked your database? If you shut down POPFile and run the database checker using

        Start -- All Programs -- POPFile -- Support -- Check database status

        the database will be checked and its size reported.

        How big is your database (the database checker will show the size in KB) ?

        How many messages are in your "Recent History" ?

        Once I know the size of your database and how many messages are in the history I can run some more tests.

        It may be worth running the diagnostic program for the Windows version of POPFile:

        Start -- All Programs -- POPFile -- Support -- PFI Diagnostic utility (full)

        This will run some simple checks and display a report which can be copied to the clipboard and pasted into a reply here.

        brian
        01/21/12 02:31:59
        • Message #1617

          I've installed POPFile 1.1.3 on a test system and found that the POPFile UI appears within about three seconds in the following cases:

          Clearly very different behaviour to what I'm experiencing...

          IE9 displayed the "Intranet settings are turned off by default." message with buttons labelled "Don't show this message again" and "Turn on Intranet settings". I did not click either of those buttons so that message kept appearing during my tests.

          Same with me


          Have you checked your database? If you shut down POPFile and run the database checker using
          Start -- All Programs -- POPFile -- Support -- Check database status
          the database will be checked and its size reported.

          How big is your database (the database checker will show the size in KB) ?

          Only 370Kb as it's new - see output below:

          POPFile SQLite Database Status Check (integrated) v0.2.1

          Current user : David
          Current folder: C:\Program Files\POPFile
          Command line : /REGISTRY

          Trying to find database using registry data (HKCU)... found it!

          POPFile database found (C:\Users\David\PopFile?\popfile.db)

          SQLite v3.7.2 utility found in C:\Program Files\POPFile

          Database is in SQLite 3.x format, uses schema version 3 and its size is 370 KB

          Result of running the 'pragma integrity_check;' command:
          ok

          The POPFile database has passed the SQLite integrity check!

          (report finished 21-Jan-2012 @ 09:35:58)

          How many messages are in your "Recent History" ?

          "Recent messages" = 71; this installation has classified 263 messages so far

          Once I know the size of your database and how many messages are in the history I can run some more tests.

          It may be worth running the diagnostic program for the Windows version of POPFile:

          Here's the diagnostics report:

          POPFile PFI Diagnostic Utility v0.3.0 (full mode)

          String data report format (not used for numeric data)

          string not found : ><
          empty string found : < >
          string with 'xyz' value found : < xyz >

          Current UserName? = David (User)

          Operating System = Windows 7 Home Premium (32-bit)
          IsNT return code = 1
          Internet Explorer = 9.0

          Location used to store temporary files

          $TEMP folder path = < C:\Users\DAVID\AppData?\Local\Temp >

          Start Menu Locations

          AU: $SMPROGRAMS = < C:\ProgramData?\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs >
          AU: $SMSTARTUP = < C:\ProgramData?\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup >

          Search results for the "AU: $SMSTARTUP" folder:

          *.lnk files found = 1
          POPFile shortcuts = 0

          CU: $SMPROGRAMS = < C:\Users\David\AppData?\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs >
          CU: $SMSTARTUP = < C:\Users\David\AppData?\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup >

          Search results for the "CU: $SMSTARTUP" folder:

          Shortcut name = < Run POPFile.lnk >
          Shortcut start in = < C:\Program Files\POPFile >
          Shortcut target = < C:\Program Files\POPFile\runpopfile.exe >
          Shortcut argument = < /startup >
          Target status = found

          *.lnk files found = 2
          POPFile shortcuts = 1

          Obsolete/testbed Registry Entries

          [1] Pre-0.21 Data:

          Pre-0.21 POPFile = ><
          Pre-0.21 Testbed = ><

          [2] 0.21 Test Installer Data:

          HKLM: RootDir?_LFN = ><
          HKLM: RootDir?_SFN = ><

          HKCU: RootDir?_LFN = ><
          HKCU: RootDir?_SFN = ><
          HKCU: UserDir?_LFN = ><
          HKCU: UserDir?_SFN = ><

          [3] Current PFI Testbed Data:

          MRI PFI Testbed = ><
          MRI PFI Testdata = ><

          POPFile Registry Data

          NTFS SFN Disabled = < 2 >

          HKLM: MRI Version = < 1.1.3 >

          HKLM: NewParser? = ><

          HKLM: InstallPath? = < C:\Program Files\POPFile >
          HKLM: RootDir?_LFN = < C:\Program Files\POPFile >
          HKLM: RootDir?_SFN = < C:\PROGRA~1\POPFile >

          HKLM: *.exe count = 6 (this is OK)

          HKCU: Data Owner = < David >
          HKCU: MRI Version = < 1.1.3 >
          HKCU: RootDir?_LFN = < C:\Program Files\POPFile >
          HKCU: RootDir?_SFN = < C:\PROGRA~1\POPFile >

          HKCU: UserDir?_LFN = < C:\Users\David\PopFile? >
          HKCU: UserDir?_SFN = < C:\Users\DAVID\PopFile? >

          HKCU: popfile.pl = found
          HKCU: popfile.cfg = found

          HKCU: *.exe count = 6 (this is OK)

          POPFile Logger Settings

          Logger output = < 1 > (To File)
          Logger format = < default >
          Logger level = < 0 >
          Logger directory = < ./ > (C:\Users\David\PopFile?)

