[kdepim-users] IMAP and permanent folder syncing

[Martin Steigerwald]

Am Mittwoch, 25. November 2015, 11:35:26 CET schrieb Sandro Knauß:
> Hey,

Hey Sandro,

First I hope you have a merry christmas and still enjoy it. Please feel free 
to take any time you want before you consider my mail:

> Do you really complain about, that akonadi syncs multiple times with the
> imap? I don't understand that, if akonnadi would not sync with imap server
> you won't see new mails nor any changes from other imap clients.
> 
> The logic is, that if you change anything in kmail this is synced directly
> to the server, but to not push outdated changes to the server, akonadi
> updates the folder. That is independend for them the "check for new mail"
> round. That's why it can happen that you sync two times in a row with the
> server. But in good state Akonadi only sync the changes.

Since quite some time I do believe Akonadi does excessive syncing. Not only 
with IMAP, but also with local maildir.

For IMAP an example of today: I delete some spam mails from inbox. After about 
three of them Akonadi stats syncing the inbox. And then it takes about a 
minute or so on a bit flaky network before I can do anything again. And then I 
delete 3 more spam mails and it again syncs. And I then think: "WTF?"

Example with local maildir filled by POP3: I press Ctrl-J in inbox after 
having deleted spam there to apply all filters. I do this manually cause right 
now I still have not brought my CRM114 local spam filter setup within kmail to 
work again. It synchronizes every folder the filters sorted mail to. Again I 
think "WTF?". Cause: Akonadi is the *only* user of that maildir. I want to 
tell it: "Stop syncing!". Cause: I know if Akonadi puts a file there, it stays 
there. Even with BTRFS. It will be there tomorrow and it will be there in ten 
days. Unless I delete it.

I do believe Akonadi is doing a ton of unnecessary work.

I could understand if it would to an initial sync on starting up. Or in case 
of IMAP in some intervals. But not after deleting 3 mails from inbox.

I brought this issue up before in kdepim mailing list. And up to know I do not 
understand when exactly Akonadi triggers a sync and how to influence it.

And really if I am usually the only user of an IMAP box, why not give me the 
option to say: Only sync once a day or once every 4 hours or not at all unless 
on starting of Akonadi and enjoy full performance? (Ideally IMAP would have 
change tracking, but well.)

I do have a Dovecot IMAP server. From what I know its blazingly fast, yet 
still in my KMail setup I have delays of half a minute at times cause Akonadi 
is busy elsewhise. And that is the second thing that makes this so unbearable:

If Akonadi is busy syncing a folder it does not talk to KMail again. From what 
I understood one of the main purposes of Akonadi was to give an always 
responsive GUI to KMail. And yet Akonadi fails miserably with this goal in a 
good number of setups. If I in KMail click on a mail I mean the following: 
Akonadi interrupt syncing and other background stuff and give me that mail 
*now*. Akonadi doesn´t and that is what creates immense frustrations for users 
of KMail.

I did look in the code at some time, but I didn´t find where it actually 
triggers that syncing. For maildir I would like to disable that syncing 
completely just to see what performance boost it would give. And even for IMAP 
I would like to be able to tell it to do it much more rarely. I never got any 
good answer to the question: In which situation does it trigger syncing and 
*why*?

I know I have a huge setup, but I sincerely believe that the delays in 
response time in KMail are unnecessary and related to doing work that does not 
really need to be done (or at least not that often).

Thanks,
-- 
Martin
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