Evolution mail client issues

Applications
1

Hello, is someone still using the evolution email client?

I am using it since many years. It was working fine. And my last install a year ago was even very easy, I had only to specify the email address, all settings were inferred from provider (all-inkl.com). Then some weeks ago, it was suddenly impossible to delete messages. But a reinstall fixes it. Now I discovered, that I can not send messages any more. I think a few weeks ago that was still possible. The strange message for sending is “This message cannot be sent because you have not specified any recipients” which makes no sense as I specified a recipient. I deleted .config/evolution and did a reinstall. One more strange result is, that after reinstall all messages in inbox get the current date, while old messages should have the old dates. I can receive messages, but still not send. I created a new account on my Gentoo AMD64 Linux box, and got the same behaviour. As evolution was compiled with LTO and mold linker, I recompiled evolution and evolution-data-server without LTO and with default ldd linker. Still same behaviour. I tested my all-inkl.com account with webmail, which works fine. I also tested various evolution configuration options, but always I get only the message “This message cannot be sent because you have not specified any recipients”. Really strange.

2

Hi, please provide your exact Evolution version. Which account type is this about (POP, IMAP, EWS, etc)? See also Apps/Evolution/Debugging - GNOME Wiki!

3

Thank you very much for the link to Apps/Evolution/Debugging - GNOME Wiki!, I did not found that page yesterday. That debugging options may help, I will try it this evening.

Evolution version is now 3.48.4

genlop -t evolution
 * mail-client/evolution

     Wed Jun 29 21:53:08 2022 >>> mail-client/evolution-3.44.1
       merge time: 1 minute and 19 seconds.

     Thu Jul  7 16:39:19 2022 >>> mail-client/evolution-3.44.2
       merge time: 2 minutes and 40 seconds.

     Mon Jul 18 12:44:54 2022 >>> mail-client/evolution-3.44.2
       merge time: 1 minute and 20 seconds.

     Mon Aug  8 10:26:53 2022 >>> mail-client/evolution-3.44.3
       merge time: 1 minute and 21 seconds.

     Sat Sep 17 11:40:14 2022 >>> mail-client/evolution-3.44.4
       merge time: 1 minute and 21 seconds.

     Fri Sep 30 12:53:53 2022 >>> mail-client/evolution-3.44.4-r1
       merge time: 1 minute and 20 seconds.

     Sun Oct  2 11:51:42 2022 >>> mail-client/evolution-3.44.4-r3
       merge time: 1 minute and 21 seconds.

     Sun Dec 11 19:01:34 2022 >>> mail-client/evolution-3.44.4-r4
       merge time: 1 minute and 18 seconds.

     Sun Dec 18 15:19:33 2022 >>> mail-client/evolution-3.46.2
       merge time: 1 minute and 20 seconds.

     Fri Feb 17 18:01:02 2023 >>> mail-client/evolution-3.46.3-r1
       merge time: 1 minute and 25 seconds.

     Fri Mar 17 09:19:39 2023 >>> mail-client/evolution-3.46.3-r1
       merge time: 1 minute and 26 seconds.

     Fri Mar 31 22:30:52 2023 >>> mail-client/evolution-3.46.4
       merge time: 1 minute and 24 seconds.

     Thu May 11 16:52:00 2023 >>> mail-client/evolution-3.48.1
       merge time: 1 minute and 24 seconds.

     Thu Aug  3 15:31:46 2023 >>> mail-client/evolution-3.48.3
       merge time: 1 minute and 23 seconds.

     Fri Aug 18 19:31:36 2023 >>> mail-client/evolution-3.48.4
       merge time: 1 minute and 48 seconds.

     Fri Aug 18 21:53:32 2023 >>> mail-client/evolution-3.48.4
       merge time: 1 minute and 43 seconds.

My Gentoo Linux supports currently only 3.48.4 and 3.48.3, so I can not test older releases any more. But in spring 2022, when I initially set up my Computer, all was working fine. Of course, I can not be sure if my provider may have changed its configuration, it is all-inkl.com. For receiving mail, IMAPx is used, and for sending SMTP.

