Evolution fails to retain passwords at logon

[AG <computing account googlemail com>]

On my partner's Debian Lenny computer, running Evolution 2.22.3.1 on KDE 
(but all Gnome libraries are installed and up-to-date), Evolution is not 
remembering passwords.  Each time she logs in and goes to use Evolution, 
it requests her email (pop and smtp) passwords, even though the 
"remember passwords" box is ticked both on the request dialog box as 
well as under the options.  For whatever reason the passwords just 
aren't being stored.

In trying to fix this, after Googling I came across a few bug reports 
about this (but no solutions, nor any updates, patches, etc.) and no 
clear indication of useful steps to take.  In desperation I uninstalled 
and purged Evolution and reinstalled it, but the same old problem 
again.  I am reluctant to install Evolution from testing/ "squeeze" 
because of dependency issues and am, at this point, beginning to counsel 
her to switch clients to something like Sylpheed or Icedove/ Thunderbird.

So, this is a last gasp of help before I deep-six the sucker and install 
an application that doesn't trip over something as basic as remembering 
passwords.

Your advice and help would be very much appreciated.

Cheers

AG