          POPFile Environment Variables

          'POPFILE_ROOT' = < C:\PROGRA~1\POPFile >
          'POPFILE_USER' = < C:\Users\DAVID\PopFile? >

          Env: popfile.pl = found
          Env: popfile.cfg = found

          ROOT: *.exe count = 6 (this is OK)

          'ITAIJIDICTPATH' = >< (this is OK)
          'KANWADICTPATH' = >< (this is OK)

          'MECABRC' = >< (this is OK)

          POPFile Configuration Settings (subset)

          POPFile UI port = < 8080 >
          POP3 Listen port = < 110 >
          Concurrent POP3 = < 0 >

          (report created 21-Jan-2012 @ 09:40:10)

          If, as it now appears, this problem is specific to me, I'm wondering if it's likely that some start-up program, or 'compulsory' memory-resident utility rubbish running courtesy of eg iTunes or Adobe is conflicting with POPfile - is that likely? If not, it's odd that my old PC ancd my new one (which has had clean installs of all software, including POPfile) are both suffering from the same problem.

          freddiefruitbat
          01/21/12 17:30:24
          • Message #1618

            Thank you for the reports. One thing I noticed is that you did not use the default location for the POPFile User Data. On Windows 7 systems the default location for you would be 'C:\Users\David\AppData\Roaming\POPFile' instead of the 'C:\Users\David\PopFile' folder you are using. I'll try moving my test data to a similar location to see if it makes any difference.

            Have you installed all of the Microsoft updates for your system?

            My test system uses Microsoft Security Essentials. Which anti-virus package are you using?

            Have you tried looking for malware on your PC ~ there are several free utilities you can use for this, such as Malwarebytes AntiMalware, SUPERAntiSpyware and Spybot Search & Destroy.

            brian
            01/21/12 18:14:58
            • Message #1619

              I tried using 'C:\Users\Brian\PopFile' but it made no difference - the UI still appeared within about 3 seconds when I ran the tests again.

              I forgot to mention that my tests were run from a standard account, i.e the type of account you are using.

              Does using the IP address instead of localhost make any difference? Here are modified versions of some UI links:

              http://127.0.0.1:8080

              http://127.0.0.1:8080/security

              http://127.0.0.1:8080/configuration

              brian
              01/22/12 13:59:18
            • Message #1620

              Have you installed all of the Microsoft updates for your system?

              Yes, all up-to-date

              My test system uses Microsoft Security Essentials. Which anti-virus package are you using?

              Avast

              Have you tried looking for malware on your PC ~ there are several free utilities you can use for this, such as Malwarebytes AntiMalware, SUPERAntiSpyware and Spybot Search & Destroy.

              No, but just tried the Malwarebytes one and it came up clean.

              Does using the IP address instead of localhost make any difference?

              No difference at all I'm afraid!

              freddiefruitbat
              01/22/12 21:09:22
              • Message #1621

                My test system uses Microsoft Security Essentials. Which anti-virus package are you using?

                Avast

                I've installed avast! Free Antivirus v6.0.1367 and think I've managed to recreate the problem but I am not sure.

                With avast! installed IE9 was taking AGES to display the POPFile UI but once the UI appeared it behaved normally (i.e. there was hardly any delay when changing from one UI page to another). Closing IE9 and then trying to display the UI again resulted in the same problem (it took ages to display the UI but once the first UI page appeared there was little delay when changing UI pages).

                A search of the avast! forums turned up some references to an avast! article which seems to provide a solution.

                One of avast!'s Real Time Shields is "Web Shield" which "scrutinizes all your web browsing activities, and eliminates any online threats even before your web browser sees them."

                This shield uses a transparent proxy and in some cases you need to explicitly tell your browser to use this proxy. When I followed the instructions in avast! Knowledge Base article 22 and then tried to display the UI it appeared almost instantly.

                Here are the instructions for configuring IE9 (assuming you use broadband or a LAN connection):

                Proxy server settings for Internet Explorer when using broadband and/or local area network (LAN) Internet connection

                Start Internet Explorer.

                Select Tools -> Internet Options... from the main menu.

                Switch to page Connections.

                Click on the LAN Settings... button.

                Check the option Use a proxy server for your LAN.

                Write localhost into the Address field (alternatively, you can enter IP address 127.0.0.1, which is the same as localhost).

                Enter 12080 into the Port field.

                Confirm with OK button.

                The article even has a link to an instructional video.

                It also has instructions (and a video) for users with a dial-up connection.

