Re: [Evolution] troublesome cache

[Adam Tauno Williams <awilliam whitemice org>]

On Fri, 2021-02-05 at 17:39 +0000, Richard Bown wrote:
> I know Andre has pointed to all the evo data files
> Last attempt was 
> sudo apt purge evolution*
> evolution --force-shutdown
> rm -rf ~/.local/share/evolution
> rm -rf ~/.gconf/apps/evolution
> rm -rf ~/.cache/evolution
> rm -rf ~/.config/evolution
> dconf reset -f /org/gnome/evolution/
> gconftool not installed as my DM is cinnamon

You do understand that *YOU* create these kinds of problems by messing
around in the filesystem, right?  Stop doing that; use the tools in the intended fashion.

> check all hidden evol files have gone
> then re-istalled evo
> richard@richard-Inspiron-3580:~$ ls -s .cache/evolution/mail
> total 12
> 4 1527769677.8716.2@richard-Inspiron-N5030
> 4 7bb2e693532a510fb41eca211d9e5a026556fa10
> 4 83febb968dd172d285752d793ebe81d81ef79a59
> Its back !!!!!!!!!!

Are you doing this while logged in?  If so, don't ever. Just stop. 

> IF I've uninstalled evo removed

What?  Uninstalling Evolution has no impact on this at all; that is not
how things work.

> I tried asking on the Linux mint forum and just getting called a liar
> as they think it doesn't happen.
> This is very frustrating

As a GNOME/Evolution since the days of Ximian -> you've created this
mess.

If you want a completely clean install then create a new user account
and log into that; transfer the actual documents you want; then delete
the old user account.

NOTE: I haven't ever, in decades, had to do that.  But I also stay out
of the "." directories except in the rarest of instances.  If you go
into them more than once a year you are doing something wrong.

> Now I suspect that as when a file is deleted the space it used
> still contains the data,...

Yes, absolutely that is true.  That is true of every POSIX compliant
file-system.  A file may be deleted [aka: unlinked from the directory]
but persists on disk, and is fully operational, until ZERO processes
have it open.  It is common even for an application to create a file,
open it, delete it, and then use it until the application ends when the
file then automatically reaped by the file-system. This is a feature, a
great one, not a bug.   Also a reason not to mess around in application
directories; you don't necessarily see what that process sees [again,
feature, not bug].

Also "man -S2 mmap", memory mapped files are yet another whole thing
[feature, not bug].  And that's what is used by GConf/DConf.

-- 
Adam Tauno Williams <mailto:awilliam whitemice org> GPG D95ED383
OpenGroupware Developer <http://www.opengroupware.us/>