topic Re: Thunderbird hardware acceleration activation improvement in Discussions

Thunderbird hardware acceleration activation improvement

Ataro1 — Wed, 28 May 2025 10:10:34 GMT

On my Note equipped with Nvidia Gtx 560M both Thunderbird and Firefox show a long start time (45 sec) with the both progams freezed (not responding to windows). I've deactivated hardware acceleration and then both works normally. Only if i start both with -P option the problem described reappear. I think that in this mode the program not load the profile setting and start with the hardware acceleration enabled by default.

I think that the hardware acceleration should by activated only if it is on into profile setting, ie after the -P profile manager dialog window execution.

Re: Thunderbird hardware acceleration activation improvement

tate — Wed, 28 May 2025 13:39:11 GMT

I agree this is a good recommendation, and I think Mozilla should definitely consider implementing it to avoid unnecessary performance issues, especially for users on older hardware.

Re: Thunderbird hardware acceleration activation improvement

Agentvirtuel — Thu, 29 May 2025 15:35:06 GMT

Hello

Maybe try
Customizing Thunderbird using policies.json
https://enterprise.thunderbird.net/manage-updates-policies-and-customization/managing-thunderbird-policies/customizing-thunderbird-using-policies.json
HardwareAcceleration https://github.com/thunderbird/policy-templates/tree/master/templates/central#hardwareacceleration

Preferences Affected: layers.acceleration.disabled
1 - Go to Configuration Editor https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/config-editor
2 - Enter a search term layers.acceleration.disabled

The same applies to Firefox
Firefox policies https://mozilla.github.io/policy-templates
HardwareAcceleration https://mozilla.github.io/policy-templates/#hardwareacceleration

For information purposes
The Enterprise Policy Generator https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/enterprise-policy-generator helps to create the configuration file.

Disable hardware acceleration

{ "policies": { "HardwareAcceleration": false } }

Use the “Troubleshooting information” page to help correct Firefox problems
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/use-troubleshooting-information-page-fix-firefox

Enterprise Policies: This shows you if your browser is being managed by Windows Group Policy or a policies.json file. If enterprise policies are managing Firefox, clicking Active will show you a list of the policies that are currently active on Firefox.

The same information to Thunderbird

Re: Thunderbird hardware acceleration activation improvement

Ataro1 — Thu, 29 May 2025 17:47:58 GMT

I've tried with the policies.json file

{
"policies": {
"HardwareAcceleration": false
}
}

into the

C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird\distribution

directory and this are'nt working. ☹️

Maybe that for the initial profile manager dialog are'nt HardwareAcceleration the problem. 😕

Re: Thunderbird hardware acceleration activation improvement

Agentvirtuel — Thu, 29 May 2025 18:01:43 GMT

Normally, policies affect all profils.
I verified with an new profil, and it works also in the new profil.

Re: Thunderbird hardware acceleration activation improvement

Ataro1 — Thu, 29 May 2025 18:28:30 GMT

Yes, the behaviour is the same of setting HardwareAcceleration off.

In normal starting of TB, the program work normally with policies method. The problem of 45 sec delay is true only with the -P option.

I think that the -P delay bug need to be solved by some software developer.

Re: Thunderbird hardware acceleration activation improvement

Ataro1 — Sat, 31 May 2025 12:55:22 GMT

I think that i have focused where are the problem. May be a TB background process started with the TB main process:

The second row of Windows Task Manager states as in figure (i need to split the image of the rows into two part. The second row ends with the parameter -4 gpu).

If i terminate the activity of this second row, TB start immediately to working correctly (and then recreate also a new row of a same background process ).

Into initial profile manager dialog, this background process starts securely with GPU hardware acceleration enabled, and should not do so.

If someone may submit this discussion to the sofware development team ......

Thanks