                Here is a link to the full article:
                https://support.avast.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=22

                These changes are easy to make - I hope they solve your problem (and if they don't then it is easy to undo the changes).

                Brian

                brian
                01/23/12 00:04:17
                • Message #1622

                  I've installed avast! Free Antivirus v6.0.1367 and think I've managed to recreate the problem but I am not sure.

                  With avast! installed IE9 was taking AGES to display the POPFile UI but once the UI appeared it behaved normally (i.e. there was hardly any delay when changing from one UI page to another). Closing IE9 and then trying to display the UI again resulted in the same problem (it took ages to display the UI but once the first UI page appeared there was little delay when changing UI pages).

                  That certainly sounds exactly like what I'm seeing.

                  One of avast!'s Real Time Shields is "Web Shield" which "scrutinizes all your web browsing activities, and eliminates any online threats even before your web browser sees them."

                  This shield uses a transparent proxy and in some cases you need to explicitly tell your browser to use this proxy. When I followed the instructions in avast! Knowledge Base article 22 and then tried to display the UI it appeared almost instantly.

                  Well... full of anticipation I actioned the changes; however, it made absolutely no difference! (tried rebooting too). I also tried disabling the Web Shield, to no avail.

                  I really appreciate all your help with trying to solve this; however the system does work, it's just that it's really slow to access the UI, so please don't bust a gut trying to sort it for me!

                  freddiefruitbat
                  01/24/12 09:08:21
                  • Message #1624

                    Well... full of anticipation I actioned the changes; however, it made absolutely no difference! (tried rebooting too).

                    Although I did not have to reboot, the fix was not an instant success on my system. I did not make detailed notes but I think the very first UI access after making the changes worked instantly but some other UI accesses were very slow which was rather disappointing.

                    I closed the IE9 window then clicked the IE9 icon to try again and after a few attempts all of the UI pages would open quickly at the first attempt.

                    I also tried disabling the Web Shield, to no avail.

                    This does not surprise me as I think disabling the real-time shields from the avast! Control Panel just tells the shields to do nothing (i.e. the shields are still running but not doing anything with the data passing through them).

                    If you really want to turn off the Web Shield you need to actually uninstall the Web Shield component by running the avast! uninstaller from Control Panel and selecting the "Change installed components" option. This will display a long list of components and let you remove the Web Shield. (You can re-install it later by running the uninstaller again - the uninstaller does more than just uninstall things).

                    Are you using the avast! Web Reputation plugin for IE9? It was not installed when I ran my tests. Since this plugin checks the sites you visit it may be part of the problem you are having. This plugin appears to be one of the things the uninstaller will remove/install for you.

                    I realise that uninstalling bits of avast! may seem rather drastic (though I think the uninstaller makes it easy to restore them). If you want a "second opinion" before performing this surgery, I suggest you try asking in the avast! support forums. I have found them to be very friendly and helpful, unlike some anti-virus support forums I have tried in the past. In fact it was there that I learned that you need to uninstall some avast! components in order to properly disable them.

                    I really appreciate all your help with trying to solve this; however the system does work, it's just that it's really slow to access the UI, so please don't bust a gut trying to sort it for me!

                    Your problem reminded me that I had not tried using IE9 to access my customised UI so I do not feel that I have been wasting my time.

                    brian
                    01/24/12 15:20:37
                    • Message #1625

                      Have you tried using a different port for the POPFile UI?

                      To change the port, make sure that POPFile is not running then run the "adduser.exe" program found in the "C:\Program Files\POPFile" folder. Run it from the "David" account, do not run it as an administrator.

                      The wizard should automatically find your existing POPFile data ('Folder to be used to store the POPFile data') and offer to upgrade it. Clicking "Yes" will display the current port settings. The "User Interface" port list offers 8080, 8081, 9090 and 9091 but you can type in a different port setting if you prefer. Click "Upgrade" to let the wizard update your POPFile configuration to use the new port setting.

                      It is possible that something is already using ports 8081, 9090 and 9091. If you want to check which ports are free you can use "netstat", as explained in the Connection Problems with POPFile UI troubleshooting page.

                      brian
                      01/24/12 15:29:01
                  • Message #1626

                    I've tried using avast!, IE9 and POPFile 1.1.3 on another Windows 7 system and that system does not show the long delay when accessing the UI from IE9 so it looks like something else may be involved.

                    There are a lot of differences between the two Windows 7 systems I tried so I don't have any idea what the other factor could be.

                    Brian

                    brian
                    01/26/12 15:07:30
  • Message #1614

    Have you tried using another browser to access the POPFile UI? The problem you are seeing may be specific to IE9.

    One of the reasons I stopped using IE many years ago is that my main POPFile installation is a customised one which employs features that IE6 did not support. Although I have looked at IE9 I cannot remember if I have tried using it to access my customised UI.

    I may be able to install the standard version of POPFile and try it with IE9 at the weekend.

    brian
    01/20/12 15:05:06
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