Encryption with kmail not working

I try to use the kgpg encryption function with kmail, opensuse 11.4, KDE version 4.8.4 and gpg agent activated. If I am signing the mail (with whatever signature) all goes o.k.
As soon as I am using encrytion of the email, the program claims:
Encrytion failed - general error.

I tried to run from the terminal. But there is no error message at all. The encryption of KDE - KMAIL is either broken (and a bug report has been file on this but was never considered) or there is an individual error of config on this machine and the encryption is known to work. As it would be essential to have encryption for email for me, could please anyone:

  • confirm that s(he) is using encryption with 11.4 and KDE 4.8.4 and it works OR
  • confirm that s(he) is using it with 12.1 (and I would need to know with which version of KDE?
  • help me to fix the issue.

Actually I got some feedback now on the terminal. Do not know how much connected to the problem but as it appeared on send, I would guess this will be the reason:

                         kontact(10202) KMFolderIndex::updateIndexStreamPtr: utime( "/home/mainuseracc/.kde4/share/apps/kmail/mail/.outbox.index.ids" , 0) failed (KMMsgDict::getFolderIdsLocation( *this ))  
 kontact(10202)/kio (KIOJob) KIO::TransferJob::slotData: mimeType() not emitted when sending first data!; job URL = KUrl("pop3://mainmail%40t-online.de@popmail.t-online.de:110/index") data size = 0  
 kontact(10202)/kio (KIOJob) KIO::TransferJob::slotData: mimeType() not emitted when sending first data!; job URL = KUrl("pop3://mainmail%40t-online.de@popmail.t-online.de:110/uidl") data size = 0  
 kontact(10202)/kio (KIOJob) KIO::TransferJob::slotData: mimeType() not emitted when sending first data!; job URL = KUrl("pop3://mainmail%40t-online.de@popmail.t-online.de:110/download/") data size = 0  
 kontact(10202)/kio (KIOJob) KIO::TransferJob::slotData: mimeType() not emitted when sending first data!; job URL = KUrl("pop3://mainmail%40t-online.de@popmail.t-online.de:110/index") data size = 0  
 kontact(10202)/kio (KIOJob) KIO::TransferJob::slotData: mimeType() not emitted when sending first data!; job URL = KUrl("pop3://mainmail%40t-online.de@popmail.t-online.de:110/uidl") data size = 0  
 kontact(10202)/kio (KIOJob) KIO::TransferJob::slotData: mimeType() not emitted when sending first data!; job URL = KUrl("pop3://mainmail%40t-online.de@popmail.t-online.de:110/download/") data size = 0  
  

Could this be the reason for kmail giving general error when trying to encrypt? Would it then be able still to sign?
Thank you for helping me with this because it is driving me mad.

Maybe I found the trick (at least helping for 11.4 with 4.8.4 repos): if you choose “deactivate gpg agent” and you choose preferred encryption method “all” then it works without error. Any other setting gives a “general error while sending”. This is probably a broken function of KDE 4.8 > because they are changing to the “Aedes” framework and “secrets service”, this will probably obsolete the gnupg agent and apparently these two do no work together anymore in all settings. As it seems (I found similar bugs in other distributions) neither Aedes is reliable and ready, nor is gpg-agent fully functional anymore. I am looking forward to 4.9 to see if this feature will completely break (so KDE users will have nothing to hide because they cannot) or if Aedes framework will be functional (and then I would expect kgpg will be exchanged with Kleopatra key management) and one can live with it.
For the time being: if you encounter a “general error” while trying to encrypt:
try to deactivate the agent in kgpg, and use “preferred encryption method: all” as setting in Kmail. Worked for me (in 11.4)