I really do not understand, why evolution tells me that I have not provided a recipient. Looks as the program just does not see the content of the “To” text entry widget? Actually my box got a gtk update two weeks ago, so I can be not sure if it may be an issue of some gtk libs.

Sun Apr 23 16:42:58 2023 >>> gui-libs/gtk-4.10.3
       merge time: 1 minute and 11 seconds.

     Fri May 26 15:23:07 2023 >>> gui-libs/gtk-4.10.3-r1
       merge time: 1 minute and 12 seconds.

     Wed Jun  7 09:00:55 2023 >>> gui-libs/gtk-4.10.4
       merge time: 1 minute and 12 seconds.

     Mon Aug  7 14:25:54 2023 >>> gui-libs/gtk-4.10.5
       merge time: 1 minute and 11 seconds.
4

You can quickly try the following:

  1. Create a new Linux user account, login to the new user account and try evolution from there.
  2. Try a different SMTP server.

If the above doesn’t solve the issue, and If you can, try building evolution from https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/evolution to rule out any downstream build issue.

5
  1. is, what I already did, and tried to mention in my initial post. 2. is possible, as I have a gmail account for my smartphone. But I really don’t want to damage that account, as it is always some form of fallback, and I do not really know the password for that account. It was created, when I bought my Samsung Android phone five years ago, as that was requested for setting up the phone. Then that account was rarely used, and the phone never asked about a password for the email account, so I have no real idea about the password. Compiling from sources may be another option indeed, but as Gentoo-Linux builds always from sources, that might make not a big difference. Or I may try using the other mail tool, I think it was called gearny. I tried that in spring 2022 when I set up my recent box , but as I have 90000 mails in my inbox collected over a period of 20 years, gearny was not able to process the inbox content in time frame of a few hours, so I canceled the install operation and removed it. One more option may be to try to send a SMPT mail with a Python script, so check which parameters work.
6

We need a debug log. Not “quickly” try a different SMTP server because that’s not “quickly” at all.

7

We need a debug log.

I will try to generate and provide that. I spent more than three hours with this issue on friday, so I have to do some other task currently, but I will try to managed to do it this evening, or at least tomorrow.

8

Note that there is also an issue with parsing dates, fixed in Date header parsing fails persistently due to aliasing issue in datetok() (#484) · Issues · GNOME / evolution-data-server · GitLab

1 Like
9

Note that there is also an issue with parsing dates,

That is interesting, and may explain why all the old posts in the Inbox suddenly get the current date instead of the right old one. I will read the details of that issue soon, and than investigate why SMTP sending fails for me. Thanks.

10 
rm -rf .cache/evolution/
rm -rf .config/evolution/
CAMEL_DEBUG=smtp evolution >& logfile

$ cat logfile 

(evolution:29457): GLib-GIO-WARNING **: 12:30:39.005: Your application did not unregister from D-Bus before destruction. Consider using g_application_run().

I saw that message already a few times when launching evolution from the shell. I assume it is not really related to my SMTP sending issue, the evolution app just thinks that I have not entered a recipient. I will try the other debug options later. Maybe I have to compile evolution, or whole GTK without -O3 and without LTO. Or with an older compiler, current compiler is gcc version 13.2.0.

11

I have just disabled all the optimizations provided by Gentoo-LTO, which includes option -O3 and LTO. After rebuilding evolution-data-server and evolution, I can send mails over SMTP again! As I disabled LTO again on friday, I assume it is am -O3 issue with gcc 13.2.0. The content of the evolution “TO” recipient text widget seems to be not passed to the app, so evolution can not see a recipient and refuses to operate.

The issue with the date still persists, so it seems to be not -O3 and LTO related. But when the next evolution update for Gentoo will become available, that should be fixed.

