Re: [Evolution] Spamfiltering with evolution - NO LONGER WORKS

[Paul Smith <psmith gnu org>]

On Wed, 2008-01-16 at 23:33 -0500, Rick Bilonick wrote:
> You know criticizing people because they report bugs is
> counterproductive. How can Evolution be fixed or improved if people
> don't report bugs?

I'm not criticizing people for reporting bugs.  I'm criticizing people
for not providing enough information about problems they're seeing; for
making incorrect statements of "fact" (such as "it *doesn't* work") when
other people have already responded saying it _does_ work, for them; for
complaining about quality and how bad it's gotten and how no one cares
but not offering any help or support; and for being generally unpleasant
to people who are working very hard to provide software, which by the
way is completely free.

I understand these problems can be frustrating, especially when it's an
application as critical as an email client, and that frustration can
creep into email.  Nevertheless, it is possible to report bugs while
still keeping an attitude of grace and humor and appreciation for the
work people are doing.  Consider that your cost for the software you're
using, if it helps.

> I reported spam filtering not working (for POP, IMAP, and Exchange) some
> time ago (right after I upgraded from Fedora 6 to Fedora 8 after backing
> up and re-installing my personal Evolution files to preserve my e-mail
> [at least I was happy I was able to keep all my e-mail!]).

"Upgraded from Fedora 6 to Fedora 8" doesn't mean much to many of us: we
have no idea what versions of Gnome or Evo come with those systems.
Please provide version information for Evolution itself, not distro
version information.  I assume Fedora 8 is using Gnome 2.20 and Evo
2.12?

One thing that is curious: it seems to me that the people who are saying
spam filtering doesn't work are using Fedora.  The people who say it
does work are using Debian/Ubuntu.  Can anyone comment on this?  Are
there Fedora folks who ARE able to do bogofilter spam filtering, and/or
Debian/Ubuntu people who can't?

Has anyone checked the Fedora mailing lists/bug repositories to see if
there's a bug filed there?

> [chippy localhost ~]$ /usr/bin/bogofilter -V
> bogofilter version 1.1.6
>     Database: Berkeley DB 4.6.21: (October 11, 2007) AUTO-XA

Ubuntu is shipping with bogofilter 1.1.5, using BDB 4.5.20.  It seems
unlikely that this would make a difference but you never know.

> I've also disabled bogofilter and installed spamassasin and enabled it
> in Evolution. I can see that it is checking the mail for junk but only
> if I highlight the junk - but like bogofilter it NEVER moves any new
> spam to the trash.

How can you see that it's checking mail for junk?

Someone said they tried to build Evo themselves from source.  Did that
help?

Unfortunately, the bogofilter plugin is not very flexible.  The path to
the bogofilter application is hardcoded as "/usr/bin/bogofilter";
there's no way to change it (that I can see) short of recompilation.
There also doesn't seem to be any way to add extra arguments such as
enabling logging.

Before we go there, though, we should verify what Evo is doing itself.

Please reconfigure Evo to use bogofilter, then stop Evo, then run
"evolution --force-shutdown" to kill all the other Evo applications.

Now, enable debugging:

  export CAMEL_DEBUG=junk

(or if you want more logging, use CAMEL_DEBUG=all)

Now, start Evo with output redirected to a log file, like:

  evolution &> junk.log &

Now, read some mail that should and should not be junk.  Then let us
know what you find in the junk.log file.  You should see lines like
this:

        pipe_to_bogofilter /usr/bin/bogofilter --unicode=yes 
        < b632fb90 >
        junk filter => *JUNK*

or:

        pipe_to_bogofilter /usr/bin/bogofilter --unicode=yes 
        < b632fb90 >
        junk filter => clean

Does you see that?  What else does it say?  Be careful before sending it
to the list (if you decide to) that you strip out private email
addresses, servers, passwords, etc. that you don't want to publish.

If you have problems sending a large file to the list you can file a bug
in Bugzilla and attach the log there.  Send a link to the bug to the
mailing list.