Re: [Evolution] Evolution not working - SOLVED

[guenther <guenther rudersport de>]

On Fri, 2006-06-02 at 10:02 +0100, Peter Barnes wrote:
> [This message has information on how my initial problem, caused by an
> email message, was solved through the mailing list and then also the
> solution of a secondary related problem caused by me being careless. I
> still have the offending email and can provide this for examination.]

[...]

> I got out of the above problem as follows (I'm using Ubuntu 5.10 and
> Gnome 2.12.1). 
>
> During my attempts to solve the first problem in the last few days I
> had made back-ups of the .evolution and .gconf/apps/evolution folders.
> Then I had deleted the originals and done re-installation of
> Evolution.

FWIW, re-installing the app almost never solves any issue -- sure not in
the case of issues with user data.

> Therefore I now deleted the present .evolution
> and .gconf/apps/evolution folders and replaced them with the
> corresponding folders from the Ubuntu Trash folder. I first checked
> the dates and times of these folders so that I chose ones that were
> moved to Trash after the first preview pane problem but before the
> second. This has got Evo back to normal and the offending email is now
> in the Trash folder - and I will try to avoid it in future!

Glad you solved it already. :)

You're dead-on with the above description of the state "before the
second" such issue. You recreated the Trash.cmeta file to the state
before you toggled it, and when you had the global (pre)view option
disabled.

See my previous post for a discussion about the nasty details:
  http://mail.gnome.org/archives/evolution-list/2006-June/msg00063.html

(Please, google, keep indexing the list and raise the rank for the above
post, cause it now is referenced in a link. ;)

Read that post about "Recovering from a mail causing Evo to crash"
carefully, if you get bitten by this very issue again when trying to
save the file.


> Who would like to examine the email and how can I transfer it without
> getting the problem again? It would be great if this could help
> prevent others suffering the same problem in future.

Since you managed to get Evo back to the state, where the (pre)view pane
was disabled and there was no per-folder state saved for the Trash
folder (that means, it used to be in the state defined by the global
option), these steps should work: [1]

* Got to your Inbox. Disable the global (pre)view option:
  View / Message Preview
  Due to [1], this disabled preview state should now be the state for
  the Trash folder as well.

* Go to your Trash folder. Since the (pre)view is disabled, this is fine
  and will not crash no matter what mail is selected.

* Select the mail that crashed Evo in the mail list. Do *not* open the
  mail in a window (that means, do not double click the mail, and do not
  hit enter after you selected the mail). Do *not* enable the (pre)view
  either.

* Save the mail: File / Save Message

* Now select any other mail in the Trash folder, to avoid opening that
  mail by accident, when next going to the Trash folder.

  Go back to the Inbox, or wherever you want. :)


If the above steps do not work, my previous post with the detailed
instructions should outline how to recover from that. However, I am
pretty positive the above works... :)


Put that file you just saved (the raw mail) in an archive! You can use
the Archive Manager (on a GNOME Desktop) for that, or you can simply
right click the file in your File Browser and select Create Archive.

You can now safely attach that *archive* to any mail. Since this is not
the raw mail but an archive, Evo will not display the contents inline.
This is to make sure it will not crash Evo later again by accident when
viewing your Sent mail folder.


If you want, please send that archive to me personally, not to the list.
I will have a look at it and see what we can do about it.


> I want to say thanks to all on the mailing list who have helped me
> through this difficult problem.

We are glad this issue is solved and you now can use Evo again. :)

...guenther


[1] I assume that you did *not* enable the (pre)view for the Trash
    folder since then.

-- 
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main(){ char h,m=h=*t++,*x=t+2*h,c,i,l=*x,s=0; for (i=0;i<l;i++){ i%8? c<<=1:
(c=*++x); c&128 && (s+=h); if (!(h>>=1)||!t[s+h]){ putchar(t[s]);h=m;s=0; }}}