[Data Loss] KMail mysteriously changes messages to "No Subject", "Unknown" sender

[Brad Bollenbach]

I setup a "Disconnected IMAP" account, using pobox (http://www.pobox.com). KMail had crashed for me a few times already this morning, but now it started turning messages into a zombies, subject "No Subject", author "Unknown" when I clicked on them.

I logged into my account on the server and confirmed that the content of the messages seems indeed to have been wiped out.

[Pascal Fleury (fleury)]

Version: 1.9.1 (using KDE 3.5.1, Gentoo)
Compiler: gcc version 3.3.5-20050130 (Gentoo 3.3.5.20050130-r1, ssp-3.3.5.20050130-1, pie-8.7.7.1)
OS: Linux (i686) release 2.6.15-gentoo-r1

I use disconnected IMAP as a resource for calendar and addressbook. It has happened now about 3 times where the imap kioslave gets into 100% cpu, typically after it has noticed a conflict in data even though I have not edited any event/address. This seems also to happen when I update an event, then re-update it before it had a chance to sync with the IMAP server (every 5 minutes or so). Then, it gets into conflict resolution mode, then IMAP trashing.

The result is then:
- some events/contacts are simply lost
- I have 3000+ empty messages in the corresponding folder (Calendar/ Contacts) all saying "No subject" (once I even had 19000+), which makes the syncing then horribly long.
- I have seen no pattern in the remaining data (like only the oldest, only the first half of the addressbook, etc.)

The data seems to be removed from the IMAP server, as I share this calendar/contacts with somebody, and their copy gets updated to the lossy version.

I may do some more operations on this if needed, as we share this on a "test trial" style.

[Albert Cardona (cardona)]

I get the same "No subject" and "unknown" author emails, but from pop accounts. I have yet to trace it properly, but I suspect it has to do with filters that identify spam email.
Once I got up to 50 of such messages in a ravishing flow, as if some internals were stuck.
Quitting, making sure there are no kio-pop and kio-imap alive (and killing them if neecessary), and restarting, solves the problem until at some point I get the same "No subject" emails, one here one there.

[Rich Johnson (nixternal)]

http://bugs.kde.org/buglist.cgi?short_desc_type=allwordssubstr&short_desc=&long_desc_type=allwordssubstr&long_desc=%22No+Subject%22&product=kmail&bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&bugidtype=include&bug_id=&votes=&emailassigned_to1=1&emailtype1=substring&email1=&emailassigned_to2=1&emailreporter2=1&emailcc2=1&emailtype2=substring&email2=&changedin=&chfieldfrom=&chfieldto=Now&chfieldvalue=&order=Bug+Number&cmdtype=doit

Confirming due to this list.

[lophiomys (lophiomys)]

I can confirm this bug in KMail / Kontact 1.2.5 / KDE 3.5.7:
Messages get lost by clicking on them in the list and turn to zombies with "Unknown" sender, "No Subject", and a date of 1970-1-1.
There are about 2000+ messages in the list and I did not do anything special to the list of messages. Just deleted a few.
Data loss seems to be permanent, restarting Kontakt does not help.
see also KDE Bug Tracker from the link in the previous comment: http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=80988

[anagor (anagor)]

I confirm that bug,
it appeared with the latest upgrade of gutsy 2007-08-29 00:34 GMT, in kmail 1.9.6
I use pop mail account and seems that quiting kmail and starting it again, kmail will download new messages successfully and shows them properly, but allowing kmail to check for messages again, either automatically or manually will cause this bug.
in kmail's mail folder it's clearly seen that kmail fails to receive the message properly.

[anagor (anagor)]

also I don't use any spamfilters or anti virus, so it doesn't seem related.
Just to try I configured kmail to use spam filter, and it still shows the same behavior.

[Giovanni Cucca (spawnhcs-deactivatedaccount)]

I confirm the bug, I had anagor's problems, exactly as he describes them.

[Giovanni Cucca (spawnhcs-deactivatedaccount)]

This bug has vanished for me with the upgrade to kmail version 4:3.5.7enterprise20070828really20070825-0ubuntu3

[Matthias Kellermann (matthias-adminlife)]

I can confirm this bug, too.

