something is really wrong with my kmail/kontact

[E. Hakan Duran]

Dear all,

Not sure what caused the issues below, but I have the below-listed issues with kontact/kmail that appeared within the last week or two, and I can really use some recommendation as to how to solve them:

1.The toolbar button to compose new email is not functional. Clicking that button does not cause any response.
2. Typing anything in the search bar above the email list view causes immediate crash of kontact.
3. There is one email account (IMAP) that I removed from the kmail settings, which still is listed in folder view as offline. I cannot remove it from the folder view although this account technically does not exist anywhere else.
4. There are 2 email account that don't sync with the server. Connecting those account with the browser would show recent emails that are not listed by kmail. Checking mail by kmail seems to work on the surface by progress bar, etc. but it actually doesn't and recent emails are not listed/downloaded. Other email accounts (5) seems to function as expected.

I am speculating that something is corrupted in my KDEPIM settings. I tried removing accounts and adding them as new accounts via Kmail settings, which actually created the problem #3; therefore I am hesitant to use that approach again for problem #4. Is there a way to reset the whole KDEPIM and starting from scratch? If so, would you recommend it?

Thanks,

Hakan Duran

[René J.V. Bertin]

On Thursday July 05 2018 22:14:51 E. Hakan Duran wrote:

Hi,

I'm guessing you already restarted akonadi and possibly the entire machine? How about updates you installed recently, can you tie the "stopped working" to something like that?

Just to be certain, try
%> akonadictl fsck
%> akonadictl vacuum
before starting kontact or kmail. There may or may not be terminal feedback, so run `top` in another window to monitor each command before you start the next (depending on your configuration you may see akonadiserver become active or else mysqld).

Post by E. Hakan Duran
1.The toolbar button to compose new email is not functional. Clicking that button does not cause any response.

Do the corresponding menu entry and shortcut work?

Post by E. Hakan Duran
2. Typing anything in the search bar above the email list view causes immediate crash of kontact.

Regardless what is wrong with your settings or other this sounds like a bug you should report. Normally DrKonqi should start when a crash occurs, and it should guide you to obtain a useful backtrace and report that.

Post by E. Hakan Duran
Is there a way to reset the whole KDEPIM and starting from scratch? If so, would you recommend it?

Not a very easy one as far as I know because settings files are scattered over different locations. But unless you have something crucial you don't want to lose (like email that's no longer on the server) you could trash everything in ~/.config, ~/.local/share and ~/.cache with names that contain kontact, kmail and akonadi. It's an invasive step, but it *is* usually recommended when trying to get something to work again after it stopped working for no apparent reason.
Of course you can move all those files and directories to a backup location instead of deleting them. That would allow you to restore them one by one and possibly pinpoint the culprit.

R

[E. Hakan Duran]

Post by René J.V. Bertin
I'm guessing you already restarted akonadi and possibly the entire machine? How about updates you installed recently, can you tie the "stopped working" to something like that?

Rebooting the computer fixed the toolbar button for new mail; it is now working as expected.
I believe this issue may have something to do with the latest updates' installation. It included a lot of kde stuff, which may have been the underlying cause.
I am embarrassed to not have done this before asking.

Post by René J.V. Bertin
Just to be certain, try
%> akonadictl fsck
%> akonadictl vacuum
before starting kontact or kmail. There may or may not be terminal feedback, so run `top` in another window to monitor each command before you start the next (depending on your configuration you may see akonadiserver become active or else mysqld).

This actually helped clean the deleted account from folder view (original mail, question 3). I believe email account syncing issue was also fixed after this.

Post by René J.V. Bertin

Post by E. Hakan Duran
2. Typing anything in the search bar above the email list view causes immediate crash of kontact.

Regardless what is wrong with your settings or other this sounds like a bug you should report. Normally DrKonqi should start when a crash occurs, and it should guide you to obtain a useful backtrace and report that.

I reported it as a bug (#396299). This is one of the tools I use the most in Kmail, I am so bummed to not be able to use it anymore. DrKonqi does not start when a crash occurs. I did start kontact from konsole and typed in the search box causing the crash. This is what I got as error messages:

... (so many lines of the same warning below)
[warn] epoll_wait: Bad file descriptor
KCrash: crashing... crashRecursionCounter = 2
KCrash: Application Name = kontact path = /usr/bin pid = 14213
KCrash: Arguments: /usr/bin/kontact
[warn] epoll_wait: Bad file descriptor
[warn] epoll_wait: Bad file descriptor
[warn] epoll_wait: Bad file descriptor
[warn] epoll_wait: Bad file descriptor
[warn] epoll_wait: Bad file descriptor
[warn] epoll_wait: Bad file descriptor
[warn] epoll_wait: Bad file descriptor
[warn] epoll_wait: Bad file descriptor
[warn] epoll_wait: Bad file descriptor
Aborted (core dumped)

Post by René J.V. Bertin

Post by E. Hakan Duran
Is there a way to reset the whole KDEPIM and starting from scratch? If so, would you recommend it?

