[Evolution] very odd problem with evolution

[Gary Koskenmaki <garyk1953 charter net>]

I am using evolution in a devuan beowulf install.  The evolution
version is 3.30.5-1.1.  

The problem I have is that evolution will not work with wireless
networking.  It has worked fine that way for all the time I've used
Devual, a year or so.  But now it immediately reports it is offline and
the only way to force it online is" GIO_USE_NETWORK_MONITOR=base
evolution" from a bash prompt.  It connects to the wireless network at
that point but reports the following error: (evolution:16814): Gtk-
WARNING **: 11:29:22.179: Failed to register client:
GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.UnknownMethod: Method
"RegisterClient" with signature "ss" on interface
"org.xfce.Session.Manager" doesn't exist

I know next to nothing about the inner workings of Gnome or GTK so I am
at a complete loss.  I've considered just doing a fresh install but I
don't know if that will actually fix the problem as it looks to me like
there is probably a corrupted configuration file somewhere that is
causing the error.  If it is in my /home directory a reinstall isn't
going to help as I have years worth of settings and application data in
the hidden files.  If I knew what configuration files to delete the
problem I would, but I don't know which to delete, or even if the
configuration corruption is related to evolution or some other process.

Using a wired ethernet connection works fine, but almost 100% of my
laptop usage is over wireless.  Also, I've installed kmail as a
workaround/troubleshooting tool and it works fine.  Now problems with
it whatsoever.  

Any help would be greatly appreciated.