KMail version 4:3.5.6-0ubuntu6 on Ubuntu Feisty.

Mails are fetched from a POP3 server - hence not a protocol issue.
The KMail configuration and Emails were imported from a previous Ubuntu version (Dapper). Perhaps its regarded with the import of the old configuration files and emails?

Any ideas?

[Ace Suares (acesuares)]

Just a question, did you try to stop kmail, remove the index files, and start kmail again ?

I don't know if that will result in more loss, so be carefull (backup first?).

I had a similar experience after kmail had crashed, sometimes.

I would then delete the files
.trash.index
.trash.index.ids
.trash.index.sorted
(for instance, every folder has its own index files)
and then restart kmail (took sometimes a long time depending on how many messages needed to be indexed).
After that, all the messages where back to normal again.

I use maildir support in Kmail (which I think is the default) and another way to check if the messages are still there is to look in the folder (for instance trash) and then into the 'cur' directory and check if there are files like

1194581272.6947.QLKNP
1194581272.6947.RmAPg
1194581274.6947.Hp1J9
1194581274.6947.IcNzr
1194581274.6947.jHCOz
1194581275.6947.a7ZSB

If they are zero-length, the messages are gone for sure. If not, reindexing may help.

Regarding the reported problem with IMAP, I don't think reindexing will help.

[Flo (doc-nice)]

Same problem here, using disconnected imap. the cached files are truncated and even worse, synched to the imap store!

--- a "unknown" mail file ----
X-UID: 5179
Status: RO
X-Status: ORT
X-KMail-EncryptionState: N
X-KMail-SignatureState: N
X-KMail-MDN-Sent:

---- end of file ----

see also http://bugs.kde.org/buglist.cgi?short_desc_type=allwordssubstr&short_desc=&long_desc_type=allwordssubstr&long_desc=%22No+Subject%22&product=kmail&bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&bugidtype=include&bug_id=&votes=&emailassigned_to1=1&emailtype1=substring&email1=&emailassigned_to2=1&emailreporter2=1&emailcc2=1&emailtype2=substring&email2=&changedin=&chfieldfrom=&chfieldto=Now&chfieldvalue=&order=Bug+Number&cmdtype=doit

[Fernando Miguel (fernandomiguel)]

this problem affects KDEPIM 3.x and is know upstream and has been discussed many many times on kdepim-users ML.

Until now, it has not been possible to determine exactly what causes the corruption of the indexes, but it may be related to simultaneous access (by filters, antispam, etc).

With KDEPIM 4.1 the indexes are now auto-regenerated to prevent this, and a new toolbar icon allows the user to force the recreation of the index in case the users suspects corruption.

[Munzir Taha (منذر طه) (munzirtaha)]

Hi
This problem happened to me in an older version of kde before and I solved it. I am now running the new kde 4.1 so I cannot give accurate steps but just a hint.

The problem is due to a filter generated by either anti-spam or might be the anti-virus tool. It created a filter that instead of checking for a size greater than x to run the filter, it checks for a size less than x or vice versa. If you open the filters, you can easily see the problem and just removing that culprit filter fixed it for me. Sorry for not reporting earlier to save others some valuable time.

[Peter Lewis (prlewis)]

That may be one cause, but it certainly isn't the only one, as I experienced this using disconnected IMAP a few times. I never used any anti-spam or anti-virus features.

[Ace Suares (acesuares)]

On Monday 04 August 2008, Peter Lewis wrote:
> That may be one cause, but it certainly isn't the only one, as I
> experienced this using disconnected IMAP a few times. I never used any
> anti-spam or anti-virus features.

I don't use IMAP but I do use filters.

