Bug 21486 - Kmail 5.4.3 sticks on new email: 'Retrieving folder contents' - then on all folders
Summary: Kmail 5.4.3 sticks on new email: 'Retrieving folder contents' - then on all f...
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: Mageia
Classification: Unclassified
Component: RPM Packages (show other bugs)
Version: 6
Hardware: x86_64 Linux
Priority: Normal normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: KDE maintainers
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2017-08-10 18:48 CEST by Maurice Batey
Modified: 2018-09-17 08:13 CEST (History)
2 users (show)

See Also:
Source RPM: akonadi-16.12.3-2.mga6, kmail-16.12.3-2.mga6
CVE:
Status comment:


Attachments

Description Maurice Batey 2017-08-10 18:48:39 CEST
Description of problem:

  After downloading a new email, Kmail puts up colourful warning:
    "Retrieving folder contents", not only for new email but for all existing  emails in all folders!

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
   (See above)

How reproducible:

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Start kmail 5.4.3
2. Download new email
3. Select new email: Message body fills with "Retrieving folder contents".
4. Note that same message now appears for all existing emails, and will not go away...
5. Kmail no longer usable...

N.B. That message does appear on Mageia-5, but only momentarily, and only for 1 email.
Comment 1 Maurice Batey 2017-08-10 18:56:10 CEST
P.S.

(1) Email is POP3.

(2) Others finding same problem e.g.:
 
    https://github.com/KrissN/akonadi-ews/issues/23
Marja Van Waes 2017-08-11 12:22:16 CEST

Assignee: bugsquad => kde
CC: (none) => marja11

Comment 2 Maurice Batey 2017-08-14 17:45:35 CEST
Because I quite like Mageia-6, I kept going back to it - in the hope that somehow this problem had cleared.

Because I had also discovered that Mageia-6 KMail had 'lost' a particular email that Mageia-5 Kmail has not (and they are both using the same ~/mail directory), I bit the bullet and rebuilt the Akonadi database, with the hope that it might clear the 'Retrieving...' freeze and/or reveal the missing email.
  
That is to say, I did the following (according to notes made some weeks ago):

  (1) akonadictl stop
  (2) Delete the ~/.local/share/akonadi directory
  (3) akonadictl start

Now, according to my notes that would cause akonadi to rebuild that directory, but the first thing that happened on doing 'akonadictl start' was a stream of error messages as follows:

----------------------------------------------
FATAL ERROR: Could not find errmsg.sys

The following directories were searched:

    //share/english
    //share/mysql/english

If you compiled from source, you need to either run 'make install' to
copy the software into the correct location ready for operation.
If you don't want to do a full install, you can use the --srcddir
option to only install the mysql database and privilege tables

If you are using a binary release, you must either be at the top
level of the extracted archive, or pass the --basedir option
pointing to that location.

The latest information about mysql_install_db is available at
https://mariadb.com/kb/en/installing-system-tables-mysql_install_db
/bin/mysqlcheck: Got error: 1049: Unknown database 'akonadi' when selecting the database
----------------------------------------

- which suggested a bad ending!

However, when I then did:

[mab@newpc ~]$ akonadictl stop
[mab@newpc ~]$ akonadictl start

it seemed to started up again:

[mab@newpc ~]$ akonadi.collectionattributetable                   OK
akonadi.collectionmimetyperelation                 OK
akonadi.collectionpimitemrelation                  OK
akonadi.collectiontable                            OK
akonadi.flagtable                                  OK
akonadi.mimetypetable                              OK
akonadi.parttable                                  OK
akonadi.parttypetable                              OK
akonadi.pimitemflagrelation                        OK
akonadi.pimitemtable                               OK
akonadi.pimitemtagrelation                         OK
akonadi.relationtable                              OK
akonadi.relationtypetable                          OK
akonadi.resourcetable                              OK
akonadi.schemaversiontable                         OK
akonadi.tagattributetable                          OK
akonadi.tagremoteidresourcerelationtable           OK
akonadi.tagtable                                   OK
akonadi.tagtypetable                               OK

- after which Kmail - when then started - gradually showed the complete set of folders and their contents, though I had to reset each Folder View to my original preference, and - in each filter in the filter list - re-specify into which folder emails were to be placed.

The 320+MiB ~/.local/share/akonadi directory had been rebuilt.

  But Mageia-6 Kmail still does not show the missing email....

However, since than (2 days) there has been no recurrence of the 'retrieving folder contents' problem, so I will soldier on with Mageia-6 for the time being, and report any change here...
Comment 3 Maurice Batey 2017-08-20 13:34:42 CEST
Still on Mageia-6 and - 6 days later - still no sign of any "Retrieving Folder Contents'.

So it seems that rebuilding the Akonadi database (see above) has solved the  problem - for me - but  it remains to be seen if others still have it.
Comment 4 Maurice Batey 2017-09-02 14:57:29 CEST
On 017-08-20 @ 13:34:42 CEST I said:

"Still on Mageia-6 and - 6 days later - still no sign of any "Retrieving Folder Contents'."

Sadly, 15 days later Kmail is yet again frozen on "Retrieving Folder Contents" on all folders, after  2 new emails arrived in one folder.

Any solution in sight, other than rebuilding the Akokadi DB all over again?

I really don't want to have to revert to using Mageia-5 to avoid that, but...
Comment 5 Maurice Batey 2017-09-02 18:15:14 CEST
> Any solution in sight?

