KDEPIM 4.6 prob^Wimpressions

[Alex Schuster]

Duncan writes:

> Alex Schuster posted on Tue, 28 Jun 2011 23:24:58 +0200 as excerpted:
> > I did the big KDE 4.6.3 -> 4.6.4 upgrade. Along came the change to
> > KDEPIM 4.6. I feared for the worst, and indeed, it didn't work too
> > well.
> 
> Your experience mirrors mine to a large extent.  AFAIK we're both on
> Gentoo.

Right.

[...]
> Meanwhile, I had deliberately not entered my kwallet passwords so the
> remote pop3 accounts, which it DID import properly, couldn't download new
> messages to local storage that wasn't setup correctly yet.  With about
> six accounts spread over two servers, the periodic kwallet popups and
> manual entry popups when I canceled that, for each of them, got
> irritating, but there wasn't much I could do about it as I wanted any
> incoming mail left safely on the remote server until I was sure the local
> storage wasn't screwed up.

I'm so happy to use IMAP for all my accounts now. At least I do not have
to fear too much for my mails, and I can access them with other frontends.

> The second (maildir) import attempt went better, but crashed half way
> thru, apparently because some of the old mail folders were in mbox
> format. (I had tried switching to maildir some years ago, and that was
> the default, but found no way to switch the default folders as I couldn't
> delete the old mbox folders in kmail after I'd copied everything to the
> new maildir folders, so the defaults stayed as mbox, and continued to
> accumulate some mail, altho filters moved most on receipt to sorted
> maildir folders.  And, I had missed a couple non-defaults as well,
> including my family mail folder, which was still in mbox format.)
> 
> The *$#!$& maildir importer was trying to import the mboxes, including
> the huge family mbox, as *SINGLE* *HUGE* *MULTI-GIG* mails, one for each
> mbox!!

Oh dear.

[......]
> Only after performing this kabuki dance at EVERY kde/akonadi restart,
> putting in the kwallet password to get the passwords for the accounts ont
> he first pop3 server, opening kmail and canceling all the mail fetches
> for the second pop3 server accounts that will never get anywhere because
> they're waiting on a kwallet dialog that never appears, manually hitting
> fetchmail again, and entering the kwallet password a second time so
> akonadi/kmail can access the accounts on the second pop3 server, does it
> all work correctly.  I must do this EVERY time I restart the computer, kde
> or akonadi.

What a story. Quite a lot of work just in order to access one's mails,
which was no problem before.

Especially the last part is what annoys me since I use a graphical
desktop environment. The things you have to do after login until the
desktop is ready to use. Like, having to move around Galeon's windows
for years because their position was not saved.
Now, I'm okay with the situation. I only have to:

- enter my kdewallet password
- start the ssh-agent manually because somehow my autostart scripts are
  not run any more (probably easy to fix, I just did not investigate
  yet)
- disable window borders for xosview, as this special window setting is
  being ignored for this application
- On the first start, Kontact always complains that it seems to be
  running already. I can continue or exit. When I continue, Kontact
  crashes. When I exit, all kontact processes are gone, and I can start
  it normally. The bug is known, but sort of closed, because it is
  fixed in KDEPIM 4.6 and will not happen with the new kmail2. So I
  read.
- Is the Some-Akonadi-errors-happened dialog back? I saw it once, but I
  do not remember if it appeared on my last login. I had it for over a
  year, and suddenly it went away.
- Sometimes I have to re-arrange my three chromium windows. I have two
  grouped together and the third on another desktop, and from time to
  time they are mixed up.
- After a few minutes, I get a crash dialog for kde4init or someting.
  It does not seem to harm, the bug is also known already.

The whole login process takes a while, more than a minute at least,
because so many things are being started. Especially plasma takes a long
time to start.

> And while I'm getting no errors now, and mail seems to come in, the whole
> experience, all the bugs, all the beta-quality stuff and missing
> attention to details triggering stupid stuff like the kabuki dance I have
> to go thru every time I restart kde/akonadi, even after YEARS of work,
> all of that, has left me wondering at the stability of the whole setup.