Ace

[Jim (jim-jimcortez)]

I am using disconnected IMAP. Have have recently been getting many lost emails, several of which were important and unread! Sometimes the No Subject emails show up as placeholders for email that was filtered to another folder, but not always. The last time was about 5 minutes ago. i am in KDE 4.1, started up Kontact, and when I clicked on a new email, it automatically turned into a No subject, no body email. Perhaps it had to do with filters and a potential Kmail crash. If there is anything I can do to help, please let me know, Kmail is my absolute favorite mail app.
Jim

System:
Kubuntu Hardy 8.10
Kmail account using disconnected IMAP
Email erasure happens in both KDE 4.1 and KDE 3
25+ filters including Bogofilter spam handling (no virus checking)
4GB+ total emails in all folders
2GB RAM, 2.7 GHz Thinkpad t43 on ethernet

[Fernando Miguel (fernandomiguel)]

Jim please test one of this two methods:

* close kmail, wait a few seconds so it can right to disk;
   #pkill kmail
   #pkill kio
   delete all .index* from ~/.kde/share/apps/kmail/ and subfolders. This will force kmail to recreate the index and can take a while for 4GiBs of email. Also ALL POP accounts will lose the information of already downloaded emails. So if you leave a copy on server they will be redownloaded. You can remove the dups with the kmail tool (Folder->Remove Duplicate Messages).

* on Kmail, for every folder on kmail, hit Folder->Rebuild Index. get out of the folder and get back in. see if the messages have reappeared. This technique has helped me many times, but not every email is recovered

HTH.

[w.chris (b-admin-witek-fr)]

I cannot understand. How is that possible that a problem of a such importance is still not resolved ?
This problem has been noticed 2 years ago !!!
I deleted all index files, removed filters, spamassassin, clamscan, and I still receive zombi emails with a date 1970 !

Help please. I manage a computer park and everybody is just sick of it. I hear all around that everybody wants to abandon linux. Correct this huge bug.
My config: kmail 3.5.10
problm appreared after migration from 3.5.2 to 3.5.10
Thank you

[Fernando Miguel (fernandomiguel)]

Chris I'm using kdepim version: 4:4.1.2 and i dont see all those problems often.
The only time I see them is if kmail crashes or if it use mutt to change the content of a Maildir.

Using the new "Rebuild Index" tool it just takes me a click to fix those events.

[w.chris (b-admin-witek-fr)]

Thank you for your answer.
Unfortunately I cannot update to 4.1.2. I already update the OS which
caused this problem (ubuntu dapper->hardy). I simply cannot test kmail
on a professional site.
You say: "i dont see all those problems often" in 4.1.2.
the "often" word is not accepted, I mean, I can do it personally but
people who I'm working with are getting tired of it. And every time they
have such problems, Linux is blamed.
I am wondering what is the kmail developers goal ? New version every 6
months at any cost ? Why they don't finish the work of the previous
versions ? I found posts about this bug published 5 years ago !!!

But thank you anyway for your answer.

-
K. Witek
Administrateur Réseaux & Systèmes
http://www.witek.fr

On Mon, 2008-10-27 at 12:31 +0000, BUGabundo wrote:
> Chris I'm using kdepim version: 4:4.1.2 and i dont see all those problems often.
> The only time I see them is if kmail crashes or if it use mutt to change the content of a Maildir.
>
> Using the new "Rebuild Index" tool it just takes me a click to fix those
> events.
>

[Fernando Miguel (fernandomiguel)]

On Monday 27 October 2008 13:19:42 w.chris wrote:
> the "often" word is not accepted

This means I got this two times ever since I upgraded to KDE4.
Once due to crash, and one due to user (me messing with mutt while kmail was open)

--
BUGabundo :o)

[w.chris (b-admin-witek-fr)]

I installed kmail 4 on my pc and it crashed when I tried to reply to an
email... I reopened it and it seems to be ok.
I contacted two persons from the office who had those problems often and
I proposed them the new version. I'll install it this evening and they
will tell me tomorrow if it's better. I'll keep you informed.
Thanks

-
K. Witek
Administrateur Réseaux & Systèmes
http://www.witek.fr

On Mon, 2008-10-27 at 13:57 +0000, BUGabundo wrote:
> On Monday 27 October 2008 13:19:42 w.chris wrote:
> > the "often" word is not accepted
>
> This means I got this two times ever since I upgraded to KDE4.
> Once due to crash, and one due to user (me messing with mutt while kmail was open)
>
> --
> BUGabundo :o)
>

[w.chris (b-admin-witek-fr)]

Very bad news.
The two persons for who I installed kmail 4 just let me know that they
received zombi emails and even worse, after they rebuilt the index those
emails were gone.
I cannot rely on kmail anymore. I have to find a way to migrate to
another email client before the manager of the parc decide to migrate to
windows.

