E-mail Slowdown FAQ / Information & Technology Services / Pacific Lutheran University

E-mail Slowdown FAQ

This is a list of Frequently-asked Questions (FAQ) about the e-mail slowdown that is currently being experienced at PLU (as of 05/09/06), along with the answers to these questions. More will be posted as they come up.

Are there any things I can do to help make e-mail performance better?

Yes, there are. Here's a list for reference.

If you are a Webmail user, please !!! REDUCE YOUR INBOX SIZE !!!. An inbox with a lot of messages will drastically reduce performance for you and also load down the server for others. Consider deleting old messages (especially those with large attachments) or creating folders and moving your old e-mail there.
If you are a Webmail user, try to limit your usage during the middle of the day. Mornings and evenings have fairly low levels of usage and will give you much better response times.
Consider using a desktop e-mail client such as Mozilla Thunderbird instead of Webmail. Such clients will give you better performance, more features, and reduce the load on the Webmail service for others. Also, there is no login limit--even when you can't get onto Webmail, you can get on via a desktop e-mail client.
Don't stay logged into Webmail for long periods of time. If you are composing a long messages, do so in a text editor like Notepad, log into Webmail, and then paste the message into Webmail. This means you don't have to be in Webmail as long.
When you finish using Webmail, don't just close the browser. Log off by clicking on the "Logout" button at the top of the page

I haven't been able to get on Webmail at all in the last 24 hours. What can I do?

Though it may seem like Webmail hasn't been available at all, there have been many times when it was available. Try getting on in the morning before 10:30am or in the evening after 7:00pm. Also, if you try in the afternoon and it is at the maximum number of users, try again in a half-hour. There is a good chance you'll hit a time-window when it is available.

Why is there a limit of 400 users for Webmail?

Our e-mail system is about 8 years old now. Though it has been considerably enhanced through software and hardware upgrades over the years, the demand on the system during peak usage times has finally outstripped the ability of hardware and software to keep up. The point where the system can no longer keep up with demand is about the time that there are 400 users logged into Webmail. By putting a limit at 400, we hope that those logged in experience acceptable performance. Then, after they log out and the number of people logged on goes down, others can log in.

Why not let more people on? Sure, performance would be bad, but at least everyone could get something done.

This sounds like a good idea but, if many more than 400 are allowed into Webmail, the server is so overloaded that e-mail becomes unusable and, sometimes, the only way to get things working again is to re-boot the computer that e-mail services are running on.

E-mail seemed to be working fairly well until a couple weeks ago. What happened to it?

This has been typical for the last couple of years. It's pretty clear that it is caused by more people wanting to use e-mail at the same time. This is probably happening because a lot of end-of-semester work is coming due.

E-mail performance seems worse now than it has been at the end of other semesters. Why is that?

Here's what we think has happened:

More people are being required to turn in their homework as e-mail attachments. These attachments are often very large. When the e-mail server has to handle a lot of large e-mails, it slows down.

Disk space quotas were increased for everyone last fall. This means people can keep more in their e-mail inboxes. A little bit more in a lot of inboxes means a lot more data the e-mail server has to work with when people open their inboxes. This slows down the server.

Okay, so the e-mail server is old and slow. Isn't it time that you get a new e-mail system?
Yes, it definitely is. The budget for technology spending is being increased so that we can improve things like e-mail. The first priority, though, is making sure that the network is much more reliable than it was at the beginning of the Fall '05 semester. We'll be using the increased funding this year for the purpose of upgrading the network over the summer (Summer '06). One of the next top priorities will be replacing the e-mail system. This will probably happen during the Summer of '07.

So e-mail service will not be improved at all until Summer '07?
No, we do have a few more things we will try to improve performance of the existing service. This should happen during Summer '06. These include

Installing a new and improved Webmail user interface that can be used instead of the existing Webmail. -- We suspect that the current Webmail interface is less efficient than newer ones, so this may also improve performance.

Moving the inbox size limit from 60MB to 50MB. -- Smaller inboxes mean less work for the server to do, which should also improve performance.

I've been told I should use a different e-mail client than Webmail. What does this mean?
You can read and send e-mail in other ways than just using Webmail. Webmail is what is called an e-mail client. An e-mail client is any program that allows you to get and send e-mail. There are clients that you can run on your own computer that don't require logging into Webmail. Since they are more efficient than Webmail, there are no user limits on them. So, when the 400 user limit on Webmail is reached, you can still get to your e-mail. One of the more popular clients on campus is called Thunderbird. But there are some downsides:

These clients are installed on just one computer and so cannot be run from lab and library computers, like Webmail can.

When Webmail hits the 400-user limit, e-mail service is already pretty slow. It will still be slow using a client like Thunderbird.

You can use both an e-mail client on your computer and Webmail. Just make sure you set your computer's client to use the IMAP protocol, which leaves the e-mail on the server so that Webmail can still get to it. And don't use both at the same time.