Manual Refresh/Sync no longer instantaneous

eMClient free version 8.2.1237 (b402cf3)
Manual Refresh in eMClient now takes considerably longer than it used to. We are using POP3. Generally, in the past, when I clicked Refresh the Refresh wheel would immediately start spinning and if email was present on the server I could watch as eMClient downloaded messages. If none were available on the server (Outlook.com) the entire process might take 3-4 seconds.
We do an autosync every 30 minutes and that seems to be working properly. I do notice that in both cases, it seems to take 1min and 25 seconds to connect to server and complete. I can log into Outlook via browser and the process is immediate. I do not see, or know of, any changes to Outlook POP3 implementation.
Has anybody else experienced this problem.

If you use a VPN try changing to another server… works for me from time to time.

Instantaneous for me.

I have the same problem with the refresh not working immediately and can take a couple of minutes to actually download email I am expecting. It always works immediately on start up but since an update last year it is very rare that the refresh works straight away for me.