folders.db gets out of sync with mail server

[Wowbagger]

Binary package hint: evolution

Evolution stores local information about IMAP server directories in ~/.evolution/mail/imap/<server name>/folders.db

This file will frequently get corrupted and out of sync with the real number of messages in the folders on the server. Doing a "Send/Receive" does NOT correct the problem, nor does actually viewing the contents of the folder - e.g. the folder count will show 2 unread messages, when opening the folder shows no messages at all, and even after opening the folder the count will show 2 unread messages.

Again: neither expunging the directory, closing and restarting Evolution, nor doing a send and receive will clear the erroneous counts.

Shutting down Evolution, deleting the folders.db file, and restarting Evolution will clear the problem.

NOTE: Unlike some of the other bug reports, no error messages are presented to the user in this case.

Steps to reproduce:
Given a working IMAP setup with Evolution, update all folders, then kill evolution (e.g. killall -KILL evolution).

Expected results:
Upon restart Evolution should rebuild the counts in all the folders.

Actual results
Evolution shows bogus counts on many (but not all) folders.

Reproducibility: High, if not every time.

Description: Ubuntu 8.10
Release: 8.10

Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Cfg-files/Unpacked/Failed-cfg/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Hold/Reinst-required/X=both-problems (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name Version Description
+++-==============-==============-============================================
ii evolution 2.24.3-0ubuntu groupware suite with mail client and organiz
ii evolution-comm 2.24.3-0ubuntu architecture independent files for Evolution
ii evolution-data 2.24.3-0ubuntu evolution database backend server
ii evolution-data 2.24.3-0ubuntu architecture independent files for Evolution
un evolution-data <none> (no description available)
un evolution-data <none> (no description available)
ii evolution-dbg 2.24.3-0ubuntu debugging symbols for Evolution
pn evolution-exch <none> (no description available)
un evolution-exch <none> (no description available)
ii evolution-plug 2.24.3-0ubuntu standard plugins for Evolution
un evolution-plug <none> (no description available)
ii evolution-webc 2.24.0-0ubuntu webcal: URL handler for GNOME and Evolution

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

thank you for your bug report, could you send the issue to bugzilla.gnome.org where the people writting evolution will read it too since you have a configuration triggering the bug?

[Dominique Hazael-Massieux (dominique-hazael-massieux)]

Could be either http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=570279 or http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=559391

(I'm experiencing the same pb, fwiw)

[Wowbagger (ha87psc02)]

May I ask why this has been marked "Invalid" - the bug still exists, and is reproducible.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

you could click on the upstream bug and read the reason directly rather than ask there

[Wowbagger (ha87psc02)]

I did - and if YOU had looked at the upstream bug, you would have seen that
a) the first bug was incorrectly marked as a dup of a bug having to do with search folders rather than actual IMAP folders.
and
b) the second bug is still not resolved

[Martin Mai (mrkanister-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount)]

Wowbagger, the bug is "invalid" because it was marked as a duplicate and launchpad there is no status named "upstream duplicate" in launchpad. The last comment on the upstream bug (stating that it's not a duplicate) was on 2009-07-16 so it will likely be marked as not being a duplicate when a developer reads that. Don't worry about your bug ;)

[Omer Akram (om26er)]

thanks for the bug report. can you please check if the issue is still there in Ubuntu 10.04 or preferably evolution 2.30

[John Rose (johnaaronrose)]

Issue still in Lucid.

[John Rose (johnaaronrose)]

Created evo.log using CAMEL

PS Due to problem I'm having with Launchpad in that it doesn't show bugs that I have reported as part of My Bugs nor does it send me email about them, there may be duplicates of this.

[Jeff Fortin Tam (kiddo)]

As per comment #8.

[Jeff Fortin Tam (kiddo)]

FWIW, also happens with 2.30.3.

[Jeff Fortin Tam (kiddo)]

https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=543389 is the upstream tracker bug for all disk-summary related bugs...

[Randy Barlow (rbarlow)]

I also observe this behavior with the evolution-mapi plugin. It is not just a problem with IMAP.

[Sarastro (sa3p83)]

I have the IMAP snyc problem on both a 10.4 and a 10.10 machine using the same IMAP server. Killing Evolution and deleting the folder.db file restores and updates the Evolution folders but is this the only solution to this bug?

[Stefano Bagnatica (thepisu)]

I had the same issue with Evolution 3.2.1, and solved deleting the file folders.db inside ~/.local/share/evolution/mail/1295611670.31535.6@cvs28.

So now the folders.db is no more in evolution/mail/imap, but in evolution/mail/GUID.

[Stefano Bagnatica (thepisu)]

Update: the problem is not solved, also deleting folders.db file... I continue to receive the error message...

[Jörg Frings-Fürst (jff-de)]

change status to Fix released (see gnome-bugs)