-
K. Witek
Administrateur Réseaux & Systèmes
http://www.witek.fr

On Mon, 2008-10-27 at 13:57 +0000, BUGabundo wrote:
> On Monday 27 October 2008 13:19:42 w.chris wrote:
> > the "often" word is not accepted
>
> This means I got this two times ever since I upgraded to KDE4.
> Once due to crash, and one due to user (me messing with mutt while kmail was open)
>
> --
> BUGabundo :o)
>

[w.chris (b-admin-witek-fr)]

I just finished the migration of all accounts from Kmail into
Evolution.
I think this is the real solution. Kmail should not be used in a
professional environment because of its many bugs especially the bug
that this post is about.
I used a script to convert Kmail weird maildir format into the imap
maildir format which allowed me to save days of work.
For those who might be interested the script can be found here:
http://www.suares.an/

-
K. Witek
Administrateur Réseaux & Systèmes
http://www.witek.fr

On Mon, 2008-10-27 at 13:57 +0000, BUGabundo wrote:
> On Monday 27 October 2008 13:19:42 w.chris wrote:
> > the "often" word is not accepted
>
> This means I got this two times ever since I upgraded to KDE4.
> Once due to crash, and one due to user (me messing with mutt while kmail was open)
>
> --
> BUGabundo :o)
>

[Harald Sitter (apachelogger)]

a) I don't think moving is a solution
a.b) kmail doesn't use a weird maildir format but a widely accepted standard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maildir which is as a matter of fact supported by evolution
b) This issue is seriously awful even though I can't reproduce it
c) If, which is what I am going to support, KDE 4.2/Kubuntu 9.04 will switch to Akonaid (the new PIM data storage system) this issue should be resolved, since the design is supirior to the intiial KMail data storage concept and more reliable because it uses a database under the hood, of course the switch might as well happen with 9.10 in either case there is the IMAP-only client Mailody which is already using Akonadi, so at least that one should be usable by the time 9.04 gets released

[Ace Suares (acesuares)]

> a.b) kmail doesn't use a weird maildir format but a widely accepted
> standard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maildir which is as a matter of
> fact supported by evolution

Strange, courier-imap didn't understand the maildir format that Kmail uses.
The whole .inbox.directory structure was not recognized at all..

[Jim (jim-jimcortez)]

Seems as though I got my first dose of this while using kde4 this morning. My mail had 3 "No Subject-Unknown sender" emails in my inbox. Gmail caught and archived the emails before they were filtered. 1 email was actually an important email. I tried looking around at logs, and realized that I did not have filter logging turned on, so that is now active for future problems.

I found that kmail logs to ~/.xsession-errors, so I began to look around there. Something I found while tailing the file, is that is consitently writes out:

kontact(5489)/kmail KMail::CachedImapJob::slotPutMessageInfoData: Server told us uid is: 5778
kontact(5489)/kmail KMail::CachedImapJob::slotPutMessageInfoData: Server told us uid is: 5779
kontact(5489)/kmail KMail::CachedImapJob::slotPutMessageInfoData: Server told us uid is: 5780
kontact(5489)/kmail KMail::CachedImapJob::slotPutMessageInfoData: Server told us uid is: 5781

With different uid's, incrementing by 1 each time. I am not sure if that is normal. I grepped around the log and nothing was mentioned of these lost emails.

Using kmail 1.10.1 under Kontact 1.3
Kubuntu 8.10
KDE 4.1.2
All package latest from repository

[Fernando Miguel (fernandomiguel)]

Chris here is a thread from kde-pim users.

---------- Forwarded Message ----------

Subject: Re: [kdepim-users] Messages with unknown subject, sender and time on KMail
Date: Monday 17 November 2008
From: Ingo Klöcker <email address hidden>
To: <email address hidden>

