[Evolution] Catastrophic crash of evolution, then won't start

["Alasdair McAndrew" <amca01 gmail com>]

Hi,

I've had this happen a few times: evolution just hangs in the middle of trying to do something (generally checking for new mail), and then no matter what I do, just refuses to start again.  All my mail is on distant servers: some using imap; others MS Exchange.  I've done several "evolution --force-shutdown", but still it won't start.  When I try "evolution --offline" I get messages like:

(evolution:13141): camel-WARNING **: Invalid root: '/home/amca/.evolution/mail/local/Drafts.ibex.index'

(plus other messages) which I don't understand, as that file certainly exists.

An "strace evolution -c mail" produces masses of output; the end of which is:

read(44, "\207\177m\376\235\234(\224\226\234\322o\340\364\36/", 16) = 16
write(43, "\207\177m\376\235\234(\224\226\234\322o\340\364\36/", 16) = 16
write(43, "NDNE", 4)                    = 4
read(43,  

at which it just hangs.

Now, I know from previous experience that this will be fixed with a reboot.  But I'd like to know what it is in my running system which is stopping evolution.  Any ideas? 

BTW: evolution "Gnome evolution-2.2 2.2.1", on linux Suse 9.3.

Thanks,
-A.