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EWS performance issues after 6754 update
Problem reported by echoDreamz - 6/29/2018 at 9:52 PM
Submitted
Server has only been up for ~30 minutes and we've already received 3 customers complaining that their eM Client installs are taking forever to sync. Everyone's complaints are the same. "Used to be quick < 1 minute, now it takes ~5 minutes to complete".
 
Is anyone else on 6754 using EWS seeing longer sync times, especially with eM Client?

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echoDreamz Replied
The IIS worker process cpu is 0/1% during this as well.
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Nicolas Fertig Replied
We would be interrested to know if someone else has the issue too.
 
I was preparing the update to 6754, to maybe finally fix the problems our customers are having with shared calendars (we're running 6744 and are receiving quite a lot of complaints about this).
 
But I'm not sure anymore now if it's a good idea to update.
 
 
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Thomas Lange Replied
With SmarterMail v16.3.6733 last week we noticed SmarterMail performance issues. We have around 50 users syncing with eMClient by EWS-protocol (and around 50 ExchangeActiveSync and 50 by IMAP) and we noticed "IIS worker process" consumed hight CPU!

ReleaseNotes for v16.3.6751 stated:
Fixed: EWS was causing IIS Worker Process to consume CPU.
Running this version we still noticed issues concerning overall performance, sometimes our Mailserver was almost not reacting anymore for any sync-processing.... added a second vCPU (as advised by SmarterTools) - but still very worse performance issues - and our employeees are complaining over and over - they cannot access their emails anymore.

On Saturday we noticed the next SmarterMail Update v16.3.6754:
again including EWS performance/syncing fixes

Now with v16.3.6754 it is better than in v16.3.6751 - but still not perfect like some SmarterMail versions before :-( Now we noticed sometimes very, very, very, very slow EWS-syncing-times.... over many minutes! That was not so dramatically in the past... looks like IIS worker process sometimes still increases CPU and memory-usage to a very high level! We notice issues during our main business hours, when more users are accessing our Mailserver at the same time. Outside our business hours it is difficult to reproduce/check or verify any update/fix!


We already have an email-support-ticket openend at SmarterTools since last Thursday - but not received reliable solution until now. Sorry, but right now the stability and reliability of SmarterMail-releases does not look very good at all for our Mailserver :-(
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echoDreamz Replied
We've had quite a few users contact us regarding EWS being slower. Not a massive deal, but many have noticed something has changed quite a bit. Especially when you first open eM Client, it takes forever.
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Thomas Lange Replied
We are experiencing the very, verfy, very slow EWS-syncing of eMClient (could take almost up to 5 minutes until completed/spinning "wheels" of eMClient are stopping). 50EWS, 50EAS and 50 IMAP users are accessing SmarterMail-server.

The very slow syncing happens most times only during our business hours, where more users are accessing/checking their email-account at the same time or perhaps sending outgoing mail at similar times...- so I suppose it has to do with some or many connections/syncing-processes by EWS/eMClient. And IIS worker process CPU and memory usuage are sometimes increasing (somestimes even up to 99%).

It is difficult/almost impossible to re-produce this behavior outside our business-hours, for example right after installation of an update/custom build. So I always have to wait until next day and start of our business hours to monitor/see first results.
I already received custom build v16.3.6754.15924 with additional EWS-fixes but this version made it even more worse at all - at least at our SmarterMail mailserver :-( In addition to the very, very, very slow sync even other processes of the mailserver were malfunctioning and created additional complaints - so I went back to the release v16.3.6754 - with "just" the slow EWS/eMClient-sync-issues... and that is not killing our whole mailserver.

Due to 4th July/national holiday at SmarterTools I did not receive any update/new custom build yet... even today (the day after) not any further reaction/update at my support-ticket... at least I hope that they will give a status update with some advise before this upcoming weekend.

Sorry that I have to say this - but currently the reliablibity of SmarterMail as an "Enterprise" product is not given at all. I can understand that there are many possibilities what can go wrong.... but quality assurance ist really bad.... (or alomost not existent) If you just check the last few release notes you will notice, that there are many little fixes/issues mentioned.

I was always "fighting" for SmarterMail and not switching to Microsoft Exchange - but I am not sure how long I can stick to my opinion/decision. For example the issues in EWS are really bad - a supported/implemented protocol has to be stable and reliable. And the latest few release-versions/updates were often not really stable at all :-(

So I am already in fear what happens if SmarterTools will implement MAPI in v17.... and the way how the beta-updates of v17 are going (or currently not going anymore) it does not look really good.... I know this needs time. And even with MAPI-support we still need the EWS-protocol for syncing with eMClient (including calendars, contacts, notes etc.). And I can understand that almost no user is willing to install/test the v17 if the needed/requested MAPI is not implemented/included yet!

Let us hope and pray that SmarterTools will fix the EWS-protocol issues and create stable and reliable new SmarterMail-versions really soon (and release it after QA-testing!).
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echoDreamz Replied
We are the opposite here, no CPU problems at all, but still a massively slow EWS sync. I have not been able to get a hold of any customers I know use Apple Mail with EWS to see if it is the same with them. So right now, it appears to be related to eM Client.

I was figuring maybe it was some optimizations being done in the background causing the slow down, but it is has been almost a week and the issues still exist.

A fresh start of eM Client results in "Uploading items user@domain.com/Inbox" and it sits FOREVER even though, there is hardly any emails in the inbox folder. One of the users said they never even noticed the syncing bar animation in eM Client until we did last weeks update.
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Thomas Lange Replied
I have not figured out what is causing the increasing of CPU and/or memory usage of the IIS worker process (and sometimes even SmarterMail-service increases its CPU and memory usuage). Because changes/fixes concerning EWS-protocol are mentioned at releasenotes of SmarterMail it our current issues must have to do with SmarterMail. Prior to last releases EWS was working with eMClient - with normal performance.... without very, very slow syncing!

What I notice is, that the slowlyness normally does not occure if I am the only user that acceses the mailserver by EWS-protocol with eMClient (checking/updating three accounts). I and our users report performance decrease/syncing takes very long/too long, at times when more users accessing/checking our mailserver.
I have not yet received any further updated status by SmarterTools-support.... so probably they did not figure out what is going wrong. :-(
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Thomas Lange Replied
concerning echoDreamz EWS and MacOS/AppleMail question:
with v16.3.6754 the mail-app on our iMac did not sync anymore incoming emails!
We have one employee who is using an iMac and he was back from his vacation today - and reported that he did not receive any incoming email during his absense/vacation.
Today SmarterMail-support updated my email-ticket and supplied a new custom build. Right after installing it our iMac was able to sync emails by MailApp and EWS-protocol again!

Concerning "poor" EWS-sync-performance I suppose I have to wait until tomorrow, during our business hours - this is the best time where I am able to check for performance issues - if actual custom build makes it any better...

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