[korganizer] [Bug 439656] New: Reminder windows not displayed

[bugzilla_noreply at kde.org]

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=439656

            Bug ID: 439656
           Summary: Reminder windows not displayed
           Product: korganizer
           Version: 5.16.3
          Platform: Other
                OS: Linux
            Status: REPORTED
          Severity: normal
          Priority: NOR
         Component: reminder daemon (korgac)
          Assignee: kdepim-bugs at kde.org
          Reporter: ovfeix+5u5xlcuf4zves at sharklasers.com
  Target Milestone: ---

Hello.

I've started using KOrganizer for the first time and experienced a bug where
reminders won't show up.

I'd like to describe the troubleshooting process that eventually got them
working, for future reference/bug fixing. I'm noting everything that was tried,
including what didn't work, so that those steps may be rejected as potential
causes. I'm sorry if this report is too verbose, but I'm not a developer, and
am trying to include as much useful information as possible. If it serves, it
took me much longer to check and document each step than it takes to skim
through it. Still, anyone more experienced feel free to edit this report as
necessary.

After trying every sensible setting in Settings > Configure KOrganizer,
reminders still didn't pop up. I thought there might be some issue with my
system's settings, so I tried virtualizing (gnome boxes / virtualbox) fresh
stock images of some distros with KDE:

neon-user-20210624-0945.iso
kubuntu-21.04-desktop-amd64.iso
kubuntu-16.04.6-desktop-amd64.iso
openSUSE-Tumbleweed-DVD-x86_64-Snapshot20210706-Media.iso

In all of them, installed all available updates/upgrades before proceeding with
the troubleshooting.

I experienced the same issue in all of them, while the /usr/bin/korgac process
existed (ps aux). The only distro which I managed to get notifications
initially working (out of the box) was (I would say funnily enough, but after
two straight days of painstaking debugging it's not so funny)
ubuntu-20.04.2.0-desktop-amd64.iso , a gnome-based distro (after installing
KOorganizer and its dependencies).

For each attempted change in KOrganizer settings, I tried it with and without
rebooting; then, each time, reverting to a fresh install snapshot.

I have tried some suggested solutions found online, like cycling (clicking
apply and closing KOrganizer each time) the General>System Tray>"Show Reminder
daemon in the System Tray" option (and restarting the system).

Also noticed and tried Time and Date>Default Values>"Enable reminders for new
Events" and "Enable reminders for new To-dos" and creating new Events
accordingly. I now realize these settings have nothing to do with enabling
reminders, but to include them automatically when creating an event.

Installing (on Kubuntu) other packages like akonadiconsole, kalarm, kdepim,
kdepim-addons (included in kdepim)).

Changing the other "Time and Date" settings such that I'm "always available"
(day begins at 0:00, no holidays, every day of the week, etc.), in case the
reminders were being silenced.

In the end, nothing in the KOrganizer settings seemed to work.

What finally did the trick was, and I haven't seen this on any suggestion/fix,
to edit the "~/.config/korgacrc" file and setting "Autostart=true" and
"Enabled=true" (for reference, the "~/.config/korganizerrc" file and
introducing the "ShowReminderDaemon=true" seem to be irrelevant, weren't needed
to fix notifications in my case). But still, that and a reboot seemed not to be
enough. Additionally, it took doing some random change in KOrganizer settings,
like changing the Daily starting hour to some other value, to get it to
"register". Then, notifications started working on every of those
aforementioned distros. I must stress that a reboot was needed after the
changes or else it didn't work (perhaps resetting some service was enough, but
I rebooted to make sure).

I have replicated this several times on each of them, and that simple step of
editing "korgacrc", some other random change in KOrganizer settings, and then
rebooting, seem to be the solution for me.

Hope this is helpful. I really like this application, and it was a shame that
it didn't work as expected. Some features in it are really hard to find a
replacement for, like the time granularity, down to the minute, for events and
reminders, and its ability to set as many reminders as needed for a same event.
Besides, it's very well integrated with the rest of KDE's PIM. Kudos to the
developers/maintainers.

Should you need some more information, I'll be glad to help. Thanks.

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