[gentoo-user] Kmail editor freezes

[Daniel D Jones]

Recently started having problems with Composer, the editor of Kmail.  This 
only happens with the editor when I'm writing an email.  It doesn't happen 
when I'm just reading mail.  At random intervals, Composer will freeze for 
anywhere from fifteen or so seconds up to around 60 seconds.  When it's frozen, 
it's completely unresponsive.  Moving the mouse cursor over it causes the 
mouse cursor to disappear.  During this time, it doesn't even show up in top 
sorted by CPU usage.  I'm sure it's there, it's just not using enough CPU to 
make the top of the list.

I've tried recompiling Kmail without any success.  My guess is that it's 
trying to access some external resource and timing out, but I'm not able to 
determine what that might be.  Akonadi is running using the external MySQL 
server but everything seems to be running properly.  Checking with the 
Akonaditray "Test" button brings up no errors.  Spellcheck is working, and 
disabling automatic spellcheck does not fix the problem.  I'm not aware of any 
other external processes that Composer uses.

I tried to work around this by configuring Kmail to use an external editor, but 
Kmail still loads Composer.  When it does so, key strokes do not work properly 
- they seem to move the cursor around randomly but they don't enter text in 
the editor.  Resetting the editor configuration to the internal editor causes 
the editor to accept keystrokes properly but brings back the random freezing 
issue.  I suspect the freezes and the inability to use an external editor are 
separate issues but I'm not sure.

Any help on tracking down the cause is greatly appreciated.

-- 
"Chastity [is] the most unnatural of the sexual perversions." - Aldous Huxley