[Evolution] Checked FAQ - something weird is going on (addressbook upgrade issues)

[Dan Marker <ximian laroux-d com>]

I couldn't access my old contacts information created from evo-1.0.8
(redcarpet installation on RH-6.2) and RTF-FAQ but something weird is
occurring.

A file test on addressbook.db returns
 "addressbook.db: Berkeley DB (Hash, version 7, native byte-order)"
with no version.

db_dump185 returns "Invalid argument" if I use it on the file.

The standard db_load/db_dump files on my system read/write the file
without complaint, but Evolution still errors on the file.

Just to be sure, I downloaded
   evo-db3-3.1.17.0.200302211500-0.snap.ximian.1
and the load/dump also executes w/o error using those binaries, but the
resulting file also cannot be read by Evolution.

currently, I have Evolution 1.4.4 installed via redcarpet, and my  BDB
files are from db3-3.3.11-6

system has been heavily patched, originally RH-6.2 and has been cobbled
and patched but should be fully equivalent to RH-8.0 now

What did I do to my system and can I at least extract plaintext out of
my old addressbook?

Any suggestions are appreciated,

Dan