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

[Patrick O'Callaghan <poc usb ve>]

On Wed, 2008-01-16 at 21:24 -0500, Paul Smith wrote:
> On Wed, 2008-01-16 at 07:50 -0430, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> > My settings haven't changed since spam filtering used to work, and
> > they match what you are suggesting. All that's changed is the Evo
> > version.
> >
> > It *doesn't* work.
>
> It DOES work, for me, for both POP and IMAP accounts, in 2.21.5 and in
> the very latest SVN version.  And in 2.21.4 as well, and also previous
> versions.  Other people have also reported that it's working for them.
> Your blanket statement that "it doesn't work" is incorrect.  It doesn't
> work for YOU (and apparently some others).  But it does work (for at
> least some people).

Of course, otherwise there's be a flood of complaints instead of only a
few. I apologize for the asterisks around "doesn't", product of a lot of
frustration, but I was replying to a message from Matej telling to check
my settings.

I think it's fairly clear that when someone says "it doesn't work" they
mean "it doesn't work for me", but again I apologize if you found the
tonen aggresive.

> I don't doubt you, and I'm sure that it's frustrating, but since it does
> work for others that means that the bug won't be so easy to find, and
> will require your cooperation since you're able to reproduce it.  That
> effort on your part is the "hidden cost" of free software.  If you're
> not willing to help, please feel free to return the software to where
> you got it for a full refund.

I've been using free software since before it was even defined as a
concept so I don't need any lessons on cooperation, thanks. I've
frequently participated in discussions on this list going back quite a
few years and have reported a fair number of bugs to Bugzilla. I first
mentioned this bug in September 2007 on a self-compiled test release
(2.11.92) and got no response. I messed around with compilation options
and got nowhere. I tried logging filter actions and couldn't see
anything relevant. I considered inserting a man-in-the-middle trap
in /usr/bin/bogofilter to log invocations but decided against it since I
don't know if Evo calls the actual BF executable or has a side entrance
via a library (so an empty log wouldn't tell me anything). I hoped the
problem was due to my own compilation breakage, or to the fact that I
use KDE and not Gnome, and it would go away in the next point release.
It didn't. I hoped it would go away on upgrading from F7 to F8. It
didn't. I mentioned it again on the list, and one or two people said "me
too". Only at this point did I actually report it to Bugzilla and got a
first response from Srini.

> I've already asked for one bit of information which has not yet been
> provided: please examine the modification time on your
> ~/.bogofilter/wordlist.db file before and after you get mail that should
> be spam filtered.  Does the timestamp change?  Also, how large is your
> wordlist.db file?

When did you ask for this? I must have missed it. Any way here it is:
the wordlist.db has mod time of 2007-11-10 07:05, so I think it's safe
to say it's not being touched. I was away from my desktop between Nov.
16 and Jan. 10, so there's at least a week's worth of spam that should
have been trapped.

> Also, please run this command (_exactly_ as I've typed it here!)
>
>     /usr/bin/bogofilter -V
>
> and include the output.

        bogofilter version 1.1.6
            Database: Berkeley DB 4.6.21: (October 11, 2007) AUTO-XA
        Copyright (C) 2002-2007 David Relson, Matthias Andree
        Copyright (C) 2002-2004 Greg Louis
        Copyright (C) 2002-2003 Eric S. Raymond, Adrian Otto, Gyepi Sam
        
        bogofilter comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.  This is free software,
        and
        you are welcome to redistribute it under the General Public License.
        See
        the COPYING file with the source distribution for details.
        
> Another common reason for spam filtering not working is some other
> application checking your mail.  Evo filtering only happens on mail
> which has never been read before; any checking of the mail (including
> automated checks) can break this.  However, since you say it was all
> working before this doesn't seem likely unless some other change
> happened at the same time.

Nothing else is looking at my mail. I'm careful to shut down other mail
clients when not using them, and don't have a mail notification applet
other than Evo's builtin one.

One additional data point (I've added this to the Bugzilla page at
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=509353): my complaints about
junk filtering are all from my home machine, which is where I mostly
work, but I also recently set Evo up to use BF on my office machine and
the same thing happens. This is also Fedora 8, Evo 2.12.

What makes this interesting is that I've just noticed that on the office
machine I don't have a ~/.bogofilter directory, and hence no
wordlist.db, but I've been merrily clicking away on the Junk icon and
hearing no complaint from Evo, i.e. even when BF *cannot possibly be
working* Evo doesn't say anything. The BF man page says it should give
an exit status of 3 if the wordlist.db file cannot be read. Is Evo
checking this?

poc