Re: [Evolution] New Emails not showing

[Pete Biggs <pete biggs org uk>]

On Fri, 2022-05-20 at 15:35 +0800, Netsol.link wrote:
> Hi, 
>
> I have a desktop with Mint Cinnamon 20.3 and Evolution 3.36.5 (the
> most up to date in mint repo) 
> I also have a laptop with Manjaro Cinnamon 21.2.6 and Evolution
> 3.42.4 (3.44.1 is available but not yet updated)
>
> For every day use I normally use the desktop and only occasionally
> use the laptop. I use 'POP' email accounts and try to keep both
> computers emails up to date. But sometimes, when I did not use the
> laptop for a while,  I use Evolution's "Backup - Restore" function to
> make a backup of the desktop and restore on the laptop - that usually
> works without a problem. 
>
> Recently I went on the road for 3 months with my laptop. During that
> time I checked and downloaded emails on the laptop only. When I
> returned home I did a 'Backup' of the laptop and a 'Restore' on the
> desktop. I didn't get any errors so assumed all is fine, but I soon
> find out it is not!

The backup/restore is not designed to be used to move things around
between machines - it works, most of the time, but it is for backing up
things for disaster recovery. 

Your primary problem is that it's not backward compatible.  You can't
"restore" a backup made on 3.42 to Evolution 3.36. Things change
between versions - things like database tables, file structure and so
on. It was working for you the other way because Evolution can see that
you are restoring an old version and updates the necessary things when
restoring. Clearly 3.36 can not know what to change in a future
version.

> If there is no easy solution, I have a full backup image
> (Rescuezilla) of the desktop from 3 months ago (before I when on the
> road) that I can restore. Assuming that works, I then have to use
> 'Save as mbox' and 'Import' to bring my emails up to date. I tried
> that before but ended up with lots of doubles!?

There's no easy way. Your best bet if you are going to continue doing
this is to make sure both versions you use are the same.

The actual "real" solution is to not use POP. Use IMAP as that will
keep your mail on  the server and you don't need to keep copying
backups around.  POP has it's place, but that place is definitely not
when you are reading mail from multiple machines.

P.