On Monday 17 November 2008, Paolo Pozzan wrote:
The start of the source:
=====
X-Apparently-To: <email address hidden> via 87.248.110.190; Sat, 15 Nov 2008 09:55:23 -0800
X-YMailISG:
aiyQQNkWLDvQVuFK9CMFjmoenCrrgbZD2POv8mHD1rBhnOi13L3sWKiDwUw9o5BU.9RSaiMIdheJTFAjsiChWn91_4U3kxoIST4w65HqDig9CxaBl8Xybh0x5rei7.6XDj1SmJMgG0U5Z.Vje1vtbHqCwpCZ9NIM1Y7k4dkSuKd2aEXBsfasRaKbKd20drycXFgbsiSUcbI.Xk2TqhRKSpJCBKIOXkoiM8vLLg1C6oA7BC8uwDP4R9hczzKzIo7KRCcPvmnSBTLG_0bhCMPLzUg7B.avVYUka7DUZ52KQLuFq6hkrsyauMD4U_dcBg0rg2ok.pWMoPOjFzZWKU8Wg.8UzamZwi4aud_n2NRufny0VRNJZO9ceduSXReMkjH01TM5v7AMeJXsK5nugu85z_CY1wg-
X-Originating-IP: [131.246.120.250]
Authentication-Results: mta347.mail.mud.yahoo.com from=yahoo.it; domainkeys=neutral (no
sig)
Status: RO
X-Status: RC
X-KMail-EncryptionState: N
X-KMail-SignatureState: N
X-KMail-MDN-Sent:

; from=yahoo.it; dkim=neutral (no sig)
Received: from 131.246.120.250 (HELO ktown.kde.org) (131.246.120.250)
  by mta347.mail.mud.yahoo.com with SMTP; Sat, 15 Nov 2008 09:55:22 -0800
=====

The lines
=====
Status: RO
X-Status: RC
X-KMail-EncryptionState: N
X-KMail-SignatureState: N
X-KMail-MDN-Sent:
=====
have been added by KMail, so the correct header should look as follows:
=====
X-Apparently-To: <email address hidden> via 87.248.110.190; Sat, 15 Nov 2008 09:55:23 -0800
X-YMailISG:
aiyQQNkWLDvQVuFK9CMFjmoenCrrgbZD2POv8mHD1rBhnOi13L3sWKiDwUw9o5BU.9RSaiMIdheJTFAjsiChWn91_4U3kxoIST4w65HqDig9CxaBl8Xybh0x5rei7.6XDj1SmJMgG0U5Z.Vje1vtbHqCwpCZ9NIM1Y7k4dkSuKd2aEXBsfasRaKbKd20drycXFgbsiSUcbI.Xk2TqhRKSpJCBKIOXkoiM8vLLg1C6oA7BC8uwDP4R9hczzKzIo7KRCcPvmnSBTLG_0bhCMPLzUg7B.avVYUka7DUZ52KQLuFq6hkrsyauMD4U_dcBg0rg2ok.pWMoPOjFzZWKU8Wg.8UzamZwi4aud_n2NRufny0VRNJZO9ceduSXReMkjH01TM5v7AMeJXsK5nugu85z_CY1wg-
X-Originating-IP: [131.246.120.250]
Authentication-Results: mta347.mail.mud.yahoo.com from=yahoo.it; domainkeys=neutral (no
sig)
; from=yahoo.it; dkim=neutral (no sig)
Received: from 131.246.120.250 (HELO ktown.kde.org) (131.246.120.250)
  by mta347.mail.mud.yahoo.com with SMTP; Sat, 15 Nov 2008 09:55:22 -0800
[...]
=====

Now the problem is the line starting with "; from". This line is not a valid line in an email message
header. Since it belongs to the preceding line it should start with some whitespace.

There are two possibilities:
a) Yahoo fails to add the Authentication-Results header in the correct format.
b) KMail corrupts the header when it receives the message.

I think b is highly unlikely because we would have noticed if there was such a serious bug in
KMail. a, OTOH, is probably not noticed by many other people because other mail clients are
probably more forgiving when they encounter such an invalid line in the header. You should be
able to verify whether it's Yahoo's fault by checking your mail with another mail client and then
looking at the source with this other mail client. Just make sure you do not check those
messages with KMail because that might corrupt ...

[anagor (anagor)]

BUGabundo,
If the problem is not in KMail, then the Yahoo Mail, GMail, and two national ISPs in my coutnry are all sending wrong headers, since all those showed the same problem? This is very unlikely.

[Fernando Miguel (fernandomiguel)]

I didnt say it was "solely" an yahoo prob, but that a dev on the users ML mention it.
I might help us triaged the source of the problem.