12

Actually there is one more minor issue, which occurs for several years already, it may be related to my 90000 mails in inbox. When I execute rm -rf .cache/evolution/ and rm -rf .config/evolution/ and then launch evolution, it fetches inbox summary from server successfully, but then displays “Processing folder changes in Inbox” for hours with high CPU activity. But I can terminate the app, and after relaunching it is OK.

13

Hi,
when you say “inbox”, which one do you mean precisely, please? Is it On
This Computer/Inbox or the IMAP Inbox?

Also, when you play with the internal files of the application, you
should also run from a terminal:

evolution --force-shutdown

because there are processes, which have those files and directories
opened, which can cause weird problems. Some desktop environments, like
GNOME Shell, can restart those processes right after you stop them,
thus be careful. Or run the --force-shutdown also after finished with
the cleanup of the internal files.

Bye,
Milan
14

Hi,
it would be good to report it, possibly to the gcc folks, though it
might be useful to also point to a place in the code where the problem
occurs, which I do not know how to find, I’m sorry.

By the way, Evolution is a gtk3 application, not gtk4.

Bye,
Milan
15

I was referring to the IMAP Inbox. The directories listed under “On this Computer” are always empty for me, I have no real idea for what they may be good. Yes, maybe I should report the issues. The problem with the dates seems to be reported already, and will hopefully be fixed soon. The issue with the “To:” recipients field seems to be only an issue when compiled with option -O3. And the high CPU load for hours when processing the Inbox after first install may be hard to debug. Maybe 90000 mails in Inbox is just too much, I should clean it up. It is mostly a result from being subscribed to mailing lists, which was popular some decades ago.

16

IMAP is a remote protocol. So “On this computer” is empty if you don’t use any local protocol (e.g. POP).

1 Like
17

The problem with the dates seems to be reported already, and will
hopefully be fixed soon.

Hi,

it is fixed in the sources for 3.49.2 and later versions for roughly
a month now.

The issue with the “To:” recipients field seems to be only an issue
when compiled with option -O3.

Right, that’s something to be investigated and should be reported.
Ideally with the above mentioned fix applied, in case it’s just a
fallout of it.

And the high CPU load for hours when processing the Inbox after first
install may be hard to debug.

Not that much, once can build with debug symbols (for the evolution-
data-server, evolution and glib2 at least) and then grab a backtrace of
the running process to see what it is trying to do. You can get the
backtrace with a command like this:

$ gdb --batch --ex “t a a bt” --pid=pidof evolution &>bt.txt

Please check the bt.txt for any private information, like passwords,
email addresses, server addresses,… I usually search for “pass” at
least (quotes for clarity only), before sharing it anywhere.

Maybe 90000 mails in Inbox is just too much

Nope, 90k mails is nothing. I’ve an IMAP folder with 238K messages and
the most time it takes to load is when downloading summary information
from the server after entering the account for the first time. I
believe there are users with many more messages in a single folder.

I think this failed due to those optimizations, which trigger some
problem. Whether related to the Date header or not I do not know, but
it might be a good bet, I guess.
Bye,
Milan

1 Like
18

You should keep a log of the build that exhibits the bug and the one that does not (eventually setting the build system to a verbose build).
That is for the GCC issue.

1 Like
19

Short status update:

The issue with date parsing was fixed upstream and provided by Gentoo Linux.

For the not working TO: field, the solution seems to be to compile for GentooLTO with

gnome-extra/evolution-data-server *FLAGS-=“-fno-semantic-interposition”

Before, a reply showed also an empty TO: field, but after recompiling evolution-data-server with removed no-semantic-interposition it works.

I was not able to fix the permanently high CPU load after first use of evolution after a new install, but terminating evolution and restarting fixes it.

This is for AMD64,

mail-client/evolution-3.48.4:2.0::gentoo USE=“bogofilter spell ssl weather -archive -geolocation -gtk-doc -highlight -ldap (-selinux) -spamassassin -ytnef”

gcc version 13.2.1 20230826 (Gentoo 13.2.1_p20230826 p7)

20

For the high CPU load, there still applies what was written above: Evolution mail client issues - #17 by mcrha

1 Like