Re: [gentoo-user] Akonadi loses mails

[Alex Schuster <wonko@wonkology.org>]

Alan McKinnon writes:

> I am about to get on a damn plane to Germany, find me the entire
> collection of KDEPIM devs and shoot every last one of those fuckers
> dead. dead. dead. dead.

Uh-oh. I hope writing this did not put you on some terror list already.

> Then blow up the repo so this POS will never again see the light of
> day.

Just when I thought this whole akonadification finally starts working.

> I'm trying to migrate away from kdepim. Nothing else out there imports
> KDE folders so I use my usual trick of running a local imap server,
> dragging mail trees into it and when the new mail client is started,
> everything is right there.

Or you could create a 'Maildir' akonadi resource, move your kmail folders in 
there. They should be normal maildir folders, while those KMail-folders are 
a mix of maildirs and mbox stuff.

> Akonadi/kmail2 silently destroys the mail when you attempt this.
> 
> I did a few tests, copied small folders, contents of other folders,
> etc and satisfied myself it all worked nicely. Then dragged and
> dropped nice big chunks of mail tree into the IMAP folders. The mails
> appear in the kde view, but THEY ARE NOT ON DISK ANYMORE. What I am
> seeing is the akonadi cache, and sooner or later that will expire.

Ouch. OUCH!

Um, I assume you know they are really gone? And not just in another 
location, like, in ~/.local instead of ~/.kde4/share/apps/kmail where you 
expect them?

> There was no warning, no dialog, no notification. Just a pile of mail
> disappeared. Akonadi/nepomuk/kmail/virtuoso/soprano/strigi didn't do
> it's usual stunt of observing that my mouse pointer had moved and
> consume 200% of cpu at load 11 for 30 minutes while it reindexed
> everything. It appears to have just chucked 2GB of pim data away.
> 
> Need I mention that NOT chucking pim data away is it's primary design
> goal (or should be).
> 
> Now finally after 3 years, I understand what all the other ex-KDE
> users are on about - this is a stinking pile of bloatcrap and a
> solution to a problem that actually does not exist.
> 
> To say that I'm pissed off is putting it mildly.
> Tomorrow morning I will decide if KDE4 itself is to be the next
> casualty.

I feel with you. I really do.

I was very short of dropping most of KDE4 because of the lot of problems I 
have with this. Instead of ranting here, which I already did a lot, I moved 
to the KDE mailing list and by now wrote some 50 postings there, describing 
all the weird stuff that is getting on here. When I was unable to log into 
KDE (again!), I already tried e17, but wasn't to satisfied either. I decided 
to wait for 4.7, and some things became better. So I stayed.

And I don't know what to use else. I'm using the plain shell for many 
things, and refused to try KDE for a long time, because I feared of nasty 
effects that indeed happened from time to time. Like, not being able to log 
in. Or the problem that the KDE password dialog no longer accepted my 
passwords  I could not even unlock my wallet, nothing worked.

But on the other hand, an integrated desktop environment is a nice thing. 
Consistent look, the same file dialog for most applications, a wallet (very 
handy when it works), graphical handling of multimedia files whcih works 
better than with mc. KWin is a great window manager, with many features that 
most others do not have, and very customizable. I like my desktop very much, 
it is beautiful, setting this up again in another environment would be a 
pain. So I just stay and hope things will eventually become better. I'm 
doing this for over two years now, it was a mistake to make the switch from 
KDE 3.5 so early, but I just did not expect the transition to be so long. 
And now I cannot go back.

Will you report this on bugs.kde.org, or write to the KDE list? If not, I 
would forward the essential part of your mail, because the guys there should 
know what's happening. Losing mails is intolerable. I'm glad I am using IMAP 
for most mails, so messing up things locally will not make me lose them. Uh, 
I hope.

I have a bunch of local mails which I still cannot access. I have to create 
a Maildir resource pointing to that directory, but this will not make them 
show up. I was told that I have to create a message in each folder to make 
them show up. This worked, but when I was nearly done (this takes quite a 
while with > 10.000 mails), one folder started firing hundreds of 
notifications about a missing folder. So I stopped this, and decided to try 
some time again. The mails are not important, and when I need them, there's 
always mutt.

I have a log where I note strange things and bugs happening with KDE4. And 
nearly every day I have to add something there. My personal favorite at the 
moment is the fact that whenever I start a Konqueror and open a URL, 
LibreOffice starts, too. I have no idea why this is.
We all made jokes when Windows 95 came out, about its 'General Protection 
Fault' errors, but it's absolutely intolerable how often things crash with 
KDE4. At least for me, there are other users who do not experience any 
crashes. I think in my case the causes are that:
1) I have a complex setup. Many virtual desktops, terminals grouped to 
Dolphin file managers, having multiple tabs which two panes each. Lots of 
running applications. Many different things I do. And the new KDEPIM 4.7.
2) I am one seriously unlucky guy. We found this out on the KDE list.

I used to backup my .kde4 directory regularly, at least before I saved the 
desktop session because that often does not work. Nowadays, with stuff being 
on other locations, too, I just back up ~/.*. This has saved me a lot of 
trouble in the past.

	Wonko