[kdepim-users] Problem with Kmail after upgrade to KDE 4. can't read all emails

[Ingo Klöcker]

On Thursday 15 January 2009, Claus Hausberger wrote:
> Hello
>
> > On Wednesday 14 January 2009, Claus Hausberger wrote:
> > > Hello
> > >
> > > I upgrade to the latest OpenSuse 11.1 with KDE 4.1. Before I used
> > > OpenSuse 8.2 with Kmail from KDE 3.
> > >
> > > I made a backup of the old $HOME/Mail folder where all my Emails
> > > are.
> >
> > How did you create the backup? Onto which medium did you copy
> > $HOME/Mail?
>
> I copied everything to a mounted windows partition (FAT 32) as root.
> Before I copied it back to the kmail directory, I changed the user
> and group back to the original user.

I feared that you could have done this. Unfortunately, it is very likely 
that the backup does not contain the messages you are missing, i.e. 
they are lost. I'm terribly sorry. :-(

The problem with FAT32 is that it does not like filenames containing 
colons. The filenames of the files your mail was stored in most likely 
have contained colons (because KMail uses the Maildir format for 
storing mail). Those files are stored in folders called "cur" and "new" 
below the filesystem folders corresponding to your mail folders. 
Copying those files to the FAT32 partition will have failed.

Two suggestions for preventing similar catastrophes in the future:
- Create a partition for the system and another partition for the /home 
folder. This way you can easily reinstall the system without having to 
backup /home. Of course, you should still backup /home anyway before 
you do the upgrade/reinstallation just in case something goes wrong.
- Whenever you backup data, verify that the backup actually worked 
correctly. An easy check is comparing the number of files and their 
cumulative size. Konqueror shows those numbers in the folders' 
Properties dialog.

I know that those tips come too late. I'm sorry. :-(


Regards,
Ingo
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