Me too. I'm using KDE4 for over two years now, and still there are many
bugs and things that just do not work like I expect them to be. Like,
why can't I drag an image file from Dolphin into an existing Gwenview
window? Apparently I want this Gwenview to display the image, my desktop
environment should understand this. No big problem, but these things
happen all the time.
Another observation: I saved this mail as draft, and it lost its subject
line. I think it still had one when I hit the reply button.

> What's so wrong with plain maildir and mbox, after all?  Both are common
> standards used across many clients, and it certainly seemed more stable
> with that, than all this does, even after YEARS of work to "get it right".

I don't know much about the details, but for me this Akonadi / Nepomuk
stuff sounds like it makes sense. But it seems it takes much longer than
expected to make it all work right.

> And I've left out all the stuff about properly configuring akonadi
> resources (what you appear to be dealing with), etc, along the way.
> 
> Oh, and the fact that despite the fact I don't need it, I now have
> korganizer, and despite the fact that I don't need nepomuk calendar/alarm/
> search integration and in fact turned nepomuk off as a result, now I get
> multiple notifications at every boot about stuff I deliberately turned
> off because I don't need or want it, with no visible way to turn off the
> stupid warning notifications for stuff that's useless to me!

I don't mind all this stuff. And I just started investigating this
Nepomuk stuff again. I had Nepomuk turned off because it used so many
resources, but about 15 hours ago I turned it on. virtuoso-t was doing
things for a long time (1-3 hours), eating 30% of CPU time. Then I also
activated Strigi, and it still is indexing. Its storage size is 3.2G
with about 500,000 files.

> I really, honestly, have a hard time believing it's all worth it.  I had
> wondered about switching from kmail before, with all this stuff on the
> horizon, but despite the minor hiccups switching to the akonadified
> addressbook, for the most part it still "just worked", without getting in
> my face, and I decided I should at least give the new stuff a try, once
> it came out.

>From time to time I think about dropping KDE4 completely, but I would
miss the nice things too much. And I don't like to spend time
configuring another desktop. If I had known about these problems two
years ago, I probably would not have started using KDE4, but now I can't
stop. And I always hope that with the next update, many problems will be
fixed, and things will be more consistent and stable.

> Well, I've given it a try now, and I honestly can't see how all that
> hassle was worth it!  Plus, I'm now living in constant fear of the
> dreaded akonadi can't-find-the-folder errors and the like, wondering if
> my mail's actually safe, or not.  If it can lose whole FOLDERS, if the
> converter can't tell the difference between mbox and maildir and imports
> mbox as single HUGE mails as a result, if it can't ask ONCE for the
> kwallet password, or at LEAST ask twice in a row if it must, without me
> having to manually cancel about a half-dozen mailchecks that will never
> complete and retrigger a mailcheck so I can enter the kwallet password a
> second time... even after an extra year plus to get it right... what sort
> of faith can I have that it's not going to lose mail on me?  Answer, no
> faith.  At least the previous setup "just worked", only needed one kwallet
> password popup, and had a demonstrated reasonable reliability I didn't
> have to worry about.  That's definitely NOT the case with this new,
> "fancy" thing!

Oh yeah, the fear of doing things. I fear to save the session, because
it is often messed up after this, so I always make a backup before, just
in case. At least my IMAP mails are safe.

> Which leaves me wondering just what mail client I should think about
> trying next.  Why couldn't they have left what was working just fine,
> well enough alone?

I used Thunderbird for a while, but it did not scan for new mails. This
is working fine on Thunderbird @ Windows, but there also were
annoyances, like forgetting to show mails threaded.

> Will I still be on kmail a year from now?  I honestly don't know.

You will, and we'll read about it here :)

> Despite the forces of inertia now that it seems to be at least sort-of
> working, I'd put the chances lower than they've ever been before, at
> perhaps 40-50%.  And if there's just one major "event"...  The question
> I'm asking myself is will it take such an "event"... or I be proactive
> and get off the platform, before such an "event" happens?
[...]
> I guess time will tell...

I'm sure we will read from you here.

	Wonko
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