Not a very easy one as far as I know because settings files are scattered over different locations. But unless you have something crucial you don't want to lose (like email that's no longer on the server) you could trash everything in ~/.config, ~/.local/share and ~/.cache with names that contain kontact, kmail and akonadi. It's an invasive step, but it *is* usually recommended when trying to get something to work again after it stopped working for no apparent reason.
Of course you can move all those files and directories to a backup location instead of deleting them. That would allow you to restore them one by one and possibly pinpoint the culprit.

Thank you for the pointers René, I held off doing this for now. It is a lot of work with no guarantee for fixing the search box issue for example.

Post by René J.V. Bertin
I'm not having any problems you've listed below. It will be helpful if you provide some version numbers so people can compare notes.

I apologize for this oversight: I use Kontact 5.8.2 on Manjaro Linux (Arch -based) latest (rolling) release with kernel 4.16.18-1. As I indicated above, some of the issues I was having resolved by rebooting the computer, but others didn't, most important being the search box issue. I wonder if this has anything to do with baloo.

Thanks,

Hakan

[René J.V. Bertin]

On Saturday July 07 2018 21:25:44 E. Hakan Duran wrote:

Hi,

Post by E. Hakan Duran
I am embarrassed to not have done this before asking.

It would probably have been enough to log off and back in, but yeah, after a big upgrade a reboot is often necessary if not only to start using all the updated stuff.

Post by E. Hakan Duran
I reported it as a bug (#396299).
[warn] epoll_wait: Bad file descriptor
KCrash: crashing... crashRecursionCounter = 2
KCrash: Application Name = kontact path = /usr/bin pid = 14213
KCrash: Arguments: /usr/bin/kontact
[warn] epoll_wait: Bad file descriptor

Do you have DrKonqi installed? It should be in its own package nowadays.
It doesn't always start though, and you don't always get feedback when attempts failed (or weren't even made). I've never really understood the why and how of that.
The epoll_wait warning suggests that the kontact crash is a side-effect, that the cause is somewhere else in the intricate hatpin structure of Akonadi that's been corrupted by the recent update.
If you don't get the feedback on the bug ticket, you can get a backtrace by launching kontact through the debugger:

%> gdb /usr/bin/kontact
%(gdb) r
% #after the crash
%(gdb) thread apply all bt

Post by E. Hakan Duran
I wonder if this has anything to do with baloo.

IIRC KDEPIM stopped using baloo directly a while ago already, at least the desktop search part of it (and probably because baloo desktop search only works on Linux AFAIK).

R.

[E. Hakan Duran]

Post by René J.V. Bertin
Do you have DrKonqi installed? It should be in its own package nowadays.
It doesn't always start though, and you don't always get feedback when attempts failed (or weren't even made). I've never really understood the why and how of that.

I figured that DrKonqi was not installed and installed it. However, as you mentioned, it doesn't automatically start with the crash I described before.

Post by René J.V. Bertin
The epoll_wait warning suggests that the kontact crash is a side-effect, that the cause is somewhere else in the intricate hatpin structure of Akonadi that's been corrupted by the recent update.
%> gdb /usr/bin/kontact
%(gdb) r
% #after the crash
%(gdb) thread apply all bt

I became impatient and ran the debugger to get the backtrace without waiting for the feedback on the bug ticket. This is what I got:
https://paste.lucko.me/USWQvhHiuu

Thank you again for your help.

Hakan

[René J.V. Bertin]

On Sunday July 08 2018 11:04:26 E. Hakan Duran wrote:

Hi,

Post by E. Hakan Duran
https://paste.lucko.me/USWQvhHiuu

I can't you help much with this, other than to observe that you seem to be hitting an "ASSERT", that is a cheap way to handle an unforeseen situation that shouldn't occur (and sometimes one that can really not be handled gracefully).
I suggest that you figure out how to install the debug symbols for Akonadi (at least for the package that installed libKF5AkonadiCore), QtCore and GLib2; regenerate a backtrace and then attach it to the ticket on BKO.

