Re: Evolution and Procmail- can they work together?

[Jeffrey Stedfast <fejj ximian com>]

On 13 Aug 2001 23:59:26 +0200, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> Am 13 Aug 2001 14:59:33 -0400 schrieb Jeffrey Stedfast:
> > On 13 Aug 2001 21:22:35 +0200, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> > > Am 13 Aug 2001 12:20:30 -0400 schrieb Jeffrey Stedfast:
> > > > On 13 Aug 2001 11:00:37 +0200, christophe barbé wrote:
> > > > > You are going to discover that even if evolution uses mbox (you can choose
> > > > > the format), procmail is not well supported.
> > > > > Evolution will not noticed new mails. Evolution will rescan each mailbox
> > > > > touched by procmail at each startup and this can take a long time.
> > > Yep, and often it fails to scan mboxes (even w/o procmail) :(
> > 
> > Evolution reads the summaries and if the mboxes haven't been touched
> > since Evolution last wrote the summary, then it doesn't bother
> > rescanning the mbox (why should it? this is the whole point of using
> > summaries).
> Then let me rephrase it:
> 
> I am experiencing evolution to crash fairly frequently at times which
> seem to be related to mbox access.
> 
> 1. When fetching mails from my local MTA (w/ evolution/pop3) exactly the
> same moment when the MTA (sendmail/fetchmail) fetches mail from my
> provider. Dialogbox: Oops, .. has died - A semi-alive evolution shell
> stays around.

It's possible that the POP server is disconnecting us and perhaps the
pop3 code needs to handle this better. It's hard to say without a
backtrace.

> 
> 2. I am also experiencing frequent "..mismatch even after a sync" errors
> when evolution tries to sort incoming mails into personal mail folders.
> Afterwards, such error dialogs pop up periodically and are waiting to be
> clicked at.
> In such occations, after having left the terminal for some hours and not
> having closed evolution, literally hundreds such dialogs are present on
> the screen.

Do you have other programs dumping stuff into Evolution's folders?

> 
> IMHO, these both problems are a clear indication for some serious
> defects in evolution's mbox handling.

This really has nothing to do with mbox handling, it has to do with
summary mismatch handling.

> 
> BTW: I am also seeing evolution sometimes leaving stray evolution-mail
> processes in the system after such incidents.

it may be that they are syncing folders and will fully exit when
completed. It's hard to say without more information.

Jeff

>  
> > > > The reason you can't just dump mail into Evolution's folders is because
> > > > it keeps a summary of them and if you append to the mbox without
> > > > updating the summary files, then they get out of sync.
> > > I know, but I am not sure whether I like this design. It's yet another,
> > > "compatible to nothing else" mail-archiving system.
> > 
> > There isn't a standard and we support damn near every format. You have a
> > better solution?
> Unfortunately not, wrt. evolution I am just a user.
> 
> > > > Not to mention
> > > > Evolution uses file locking, I'm not sure whether or not procmail does?
> > > man procmailrc and man procmail and you will see: Dotfile locking.
> > > 
> > > Sorry, if something above might sound harsh. Let me assure you it
> > > definitely is ment as such. 
> Ouch, my deepest apologies:
> 
> This should have been: .. is _not_ meant a such ..

that's what I figured you meant ;-)

> 
> Ralf
> 
>