I did an update on Friday, and after a reboot, kmail does not display text in the message window, and it will not connect to the e-mail server to download new mail. It does show the subject lines for all of the 5K messages currently on the machine, as well as subject lines for sent mail...

Any ideas out there?

John.

Here we go: I started kmail in a console. When I quit kmail, I found this stuff on the terminal, so yeah,
something is amiss.

John.

jkh@darkstar:~$ kmail2(4524)/kdecore (KLibrary) kde4Factory: Expected a KPluginFactory, got a Grantlee::ScriptableTagLibrary
kmail2(4524)/kdecore (KLibrary) kde4Factory: The library "/usr/lib64/kde4/kcm_kmail.so" does not offer a KDE 4 compatible factory.
kmail2(4524)/kdecore (KLibrary) kde3Factory: The library "/usr/lib64/kde4/kcm_kmail.so" does not offer an "init_kcm_kmail" function.

One more thing. I scoped out that kcm_kmail.so business, and found this interesting set of dates:

Which is in the /usr/lib64/kde4 directory, I did a ls -lt kcm*

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 68424 Jun 14 14:52 kcm_akonadicontact_actions.so*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 31112 Jun 14 14:52 kcm_kresources.so*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 22864 Jun 14 14:52 kcm_mailtransport.so*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 85688 Nov 26 2018 kcm_autostart.so*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 60472 Nov 26 2018 kcm_desktoppaths.so*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 139632 Nov 26 2018 kcm_desktoptheme.so*
-rw

The first three items have a date of jun 14 2019, while rest of the directory
has dates of nov 26 2018. I'm wondering if this is the reason my system is
crap for kmail right now...

John.

Yes, it generally could be (I don't know in this specific case, I don't use the KDE package category) as KDE components, being C++ programs and libraries, need to be in sync, and should be compiled with the SAME compiler.

You could try recompiling kmail

So, something like:

Or recompiling all of kdenetwork might be a better option, possibly due to other kdenetwork libraries.

It looks for me as akonadi problem. Run (h)top and check if akonadi use hi amount of CPU or is in D state (uninterruptible sleep mode).

If so you can have problem with no good solutions for it. Akonadi sometimes process couple thousands of mails days long (literally!).
- You can wait for this, but during process kmail is mostly unusable.
- You probably use mysql ankonadi backend so you can alter akonadis my.cnf giving there more resources to mysql - this can speedup significantly whole process. But I find out to that files are very often overwritten after reboot (at least in my case was).
- If you use IMAP you can unsubsribe remote folders and subscribe them again - sometimes it helps.
- If you have remotely stored emails (no matter POP3/IMAP) you can always remove mailbox and create it again.

And make sure you have backup of local mails before you alter configurations in this akonadi/kmail state!

That's a good idea, and because Akonadi was
digging into the database, but just not
populating the inbox, I did not consider
Akonadi, and indeed when I looked at top,
Akonadi is using 0 cpu at rest, and cranks
up to 0.7 when it is active, so I don't
think that is the problem. Besides, the
nice folks at KDE make kmail complain in
a big box that Akonadi is kaput. They know
they have a problem with the complexities of
Akonadi, but it's one heck of a lot better
than it used to be.

I understand about Akonadi and what a pain
in the ass it is, but I really like kmail.
I've been using it for about 20 years,
after I gave up on eudora.

John.

Perhaps some of this information will help you get kmail up & running again: https://alien.slackbook.org/blog/tag/akonadi/

I tried that, but it didn't work as expected.
At least now I can read the trash, but that's
it. The data is in ./local/share. There is
a local-mail directory which is nearly empty
with no data that I saw in a cursory look.
Then there is .local-mail.directory, to which
kmail was pointed before I tried your suggestion
to make a new directory. That .local-mail.directory
has 4.4 gigs of data, which is what is not loading.

I'm going to take a powder (smoke something), buy
a back up usb drive and save /home/me. Then
I'll get busy again on this one.

Thunderbird will work in the meanwhile.

Heh. It's always something.

John.

Yes. I prefer TBird. Best of luck with KMail; I am curious to hear how it plays out.

Its time to plasma5 :=)

1 members found this post helpful.

I would really like to see Eric's Plasma 5 added to Slackware64-current. That would *really* add something to Slackware 15.0.

1 members found this post helpful.

Me too , but i start thinking , year 2025 , slackware 15 . conitnues as "current" , with qt4 and kde4 unmantained. :=)

The first little start action is "add qt5" , to start "more intensive testing" (i say more intensive cause slackers are testing qt5 since years from SBo or Eric packages)... its only my opinion , but not suceed in the last year and i request some times, but i stop requests , and no report updates , cause too bored , only when bug or extra configurations for best quality packages possible.

2 members found this post helpful.

Yes. I will stop now as well as I've shared my opinion on plasma a few times.

This box shows if akonadi is not running, but not hangs in processing.

Akonadi have lot of different proceses/threads, separate for each maildir, pop3/imap/smtp entry and more, so maybe you look to wrong one. And you not mention checking for D state (S column). It mean it wait(read hang) for hardware I/O. This also includes to internal mysql. If any process in chain have problem (hi CPU, D state) akonadi have HEAVY lag in processing (sometimes this is one mail per couple of seconds ).

As last resort, you can do total akonadi reset. Do backup; Remove all mails, and akonadi db; Crete fresh empty ones; And import mails form backup.

Plasma5 still have akonadi, there will be no change in this. Moreover it make problems during migration.


I have no idea why they add it in KDE4. Kmail 3 can process thousands mails in seconds, kmail 4 have problems with dozens - progress .

1 members found this post helpful.

Of course , akonadi still present , but ... ops kde4 , use OLD version of akonadi , 1.13 unmantained ?
plasma5 , are using akonadi 19 , then when a problem appears , you think some one go patch old 1.13 ?

If kmail3 works for you then , return to kde3 , or use xfce , or add qt3 from SBo , and try downgrade your kmail version to kmail3 , GOOD LUCK.


Or just can test a LIVE ISO , from Eric , with plasma5 , to test if the problem persist or not.