R.

[E. Hakan Duran]

Post by René J.V. Bertin
I can't you help much with this, other than to observe that you seem to be hitting an "ASSERT", that is a cheap way to handle an unforeseen situation that shouldn't occur (and sometimes one that can really not be handled gracefully).
I suggest that you figure out how to install the debug symbols for Akonadi (at least for the package that installed libKF5AkonadiCore), QtCore and GLib2; regenerate a backtrace and then attach it to the ticket on BKO.

Thank you so much for helping me with this so far René. I see what I can do from here on and will post updates. I couldn't find debug symbols for any akonadi-related package after a quick search, but I will try some more. If nothing works, I will destroy KDEPIM and rebuild it as the last choice.

Hakan

[Ianseeks]

Post by E. Hakan Duran
Dear all,

I'm not having any problems you've listed below. It will be helpful if you provide some version numbers so people can compare notes.

Post by E. Hakan Duran
1.The toolbar button to compose new email is not functional. Clicking that button does not cause any response.
2. Typing anything in the search bar above the email list view causes immediate crash of kontact.
3. There is one email account (IMAP) that I removed from the kmail settings, which still is listed in folder view as offline. I cannot remove it from the folder view although this account technically does not exist anywhere else.
4. There are 2 email account that don't sync with the server. Connecting those account with the browser would show recent emails that are not listed by kmail. Checking mail by kmail seems to work on the surface by progress bar, etc. but it actually doesn't and recent emails are not listed/downloaded. Other email accounts (5) seems to function as expected.
I am speculating that something is corrupted in my KDEPIM settings. I tried removing accounts and adding them as new accounts via Kmail settings, which actually created the problem #3; therefore I am hesitant to use that approach again for problem #4. Is there a way to reset the whole KDEPIM and starting from scratch? If so, would you recommend it?
Thanks,
Hakan Duran

[u***@gmx.net]

Post by E. Hakan Duran
Dear all,

(...)

Post by E. Hakan Duran
1.The toolbar button to compose new email is not functional. Clicking that
button does not cause any response.

Same here, but only sometimes. Today it began after switching from "contacts"
back to "email".

If I create a new Mail via menubar instead of toolbar there is no problem...

Kubuntu 18.04 (fresh installation)
Kontact 5.7.3.
KDE Frameworks 5.44.0

Uli

[E. Hakan Duran]

Post by u***@gmx.net
...
Same here, but only sometimes. Today it began after switching from "contacts"
back to "email".
If I create a new Mail via menubar instead of toolbar there is no problem...

Uli,

My problem resolved after rebooting the computer> I believe in my case it was the recent update of a KDE component (kwin perhaps) that led to this issue. Once I rebooted (hence logged in to KDE again), the button started working normally. What I also observed before rebooting, but did not report, was the X window button, not closing the window, however File>Quit would. Please try logging off and re-logging in to KDE, or perhaps rebooting.

Thanks,

Hakan

[Uli Geisler]

Post by E. Hakan Duran

Post by u***@gmx.net
...
Same here, but only sometimes. Today it began after switching from
"contacts" back to "email".
If I create a new Mail via menubar instead of toolbar there is no problem...

Uli,
My problem resolved after rebooting the computer> I believe in my case it
was the recent update of a KDE component (kwin perhaps) that led to this
issue. Once I rebooted (hence logged in to KDE again), the button started
working normally. What I also observed before rebooting, but did not
report, was the X window button, not closing the window, however File>Quit
would. Please try logging off and re-logging in to KDE, or perhaps
rebooting.

Thanks, Hakan, but that does not change anything. And normally the button to
create new mail is working, but sometimes not. And the X window button is also
not working...

Uli

Post by E. Hakan Duran
Thanks,
Hakan

[E. Hakan Duran]

Post by E. Hakan Duran
...
2. Typing anything in the search bar above the email list view causes immediate crash of kontact.

I was able to resolve this issue by
1. renaming ~/.local/share/akonadi/search_db and forcing akonadi to rebuild a search index, and
2. renaming ~/.local/share/baloo (which contained 7.7 GB data).
The search bow is now working as expected; however, if I rename the folder back to ~/.local/share/baloo, I can reproduce the crash :).

Sometimes you just need to be lucky ;). I am just posting this hoping that it may help somebody else in the future. I will also post it as a comment to the bug report I created.

Thanks!

Hakan