--
BUGabundo :o)
(``-_-´´) http://LinuxNoDEI.BUGabundo.net && Ubuntu LoCoTeam Portugal http://ubuntu-pt.org
Linux user #443786 GPG key 1024D/A1784EBB

[anagor (anagor)]

Yes you are right, it might.
The strange thing is, the low amount of bug reports about this. It seems that this bug does not affect everyone. It may be possible that the bug appears when specific kdelibs with specific kdepim libs used with specific mail account.
I don't know, just thinking out loud.

[Fernando Miguel (fernandomiguel)]

Olá anagor e a todos.

On Thursday 20 November 2008 10:09:41 anagor wrote:
> The strange thing is, the low amount of bug reports about this. It seems that this bug does not affect everyone. It may be possible that the bug appears when specific kdelibs with specific kdepim libs used with specific mail account.

There have been several threads on the kdepim ML about this in the last 2 years since i'm there.
Most of the times (if not almost all) its due to filters actions, antispam, antivirus, 3rd party tools ,etc
For me, with KDE4 it has only happen 2 or 3 times, and I have 65k unread emails on 12 accounts and 15GiBs of emails.
All but one, of this probs i've had were related to me using mutt to read and delete on kmail malidirs, and power failures.

The rebuild index tool that came with kmail 1.1x seems to help solving a lot of this cases, but of course not all, and I might have lost 10 or more emails with this errors.

Data corruption can and will occur on any program and we have to try to lower that value.

I know it must be really bad for someone like Chris who seems to repeatability and reproducibly see this on several machines.
I have no ideas on how to help debug this further.

Maybe he could also email the ML and with Ingo find a common prob.

--
BUGabundo :o)
(``-_-´´) http://LinuxNoDEI.BUGabundo.net && Ubuntu LoCoTeam Portugal http://ubuntu-pt.org
Linux user #443786 GPG key 1024D/A1784EBB

[arjordan (jorsuscrip)]

I confirm the bug on Kubuntu 8.10, kmail 1.30 (I upgraded from kubuntu 8.04)

I tryed the workaround proposed here (close kmail, pkill kmail, pkill kio, delete all *.index) but the problem still persists.
I am confused. I cannot understand why such a bug is still happening after many time being reported (and many times, as I could see).

[Michael Mikowski (kfocus)]

KDE 4.1.3 using Kontact 1.3, KMail 1.10.3
Kubuntu Intrepid, fully patched

This happens daily for me from my Yahoo account. Kmail presents the email body with blank subject, from, to, date, receiver, etc. Inspecting the headers that /are/ presented in the email body, I see all begin with

; from=...

Recreating the index does nothing.

Here is an example of the body:

=== BEGIN example 1 ===
; from=mdlug.org; dkim=neutral (no sig)
Received: from 216.144.208.32 (EHLO mdlug.org) (216.144.208.32)
  by mta670.mail.mud.yahoo.com with SMTP; Tue, 02 Dec 2008 07:09:15 -0800
Received: from localhost (unknown [127.0.0.1])
        by mdlug.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9DE7F140ACFE;
        Tue, 2 Dec 2008 15:09:05 +0000 (UTC)
Received: from mdlug.org ([127.0.0.1])
 by localhost (www.mdlug.org [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP
 id 17527-04-2; Tue, 2 Dec 2008 10:09:05 -0500 (EST)
Received: from mdlug.org (localhost [127.0.0.1])
        by mdlug.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7E3EE142D8C9;
        Tue, 2 Dec 2008 10:08:59 -0500 (EST)
X-Original-To: <email address hidden>
Delivered-To: <email address hidden>
Received: from localhost (unknown [127.0.0.1])
        by mdlug.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 883F1140ACFE
        for <email address hidden>; Tue, 2 Dec 2008 15:08:57 +0000 (UTC)
Received: from mdlug.org ([127.0.0.1])
        by localhost (www.mdlug.org [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new,
        port 10024) with ESMTP
        id 17527-02 for <email address hidden>; Tue, 2 Dec 2008 10:08:54 -0500 (EST)
Received: from u15184586.onlinehome-server.com
        (u15184586.onlinehome-server.com [82.165.244.70])
        by mdlug.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 265301400E14
        for <email address hidden>; Tue, 2 Dec 2008 10:08:54 -0500 (EST)
Received: (qmail 15729 invoked from network); 2 Dec 2008 10:27:48 -0500
Received: from 75-41-110-112.lightspeed.drbrmi.sbcglobal.net (HELO
        ?192.168.2.7?) (75.41.110.112)
        by u15184586.onlinehome-server.com with (DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA encrypted)
        SMTP; 2 Dec 2008 10:27:48 -0500
From: Mark Kimsal <email address hidden>
Organization: metrofindings
To: MDLUG's Main discussion list <email address hidden>
Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 10:07:44 -0500
User-Agent: KMail/1.9.9
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[Fernando Miguel (fernandomiguel)]

