KMail2 documentation: Troubleshooting

[Ingo Klöcker]

On Samstag, 7. August 2021 18:08:30 CEST David Bryant wrote:
> I'm ready to tackle Chapter 7 (the last chapter, except for Credits!) in the
> KMail2 documentation.

Thanks a lot for updating the handbook!

> All the material is seriously out of date (from 2012)
> and relates to KMail 4.9. So I'm wondering if I ought to leave most of it
> in, or just remove most of it as being irrelevant. If you have an opinion,
> I'd like to hear it.

I'd remove the tips that are most likely no longer relevant for users of the 
current version of KMail and keep the rest.

On UserBase all of the tips included in this chapter and a large number of 
additional tips can be found:
https://userbase.kde.org/KMail/FAQs_Hints_and_Tips

> I have the following specific concerns.
> 
> -- The first section advises users to change the value "Online=false" to
> "Online=true" in file
> ~/.config/akonadi/agent_config_akonadi_maildispatcher_agent in certain
> circumstances. This looks like outmoded advice to me ... I checked all the
> versions of KMail2 that I could (eight different distros), and this file
> always says "DesiredOnlineState=true". So I suppose there has been a
> program update that was never reflected in the documentation.

I think the "Mail Dispatcher Agent is offline" problem shouldn't occur 
anymore. In the past there was no differentiation between "offline because 
network is gone" and "offline on explicit user request". Nowadays, the 
settings reflects the user request which can be changed (for all of KMail) via 
the File menu. I don't think there's are reason to point users to the 
configuration file anymore.

That's 6.1 on https://userbase.kde.org/KMail/FAQs_Hints_and_Tips.

> -- The second section advises people how to recover if the migration from
> KMail to KMail2 fails. I was probably one of the last people to do this,
> putting it off until late 2014. Is there really any point in leaving this
> section in the documentation? I guess I could leave it in, and add a note
> saying that this migration happened about ten years ago.

That's 6.2 on https://userbase.kde.org/KMail/FAQs_Hints_and_Tips.
I'd remove it from the handbook because I doubt many people will still try the 
migration that many years after KMail2 was shipped on most distributions.

> -- The third section describes a bug that caused multiple copies of "local
> folders" to be created by the akonadi server. I vaguely recall this problem,
> but I can't find it among the kmail2 bugzilla reports. It looks as if bug
> reports more than 10 years old have been expunged. So I suppose this bug
> was corrected a long time ago. Leave it in? Or delete it?

That's 6.3 on https://userbase.kde.org/KMail/FAQs_Hints_and_Tips.
I'd remove it from the handbook.

> -- The fourth item involves an error message "Unable to fetch item from
> backend", which I will retain because there are several open bug reports
> involving this particular error message.

That's 4.3 on https://userbase.kde.org/KMail/FAQs_Hints_and_Tips.

> -- Fifth item will also be retained; this problem (mail transport fails) has
> bitten me recently. I'll probably try to add more information ... in my
> experience, "dbus" sometimes fails to work correctly, leading to all kinds
> of trouble (and not just in kmail).

That's 4.4 on https://userbase.kde.org/KMail/FAQs_Hints_and_Tips.

> -- I know of two problems involving akonadi that I have dealt with recently:
> "NULL" entries in pimitemtable (in the mysql "akonadi" database), and
> "dirty" items reported by akonadictl fsck. I will add troubeshooting tips
> for these two problems as part of the rewrite.

Did you check https://userbase.kde.org/KMail/FAQs_Hints_and_Tips?

> Are there any other error conditions that should be covered in
> "troubleshooting tips and tricks"?

Maybe go through https://userbase.kde.org/KMail/FAQs_Hints_and_Tips and copy 
those tips, that you think are still relevant, to the handbook.

Regards,
Ingo
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