Search in SM 17/100 is slower than in SM 16

Problem reported by Ionel Aurelian Rau - 1/29/2019 at 6:03 AM

Submitted

Hi,

A few users have started mentioning that search (normal search, in the current folder) is noticeably slower now that we updated to SmarterMail 17/100 than how it was in SM 16. These are heavy users of the WebMail interface and they say that it is noticeably enough for them to break their workflow. It`s now faster searching for email on mobile devices than in WebMail.

After the update to SM 17/100 I mostly used the Advanced search in WebMail and was pleasantly impressed to see it`s faster than how it was in SM16, but did not use the normal search much. I have forced myself to use the WebMail interface for the past 2 days and indeed, normal search takes too long - in fact, it takes just about as long as the advanced search. In SM 16 the normal search was nearly instantaneous (at least it never took more than ~ 2 seconds) and the advanced search was painfully slow. Now it looks like they averaged out, but this is hurting heavy WebMail users that need to perform normal searches often.

Anyone else seeing this behavior?

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Ionel Aurelian Rau Replied

1/29/2019 at 8:49 AM

After some further testing, it seems that the Normal search completion time is directly linked to the Advanced search completion time and to the size of the mailbox. What I mean is that if:

- there are 3 users, each with an Inbox or another folder with 1000 items

- the 3 users have different mailbox sizes (5GB, 15GB, 50 GB)

Then:

- when the user with a 5GB mailbox performs either a Normal search in the folder with 1000 mails or an Advanced search for his whole mailbox, then results will be returned in the same time (~5 - 10 seconds)

- when the user with a 15GB mailbox performs either a Normal search in the folder with 1000 mails or an Advanced search for his whole mailbox, then results will be returned in the same time (~20 - 45 seconds)

- when the user with a 50GB mailbox performs either a Normal search in the folder with 1000 mails or an Advanced search for his whole mailbox, then results will be returned in the same time (1 - 2 minutes)

This would make one believe that the Normal and Advanced searches actually are one and the same, with the Normal search traversing the whole mailbox, then only returning results from the current folder, whereas the Advanced search does the same and returns results from the whole mailbox / all folders.

Can we get back the old behavior where searching in a folder was almost instantaneous even with 2-3000 mails in a folder? Hopefully this could be achieved without making the Advanced search take longer.

Matt Petty Replied

1/29/2019 at 8:53 AM

Employee Post

Thank you for your investigation Ionel, I will check out this behavior on the backend.

Matt Petty Senior Software Developer SmarterTools Inc. www.smartertools.com

Webio Replied

2/21/2019 at 2:38 AM

@Matt have you maybe checked it? I would love (as system admin) to have some kind of default search behavior for search form above message list (for example search only in recipient, sender and email title without email content which most people are interested and it will speed search a lot)

Matt Petty Replied

2/21/2019 at 7:08 AM

Employee Post

Hello,

We ran some tests and we noticed the same issues. I gave it a quick lookthrough but nothing is immediately jumping out as incorrect. I left off looking through some Lucene documentation and there might be some things I can try. However my priorities shifted this week toward some tickets and bugs. I still have a task to look at it further.

Matt Petty Senior Software Developer SmarterTools Inc. www.smartertools.com

Ionel Aurelian Rau Replied

2/22/2019 at 2:46 AM

Yes, indeed this is not a bug, but please make sure it does not get left behind. This functionality is important if we are to push users towards the web interface and as it is right now it`s frustrating.

In the past 2-3 weeks I`ve been forced to also use the web interface on my mobile after Samsung messed up with their Mail app (after the upgrade to Android 9, their mail app no longer sends email through EAS accounts - the Google Play reviews section is full of people complaining of this in the past weeks and they did not fix it yet) and I found the SM WebMail interface surprisingly good, speedy and usable for almost any task (except that search in a folder is too slow).

Paul Blank Replied

2/23/2019 at 9:49 AM

While you're waiting for Samsung to fix their app, you can always try something like the quite excellent Nine email for Android (9folders.com). It does cost, but you do get a free trial. I find it very compatible with SM (granted I'm staying with v15 for now) and EAS. Works with either EAS or IMAP these days. Supports multiple email accounts.

Also, Outlook for Android supports SM EAS. (No experience yet with Outlook for IOS)

Ionel Aurelian Rau Replied

2/25/2019 at 2:14 AM

I know there are many email clients that work, I`ve tested a lot of them. I can always fall back to Outlook for Android as I`ve used it a lot and it works. But I want Samsung to fix their app since so far it it the only one that has the widgets I need to work perfectly with my launcher and theme :)

But SM`s WebMail is definitely also very usable too. I`ll stick to it for now and see what Samsung plans to do about their app. If they do not fix it soon, I`ll go back to Outlook and add there all of my accounts, including the one on SmarterMail 17.

Paul Blank Replied

2/27/2019 at 7:14 AM

I am curious: Does SM WebMail store messages for offline viewing? If not, that would be one advantage of an email client package - of course.

Webio Replied

2/27/2019 at 11:22 AM

@Paul Blank - thats interesting idea.

I'm wondering do you know for what you are searching when you are performing search? Currently SmarterMail is searching also for text inside messages which for sure is making search longer. When I was using Thunderbird I almost never searched folders for text inside messages. I always searched for sender or title. That's why I've suggested that maybe it would be nice to have some kind of global or domain default search settings which will allow to select what is being searched when search if made using search form above message list (advanced search would be used for more advanced queries).

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