Hi z_mikowski.
I posted before (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kdepim/+bug/50039/comments/27) that yahoo is known to not parse correctly the headers.

Has anyone here tried to talk to upstream about this?

[Kde-gj5d (kde-gj5d)]

Please check https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kdepim/+bug/50039

it has a lot of information on this subject, as well as confirmation of yahoo corruption headers, as mention by Ingo on KDEPIM users list

[Michael Mikowski (kfocus)]

Hi Bugabundu:

Thanks for the link to the prior note. When you talk about upstream, do you mean Yahoo or KDE PIM Developers? I have not, but am a member (lurker?) of the KDE PIM mailing list, and will post there if trouble remains.

STATUS UPDATE: No Subject emails seems to have gone away with the most recent update to KDE 4.2 Beta 1, Kmail v1.10.90. Perhaps this has been fixed. I will be certain to post if I see it again.

If the problem does remain, Ingo's view from comment 27 seems sensible -- kmail should probably be more forgiving of these headers. Even if they are non-standard, they are a defacto standard due to Yahoo's large user base. And, for the same reason, they are probably very unlikely to change them :(

[tawandac (tawandac)]

Hi all,
Just been battling with the same issue on kmail Version 1.11.0, rebuild index could not fix it, the temporary work around i found was to do a search with no search string defined, this seems to force re-reading of the headers and correction of this disturbing issue, i think this is a bug that should be logged !.

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

Your error is most likely a different bug (with similar symptoms) than was posted here. (This one was fixed years ago, and this was kept open in case somebody wanted to do an SRU of the fix to Kubuntu Dapper. Kubuntu Dapper has reached the end of its supported life, though, and SRUs too it will not be happening anymore.

[Myriam Schweingruber (myriam)]

Sorry, Jonathan, but it is not fixed. Running Kmail 1.12.0 here, I have to rebuild the index every other day, success rate is around 50% and I'm really sick of loosing data.

I talked to the Kmail devs a few weeks ago, unfortunately didn't find time to do so during the Desktop Summit, and for now rebuilding the index seems to be the only solution. Luckily I run rsync every day...

Hint: it only happens with very large data sets for me (+5 years of mails, which are many thousands!), never seen this when running with mails of only about 10 days. With large datasets, Kmail crashes on import with great reliability.

[Johan van der Lingen (johanlingen-hotmail)]

Please note that one should not replace the new kmailrc file with an older one. This causes all new emails to have sender, subject and date set to "unknown".
I noticed this while migrating from Kubuntu 8.04 to 9.10 (KDE3 to KDE4). Running Kmail 1.12.2 now.

I do not know if any of the above applies to other 'unkown sender' problems. But of course one can test: if no other solution works, try to rename ~/.kde/share/config/kmailrc to force regeneration of this file.

[Myriam Schweingruber (myriam)]

I can confirm this with the latest kmail1 series, up until now I was not able to reproduce it on kmail2 but since on kmail2 I can't use IMAP at all this is rather difficult.

Could somebody else reproduce this with Kmail2? Changed severity to "Very high" as it involves data loss on the IMAP server

[Ace Suares (acesuares)]

6 yrs? I am unsubs cribing from this bug!

[Myriam Schweingruber (myriam)]

Thank you for your report. Kmail1 is currently unmaintained and the code has changed sufficiently in Kmail2 so the backtraces are not really useful anymore. Should you experience the same crash in Kmail 4.8.5 or later, please open a new report for Kmail2. Thank you for your understanding