 Managed to break out of the "Retrieving Folder Contents" hangup by:

(1) Close kmail

(2) Do 'akonadictl stop' (Check stopped with 'akonadictl status'?)

(3) Start kmail

So may be able to hang on in Mageia-6...
Comment 6 Maurice Batey 2017-09-07 18:52:15 CEST
>  So may be able to hang on in Mageia-6...

  Sadly, not to be, so until this is fixed I shall revert to Mageia-5.

Pity, as I otherwise quite like Mageia-6.
Comment 7 Maurice Batey 2017-09-29 12:41:54 CEST
Whilst no such problem on desktop plasma Mageia-6, on the laptop (with same inst all of 64-bit Mageia-6 Classic DVD) - it still hangs on "Retrieving Folder Contents" - whichever inbox folder is selected, EVEN IF I have cloned the ~/.config/akonadi and ~/mail folders from the happy desktop Mageia-6 onto the laptop, the latter's Kmail still hangs forever on "Retrieving Folder Contents" - whichever inbox folder is selected.

Hence I cannot move over onto Mageia-6 on the laptop.

When might it be possible to update Mageia-6's Kmail from 5.4.3 to the later 5.5x version?
Comment 8 Maurice Batey 2017-09-30 14:01:25 CEST
N.B. On Feruary 24, in the gmane kde.users.pim newsgroup there was the following posting:

-----------------------------------
"17.04 will be KMail 5.5.

More importantly, there is a fix for the "Retrieving folders" hang now:
https://cgit.kde.org/akonadi.git/commit/?h=Applications/
16.12&id=d42f94701f38c26cf3439727b50ee73cf0d09bee

It will be available in 16.12.3 which is due in March. It should apply on
16.12.2 without major issues if you want to backport the patch to your
packaging."
-----------------------------------

But no sign yet of the 16.12.3 update (or Kmail 5.5) in Mageia-6. 
Anyone have news of them?

In the meantime Kmail continues to be unusable on the laptop's install of Mageia-6 (although the identical install on desktop is quite happy still...).
Comment 9 Maurice Batey 2017-09-30 18:39:53 CEST
> EVEN IF I have cloned the ~/.config/akonadi and ~/mail folders from the happy 
> desktop Mageia-6 onto the laptop, the latter's Kmail still hangs forever on 
> "Retrieving Folder Contents" - whichever inbox folder is selected.

Progress! 
   In addition to the above 2 folders I have also cloned a copy of the matching ~/.local/share/akonadi folder, and NOW the 'Retrieving folder contents' situation does not arise!

I'm hoping this will now persist so I shall be able to move over to Mageia-6 on the laptop,. so will 'soak test' for a day or two...
Comment 10 Maurice Batey 2017-10-02 15:18:07 CEST
Dammit, now another "retrieving..." lockup on Mageia-6 on desktop.

(Was able to clear it with akonadictl stop/start this time, but has not worked on other occasions.)

Having to reconsider staying with Magei1-5 after all...
Comment 11 Nicolas Lécureuil 2017-10-02 15:40:50 CEST
we may consider updating mageia 6 to kde applications 17.12 ;)

CC: (none) => mageia

Comment 12 Maurice Batey 2017-10-02 19:34:53 CEST
Sounds promising (if it includes a better Akonadi)!

When might the big day be?
Comment 13 Nicolas Lécureuil 2017-10-02 23:16:47 CEST
along with plasma 5.12 and qt 5.9 ;)
Comment 14 Maurice Batey 2017-10-06 12:42:07 CEST
The quickest way I've found to get out of a "Retrieving Folder Contents" lockup is:

   (1) Exit Kmail
   (2) akonadictl stop
   (3) Open Kmail (which invites select 'Start Akonadi')
   (4) Click on that 'Start' button

      After a brief appearance of "Retrieving..." the lockup has gone.
Comment 15 Maurice Batey 2017-10-25 13:04:18 CEST
Famous last words - that fix no longer seems to work.

So - as Kmail is locked up on that, it is no longer usable, so - much as I like Mageia-6 - I shall have to revert to Mageia-5 for the time being.

Oh dear, oh dear...
Comment 16 Maurice Batey 2017-12-02 17:49:56 CET
What news of:

[Comment 11]
"... we may consider updating mageia 6 to kde applications 17.12"

[Comment 13]

 "...along with plasma 5.12 and qt 5.9"


please?

(Still stuck with Mageia-5 because of this problem.)
Comment 17 Maurice Batey 2018-03-07 18:20:53 CET
Have been trying another user's Kmail on Mageia-6 - someone who does not use filters on incoming email.

No occurrence of 'Retrieving Folder Contents' hangup, so the problem seems to be only with *filtered* emails...
Comment 18 Maurice Batey 2018-09-14 19:06:53 CEST
I'm delighted to say that prolonged testing with Mageia-6.1 has shown that the "Retrieving Folder Contents" hangup has GONE, presumably dealt with by the Plasma Grand Update.

So as far as I am concerned this bug can be closed.

N.B. There is  evidence that filtering into subfolders is still causing duplicate emails to appear, but that's a different and less troublesome matter...
Comment 19 Nicolas Lécureuil 2018-09-17 08:13:20 CEST
tks closing.

Resolution: (none) => FIXED
Status: NEW => RESOLVED


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