Re: [Evolution] Help me understand something please

[Jaroslaw Rafa <raj rafa eu org>]

Dnia 29.06.2022 o godz. 13:44:09 Tim McConnell via evolution-list pisze:
> 1. I don't know Evolution doesn't show the size. Running `mail`,
> `mailx` or `mutt` doesn't show any mail messages.

This can mean you have set Evolution account to "Local delivery", so it
moves all mail from the system mbox (where 'mail' or similar could have
found them) to Evolution-specific location. This is also confirmed by what
you answered to point 2.

When you will have new local mail messages, before you start up Evolution,
it would be good to do a 'ls -l' of the directory where the messages reside
to view their actual size. BEFORE Evolution picks them up and moves them to
its own storage.

> 2. What ever Exim 4 uses. It's how my mail was set up. For IMAP I used
> Gnome online accounts and it was added to Evolution for me. If I go
> into Edit-> Preferences-> Mail Accounts, it shows On this Computer as
> maildir and Localhost as mbox.I deleted the Local host account and it
> made no difference, same high CPU usage. 

No, Exim has nothing to do with it. It's only the question what local
account type you did set up in Evolution. It has of course to be consistent
with what Exim uses, but I'm asking about the Evolution setting, not Exim
setting.

I checked that "mbox" is actually what is called "Local delivery" when you
configure the account. The other account types are shown as "maildir",
"spool" (single mbox) and "spooldir" (a directory of mboxes). It means
Evolution picks up mail from your system mbox and moves it to "On this
computer" set of folders. "On this computer" is the internal Evolution
storage, you cannot modify or delete it.

> 3. I don't know I DID NOT SET IT UP it's whatever Debian uses as
> default via EXIM4.

As far as I remember, Exim's default is to use mbox. This also seems to be
consistent with your previous answers.

> 4 ls -la /var/spool/mail/../mail
> total 8
> drwxrwsr-x  2 root  mail 4096 Jun 29 13:18 .
>
> ls -la /var/mail
> total 8
> drwxrwsr-x  2 root  mail 4096 Jun 29 11:43

Are these full directory listings from the commands above?
It seems impossible.

/var/spool/mail/../mail (which is equal to just /var/spool/mail), listed
with ls -la, should contain at least '.' AND '..'. Here I see only the first
entry.

On /var/mail listing, on the other hand, there is some subdirectory with an
empty name (?) and NO '.' nor '..'

Even with most broken filesystems I've never seen something like that.

Normally, if Exim indeed uses mbox, either /var/spool/mail or /var/mail
should contain a file with a name identical to your username that holds
your mail. It can be a zero-length file if Evolution has already moved all
the mail to its storage, but it should exist (unless Evolution "Local
delivery" option deletes the file completely; I don't know as I have never
used it, but other MUAs that use the "movemail" approach usually leave a
zero-length file, which is why I suppose Evolution behaves similarly).

Please show the full listings of /var/spool/mail and /var/mail directories.

I suggest the following approach to your problem:

As you already deleted the "localhost" account, this means Evolution *will
not get any new local mail*. So try to start from scratch by cleaning up
what is already in "On this computer" folders and check if the issue
repeats.

"On this computer" mail is actually stored in the following directory:
/home/username/.local/share/evolution/mail/local . I suggest you backup the
contents of that directory and then delete everything inside it. DO IT
WHILE EVOLUTION IS NOT RUNNING.

Then recreate your "localhost" account and wait for new mail. Check if the
problem appears.

If there will be no problem, it means there was something very specific in
the old contents of your Evolution mail directory that caused the problem to
trigger. If you can live without the old mail, you're done; if you need it,
make a copy of the old directory you backed up, but without any top-level
files (like folders.db, *.cmeta files etc.); the top-level directory should
contain only subdirectories (these contain actual email messages). Try to
add this copied directory as a new mail account of type "Maildir" and read
the mail from that account. You will see if the problem reproduces.
-- 
Regards,
   Jaroslaw Rafa
   raj rafa eu org
--
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