Gentoo Archives: gentoo-user

From: Alex Schuster <wonko@×××××××××.org>
To: gentoo-user@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Akonadi loses mails
Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2011 21:19:47
Message-Id: 1666181.zfsoJiljXb@weird
In Reply to: [gentoo-user] Akonadi loses mails by Alan McKinnon
1 Alan McKinnon writes:
2
3 > I am about to get on a damn plane to Germany, find me the entire
4 > collection of KDEPIM devs and shoot every last one of those fuckers
5 > dead. dead. dead. dead.
6
7 Uh-oh. I hope writing this did not put you on some terror list already.
8
9 > Then blow up the repo so this POS will never again see the light of
10 > day.
11
12 Just when I thought this whole akonadification finally starts working.
13
14 > I'm trying to migrate away from kdepim. Nothing else out there imports
15 > KDE folders so I use my usual trick of running a local imap server,
16 > dragging mail trees into it and when the new mail client is started,
17 > everything is right there.
18
19 Or you could create a 'Maildir' akonadi resource, move your kmail folders in
20 there. They should be normal maildir folders, while those KMail-folders are
21 a mix of maildirs and mbox stuff.
22
23 > Akonadi/kmail2 silently destroys the mail when you attempt this.
24 >
25 > I did a few tests, copied small folders, contents of other folders,
26 > etc and satisfied myself it all worked nicely. Then dragged and
27 > dropped nice big chunks of mail tree into the IMAP folders. The mails
28 > appear in the kde view, but THEY ARE NOT ON DISK ANYMORE. What I am
29 > seeing is the akonadi cache, and sooner or later that will expire.
30
31 Ouch. OUCH!
32
33 Um, I assume you know they are really gone? And not just in another
34 location, like, in ~/.local instead of ~/.kde4/share/apps/kmail where you
35 expect them?
36
37 > There was no warning, no dialog, no notification. Just a pile of mail
38 > disappeared. Akonadi/nepomuk/kmail/virtuoso/soprano/strigi didn't do
39 > it's usual stunt of observing that my mouse pointer had moved and
40 > consume 200% of cpu at load 11 for 30 minutes while it reindexed
41 > everything. It appears to have just chucked 2GB of pim data away.
42 >
43 > Need I mention that NOT chucking pim data away is it's primary design
44 > goal (or should be).
45 >
46 > Now finally after 3 years, I understand what all the other ex-KDE
47 > users are on about - this is a stinking pile of bloatcrap and a
48 > solution to a problem that actually does not exist.
49 >
50 > To say that I'm pissed off is putting it mildly.
51 > Tomorrow morning I will decide if KDE4 itself is to be the next
52 > casualty.
53
54 I feel with you. I really do.
55
56 I was very short of dropping most of KDE4 because of the lot of problems I
57 have with this. Instead of ranting here, which I already did a lot, I moved
58 to the KDE mailing list and by now wrote some 50 postings there, describing
59 all the weird stuff that is getting on here. When I was unable to log into
60 KDE (again!), I already tried e17, but wasn't to satisfied either. I decided
61 to wait for 4.7, and some things became better. So I stayed.
62
63 And I don't know what to use else. I'm using the plain shell for many
64 things, and refused to try KDE for a long time, because I feared of nasty
65 effects that indeed happened from time to time. Like, not being able to log
66 in. Or the problem that the KDE password dialog no longer accepted my
67 passwords I could not even unlock my wallet, nothing worked.
68
69 But on the other hand, an integrated desktop environment is a nice thing.
70 Consistent look, the same file dialog for most applications, a wallet (very
71 handy when it works), graphical handling of multimedia files whcih works
72 better than with mc. KWin is a great window manager, with many features that
73 most others do not have, and very customizable. I like my desktop very much,
74 it is beautiful, setting this up again in another environment would be a
75 pain. So I just stay and hope things will eventually become better. I'm
76 doing this for over two years now, it was a mistake to make the switch from
77 KDE 3.5 so early, but I just did not expect the transition to be so long.
78 And now I cannot go back.
79
80 Will you report this on bugs.kde.org, or write to the KDE list? If not, I
81 would forward the essential part of your mail, because the guys there should
82 know what's happening. Losing mails is intolerable. I'm glad I am using IMAP
83 for most mails, so messing up things locally will not make me lose them. Uh,
84 I hope.
85
86 I have a bunch of local mails which I still cannot access. I have to create
87 a Maildir resource pointing to that directory, but this will not make them
88 show up. I was told that I have to create a message in each folder to make
89 them show up. This worked, but when I was nearly done (this takes quite a
90 while with > 10.000 mails), one folder started firing hundreds of
91 notifications about a missing folder. So I stopped this, and decided to try
92 some time again. The mails are not important, and when I need them, there's
93 always mutt.
94
95 I have a log where I note strange things and bugs happening with KDE4. And
96 nearly every day I have to add something there. My personal favorite at the
97 moment is the fact that whenever I start a Konqueror and open a URL,
98 LibreOffice starts, too. I have no idea why this is.
99 We all made jokes when Windows 95 came out, about its 'General Protection
100 Fault' errors, but it's absolutely intolerable how often things crash with
101 KDE4. At least for me, there are other users who do not experience any
102 crashes. I think in my case the causes are that:
103 1) I have a complex setup. Many virtual desktops, terminals grouped to
104 Dolphin file managers, having multiple tabs which two panes each. Lots of
105 running applications. Many different things I do. And the new KDEPIM 4.7.
106 2) I am one seriously unlucky guy. We found this out on the KDE list.
107
108 I used to backup my .kde4 directory regularly, at least before I saved the
109 desktop session because that often does not work. Nowadays, with stuff being
110 on other locations, too, I just back up ~/.*. This has saved me a lot of
111 trouble in the past.
112
113 Wonko