Re: [Evolution] Need help fixing corrupt folders/indexes?

[Simon Roberts <thorpflyer yahoo com>]

----- Original Message ----

> From: Patrick O'Callaghan <poc usb ve>
> To: evolution-list gnome org
> Sent: Friday, January 16, 2009 10:27:10 AM
> Subject: Re: [Evolution] Need help fixing corrupt folders/indexes?
>
> On Fri, 2009-01-16 at 09:08 -0800, Simon Roberts wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I've been suffering very slow startup times by
> > evolution mail recently, and I
> > see headers for emails, and I see emails, but the two don't match.
> >
> > I concluded that the indexes on my inbox are messed up.
> >
> > I found in the FAQ this suggestion, which seemed like a good way to get the 
> indexes cleaned up.
> > Why do I get an error "Summary and folder mismatch, even after a sync"? 
> > If you get an error popup like:
> > "Error while Expunging folder. Error storing
> > `~/.evolution/mail/local/Inbox (mbox)': Summary and folder mismatch,
> > even after a sync.". Try the following operations: 
> >     * Stop evolution completly with the command "evolution --force-shutdown" 
> >     * Remove the corresponding files with the file ending
> > ".ev-summary" and ".ibex.index", in this example you should remove the
> > file "~/.evolution/mail/local/Inbox.ev-summary" and
> > "~/.evolution/mail/local/Inbox.idex.index". 
> >     * Restart evolution, it will be slow to come up because it recreates the 
> indexes. Well, I did that, and now it doesn't come up "ever" that is, I started 
> it, and it gave it's usual messages  about "storing folder 2% complete" and 18 
> hours later, it's still saying the exact same thing. 
> > Help please :) I'd really like to get my inbox back if I can, and no, last 
> week's backup isn't much use, because all this week's emails aren't in it!
> > BTW, this is Evolution 2.22.1.1 on OpenSuSE 11.0.
> >
> > Many thanks in advance for any help.
>
> 2.22 is a bit old. If possible, upgrade to version 2.24.3 (released a
> few days ago). It seems to have improvements in several areas that could
> help you.
>
> poc

That might be true, but the idea of upgrading while the database is corrupt seems perilous indeed...

I really think I need to stabilize the dataset first.

By the way, I notice something else. (And a little more history). I had not bothered to expunge my trash, 
being the paranoid type (paranoid about lawyers :) but I got bored of carrying 70,000 old, and mostly junk, 
emails around, so I did so not long ago (after the start of the slow behavior, and after the first occurences 
of strange headers, but before this--seemingly unrecoverable--situation.) Now, looking at my backup, I notice 
that the Inbox file (which should contain less than 200 emails) is some 1.5GB (yes, gigabytes) in size. Not 
only that, but the mails it contains include a huge proportion of deleted, and junk stuff.

So, it appears that somewhere along the line, my trash and my Inbox were one. Perhaps this is "normal"? I can 
conceive of making a trashbox simply by flagging a mail as deleted, though I'm obviously disappointed if 
thats the case here as it suggests a possibly insurmountable task to separate the two again!

Any other thoughts?

Many thanks,
Simon