[kde-linux] 'Fetch Error' on exit

[Duncan]

Mark Knecht posted on Tue, 07 Feb 2012 09:46:27 -0800 as excerpted:

> After updating to KDE-4.7.4 one of my machines, when exiting KDE at the
> end of the day during a shutdown, so KDE is gone but X hasn't shut off
> yet, I'm now seeing a black background with a dialog window that just
> says :
> 
> 'Unknown error'
> 
> The title on the dialog box says only 'Fetch job error', or at least
> that's my guess. The box is not resizable and I cannot see anything to
> the right off 'err..'
> 
> From Googling around it seems to be a moderately common problem.
> Generally people seem to think it points at akonadi which I guess is
> some sort of database or something like that. Some folks suggest
> deleting old stuff that uses the database will fix it but knowing what
> that things those might be eludes me at this time.
> 
> It's interesting to me that this error does not occur if I just start
> KDE and immediately exit so apparently it has to do with things KDE does
> as the day progresses.
> 
> 1) Is anyone else seeing this?
> 
> 2) What sort of things do I need to clean up to get rid of this error?
> 
> 3) Is there some place where KDE logs messages about what it does all
> day long?
> 
> The machine is Gentoo based, mostly stable, and has run KDE for a couple
> of years since it was built.

Gentooer here, too! =:^)  But I'm running a generally ~amd64 system with 
the gentoo/kde overlay and currently the latest kde release, 4.8.0.  
FWIW, I also ran the 4.8 prereleases, betas 1 and 2 and rcs 1 and 2 
(versions 4.7.80, 4.7.90, 4.7.95 and 4.7.98, IIRC).  Similarly, I'm 
running a direct Linus upstream git kernel, currently 3.3.0-rc2-172-
g23703f8, gcc-4.6.2, binutils-2.22.52.0.1, portage-2.2.0_alpha85, 
grub-1.99, live-git openrc-9999 updated every few days, etc, all of which 
are either package.keyworded ** or package.unmasked in ordered to merge 
them.  So I'm definitely running somewhat ahead of many of your packages, 
including kde.

FWIW, I got fed up with akonadi, however, and unmerged all of kdepim in 
ordered to be able to unmerge it.  With it unmerged, I was able to set 
USE=-semantic-desktop, etc, so I have all that turnakonadied off as 
well.  You'd be AMAZED at how much faster kde runs now!  I know I was -- 
it was like an MSWormOS user finding out how much either the malware or 
the malware scanners had been slowing him down or like getting a free 
half-gigahertz or another couple cores CPU upgrade!  I was /reasonably/ 
happy with kde4 before, but now I'm MUCH happier with it! =:^)

However, kmail, akregator, korganizer, knode, kaddressbook, etc, are part 
of kdepim and thus pull in akonadi, so if you use any of them you'll have 
to switch to something else if you decide to go the no-akonadi and 
possibly no-semantic-desktop route, as I did.  FWIW, I ran kmail and 
akregator, but switched to the gtk-based claws-mail for both.  Given the 
decade-plus of mail archive I have, the conversion wasn't fun, but it 
wasn't much worse than the conversion from pre-akonadi kmail1 as found in 
kdepim-4.4, to akonadi-based kmail2 as found in kdepim 4.6+.

I haven't seen that error, but since I switched to claws-mail and unmerged 
all kdepim and akonadi before kde 4.7.1 (I was off of kmail for 4.7.0 but 
was still using akregator so couldn't unmerge akonadi until I could 
switch off akregator as well), if it's an akonadi issue, I'd not expect 
to.

What is akonadi?  It's the common database middleware that all of kdepim 
is gradually converting to use.  It can actually use one of several 
database backends, including mysql (the original default) and sqlite (the 
newer default).  The first kdepim app converted was kaddressbook, with 
kdepim 4.4.  kmail was next, but that was a major project, so there was 
no kdepim 4.5, and kdepim 4.6 was released with the converted kmail2, but 
not considered stable or released in version sync with the rest of kde 
sc.  With 4.7, kdepim synced with the rest of kde sc again, but on gentoo, 
it remains possible to run current kde (thru 4.8.0 at least) with the old 
kdepim 4.4.x and thus the old unakonadified kmail, since the akonadified 
kmail2 is still problematic for many people.

But upstream kde/kdepim are no longer updating the older 4.4.x version, 
so it'll gradually get more and more difficult to keep it working with 
current kde, until various distros decide to drop it.  gentoo/kde is 
keeping the old kdepim 4.4 for use with kde 4.8, only because they've 
seen no major issues with it that they hadn't already worked thru for 
4.7, but eventually, there will be issues and gentoo/kde isn't going to 
put a lot more effort into fixing them, so whenever they come up, you can 
expect gentoo to drop the old kdepim 4.4 series.

Meanwhile, with kmail2 as it's found in kdepim 4.6+, it's now akonadi 
that does all the mail fetches, etc.  Presumably, it's one of those jobs 
that's failing, leaving the dialog box behind.  Of course, that's 
assuming that everybody's guess about what that box belongs to, akonadi, 
is correct...

Personally, given that I've already stated that I switched off of kmail 
and dumped all of kdepim as I simply didn't find the akonadified version 
worth the trouble any more, it should be obvious that's what I 
recommend.  I also expect you'll be quite pleasantly surprised at how 
much faster kde is if you kill akonadi and friends, especially if you 
take the opportunity to kill semantic-desktop at the same time.

And I can also say that I've been very happy with claws-mail as a 
replacement, altho the conversion wasn't particularly easy.

But of course, all that is up to you.  If despite that dialog, you're 
finding that the akonadified kmail, etc, is working well for you, as it 
surely will for some people, by all means, go ahead and keep using it, if 
you wish.  But if you've thought about trying something else out, now's 
the time to do it.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman