Fixing Kmail

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#1

For many years I used fetchmail and postfix with their default settings. fetchmail would put incoming mail into /var/spool/mail/karl. Kmail would load data from local mbox file ** /var/spool/mail/karl** and from a local Kmail mail folder at ~/.local/share/local-mail. That worked with Kmail being a standalone application. But Kmail switching to akonadi caused severe annoyances and I already l looked for a replacement of Kmail. Switching from mbox type /var/spool/mail/karl to mail-dir type /home/karl/.local/share/local-mail/ and deleting the mbox account solved the problem:

erlangen:~ # postconf home_mailbox=.local/share/local-mail/inbox/
erlangen:~ # systemctl restart postfix                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
erlangen:~ #
#2

On some occasions akonadi starts heavy writing to disk and contributing a significant fraction to cpu load of a i7 6700K. Even deleting akonadi storage .local/share/akonadi won’t fix this. Deletion of the following configuration data fixed the problem:

karl@erlangen:~> ll .config/akonadi/agent_config_akonadi*changes.dat
-rw-r--r-- 1 karl users 16 27. Feb 21:56 .config/akonadi/agent_config_akonadi_akonotes_resource_0_changes.dat
-rw-r--r-- 1 karl users 16 27. Feb 21:56 .config/akonadi/agent_config_akonadi_archivemail_agent_changes.dat
-rw-r--r-- 1 karl users 16 27. Feb 21:56 .config/akonadi/agent_config_akonadi_birthdays_resource_changes.dat
-rw-r--r-- 1 karl users 16 27. Feb 21:56 .config/akonadi/agent_config_akonadi_contacts_resource_0_changes.dat
-rw-r--r-- 1 karl users 16 27. Feb 16:22 .config/akonadi/agent_config_akonadi_followupreminder_agent_changes.dat
-rw-r--r-- 1 karl users 16 27. Feb 21:56 .config/akonadi/agent_config_akonadi_ical_resource_0_changes.dat
-rw-r--r-- 1 karl users 16 27. Feb 16:22 .config/akonadi/agent_config_akonadi_indexing_agent_changes.dat
-rw-r--r-- 1 karl users 16 28. Feb 06:43 .config/akonadi/agent_config_akonadi_maildir_resource_0_changes.dat
-rw-r--r-- 1 karl users 16 27. Feb 21:56 .config/akonadi/agent_config_akonadi_maildispatcher_agent_changes.dat
-rw-r--r-- 1 karl users 16 27. Feb 16:22 .config/akonadi/agent_config_akonadi_mailfilter_agent_changes.dat
-rw-r--r-- 1 karl users 16 27. Feb 21:56 .config/akonadi/agent_config_akonadi_migration_agent_changes.dat
-rw-r--r-- 1 karl users 16 27. Feb 16:22 .config/akonadi/agent_config_akonadi_newmailnotifier_agent_changes.dat
-rw-r--r-- 1 karl users 16 27. Feb 21:56 .config/akonadi/agent_config_akonadi_notes_agent_changes.dat
-rw-r--r-- 1 karl users 16 27. Feb 16:22 .config/akonadi/agent_config_akonadi_sendlater_agent_changes.dat
karl@erlangen:~>
#3

Adding an existing directory as a KMail local folder account can be a frustrating experience. For achieving reproducible results the following procedure was found to work reliably:

  • rename the folder to be added: mv Mail Mail.renamed
  • create a new local folder account in Kmail with new folder Mail
  • quit Kmail and stop akonadi; verify all processes are terminated using ps ux|grep kmail
    and ps ux|grep akonadi - copy from renamed folder: * rsync -a Mail.renamed/ Mail/*

While adding folder Mail directly using KMail failed on many occasions the above procedure worked reliably.

#4

On some occasions the indexer starts to fail on some folder and tries again after 5 seconds flooding the journal with the folliwing messages:

.....
Feb 15 09:19:47 erlangen akonadiserver[2472]: org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: ItemRetrievalJob for request 0x7f3a04043c30 finished
Feb 15 09:19:52 erlangen akonadiserver[2472]: org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: ItemRetrievalJob for request 0x7f3a04020df0 finished
Feb 15 09:19:57 erlangen akonadiserver[2472]: org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: ItemRetrievalJob for request 0x7f3a04024990 finished
Feb 15 09:20:02 erlangen akonadiserver[2472]: org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: ItemRetrievalJob for request 0x7f3a04024990 finished
Feb 15 09:20:07 erlangen akonadiserver[2472]: org.kde.pim.akonadiserver: ItemRetrievalJob for request 0x7f3a04024990 finished
....

.

To stop the above behavior create a temporary folder and move the messages of the offending folder identified by akonadiconsole to the new folder and back to the original one.

#5

Assuming the current default Akonadi database, run this script at login:


#!/bin/bash
#
# Akonadi fsck - check that Akonadi is running.
#
# Wait until Akonadi Control is running.
until  $( /bin/pidof /usr/bin/akonadi_control ) ]]
do
  echo "$(printf '%(%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S)T' -1) Waiting for Akonadi Control"
  sleep 10s
done
echo "$(printf '%(%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S)T' -1) Akonadi Control is running"
#
# Wait unti the Akonadi Server is running.
until  $( /bin/pidof /usr/bin/akonadiserver ) ]]
do
  echo "$(printf '%(%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S)T' -1) Waiting for Akonadi Server"
  sleep 10s
done
echo "$(printf '%(%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S)T' -1) Akonadi Server is running"
#
# Wait until the Akonadi Server has finished starting.
sleep 20s
echo "$(printf '%(%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S)T' -1) Waited for the Akonadi Server to finish starting"
#
# On login, execute the Akonadi internal storage consistency check once per day.
#
if  -f ~/.local/share/akonadi/dateLastChecked ]]
then
  declare -i AkonadiFsckLastDate
  AkonadiFsckLastDate="$(/usr/bin/cat ~/.local/share/akonadi/dateLastChecked)"
  declare -i OneDayAgo
  OneDayAgo="$(/usr/bin/date --date='1 days ago' +%Y%m%d)"
  if (( $AkonadiFsckLastDate <= $OneDayAgo ))
  then
    echo "$(printf '%(%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S)T' -1) Akonadi fsck start"
    /usr/bin/logger "Akonadi fsck start"
    # Akonadi internal storage consistency check
    /usr/bin/akonadictl fsck
    /usr/bin/date +%Y%m%d > ~/.local/share/akonadi/dateLastChecked
    echo "$(printf '%(%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S)T' -1) Akonadi fsck completed"
    /usr/bin/logger "Akonadi fsck completed"
  else
    echo "$(printf '%(%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S)T' -1) Last Akonadi fsck was less than 1 day ago"
  fi
else
  /usr/bin/date +%Y%m%d > ~/.local/share/akonadi/dateLastChecked
fi
#
# Akonadi internal storage vacuum once every three days
if  -f ~/.local/share/akonadi/dateLastVacuumed ]]
then
  declare -i AkonadiVacuumLastDate
  AkonadiVacuumLastDate="$(/usr/bin/cat ~/.local/share/akonadi/dateLastVacuumed)"
  declare -i ThreeDaysAgo
  ThreeDaysAgo="$(/usr/bin/date --date='3 days ago' +%Y%m%d)"
  if (( $AkonadiVacuumLastDate <= $ThreeDaysAgo ))
  then
    echo "$(printf '%(%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S)T' -1) Akonadi vacuum start"
    /usr/bin/logger "Akonadi vacuum start"
    /usr/bin/akonadictl vacuum
    /usr/bin/date +%Y%m%d > ~/.local/share/akonadi/dateLastVacuumed
    echo "$(printf '%(%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S)T' -1) Akonadi vacuum completed"
    /usr/bin/logger "Akonadi vacuum completed"
    echo "$(printf '%(%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S)T' -1) Akonadi fsck start"
    /usr/bin/logger "Akonadi fsck start"
    /usr/bin/akonadictl fsck
    echo "$(printf '%(%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S)T' -1) Akonadi fsck completed"
    /usr/bin/logger "Akonadi fsck completed"
  fi
else
  /usr/bin/date +%Y%m%d > ~/.local/share/akonadi/dateLastVacuumed
fi
#
echo "$(printf '%(%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S)T' -1) Akonadi internal storage consistency check completed."
kdialog --title "Akonadi internal storage consistency" --passivepopup "Check completed."
## notify-send --icon=dialog-information "Akonadi internal storage consistency" "Check completed."
#
# ** History . . . **
#
#6

My solution was to remove and lock kmail so it is never again installed. Then add the KDE3 repository and install the KDE3 version of kmail.

Works like a charm for 5GB of mail folders, as does the Trinity version. Of course it’s search is a bit slower, but I’m OK with that.

#7

Actually most of the annoying malfunctions of kmail have been fixed. The remaining one I encountered is with the indexer choking on 8-bit characters. The pertaining message fragments are easily identified in the message list as ‘unknown subject’, ‘unknown sender’ … and can safely be deleted. So for most accounts kmail works as advertised. Search of kmail2 5.13.2 (19.12.2) is really fast. :wink: