[kdepim-users] Strange data loss in Kmail

[Anne Wilson]

On Sunday 10 February 2008 18:58:06 Gölöncsér Attila wrote:
> Hi all!
>
> I read some mailing lists, and I have some filters to sort them to
> separate maildir folders. Yesterday I selected all the mail in my
> inbox, and used the ctrl-j combination (apply all filters). Kmail
> crashed on it.
>
> After restarting kmail all seemed in my inbox okay, but when I
> clicked on a mail, all the headers disappeared, and turned
> into "unknown" (see screenshot below.)
>
> Now I have only a lot of "unknown" messages, with these headers:
>
> Status: RO
> X-Status: RC (or RAC, RT)
> X-KMail-EncryptionState: N
> X-KMail-SignatureState: N
> X-KMail-MDN-Sent:
>
> The count and the status of the messages is correct, but now i
> have only a lot of empty messages in my maildir, whit only these
> headers.
>
> Have you got an idea what was this?*
>
> Screenshot:
> http://ybl-nte.uw.hu/temp/kmail.png
>
> $ kmail --version
> Qt: 3.3.8
> KDE: 3.5.8
> KMail: 1.9.7
>
> $ uname -a
> Linux 2.6.23-gentoo-r3 #1 SMP Thu Jan 3 13:28:24 CET 2008 i686
> Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux
>
I'm sorry to say that you cannot recover those messages that are blank.  The 
problem starts with a corrupt index file.  If ever you see a blank, No 
Subject message, probably dated 1st January 1970, you know that you have got 
the corruption.  You should immediately close kmail.  If you click on any 
other message before you have done this it will also be lost.

Navigate to the folder where you saw the problem and delete all the index 
files connected with that folder.  They will be recreated, and you will only 
have lost the one message.  

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but at least you know what to do if it 
happens again.  I have seen it several time, almost always following a crash.  
If you are going to bulk process messages as you described here, I suggest 
that you break the task into smaller numbers.  The number of messages that 
can safely be processed seems to vary between versions and distros.  I'd 
suggest that you start with 60.  If that is safe, try 100 next.  You can 
increase until you get another crash.  Be on the lookout for a problem with 
the index files if it does crash, do the cleanup if necessary, then return to 
the last number that you found to be safe.

Anne
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