BMF says cannot open database & build sig doesn't match environment after maverick upgrade

[Bill Wheatley]

Binary package hint: bmf

bill@bill-ubuntu:~/Maildir/.Junk E-mail/cur$ cat 1284754562.M618315P6290.bill-ubuntu,S=8468:2,a | bmf -S
Build signature doesn't match environment
bmf: cannot open database

bill@bill-ubuntu:~/Maildir/.Junk E-mail/cur$ dpkg -l | grep -ri bmf
ii bmf 0.9.4-4 an e-mail filter for spam that learns

bill@bill-ubuntu:~/Maildir/.Junk E-mail/cur$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu maverick (development branch)
Release: 10.10

[Pitermann, Michel (michel-pitermann)]

I do not know whether this should be considered as a bug. As far as I understand, Berkeley databases contain information about user's environment. After its creation, a database can only be read in a similar environment. Environment information includes OS type (32- or 64-bit OS), libdb version, and a few other things. For example, if you create your database on a 32-bit Ubuntu, I am not sure you will be able to read it on a 64-bit Ubuntu. On maverick Ubuntu, bmf uses libdb4.8 to manage its Berkeley databases. I would not be surprised if it was libdb4.7 or another version on previous Ubuntu distributions. I cannot check it because I do not have another Ubuntu distribution at hand.

The solution is to erase all __db.* files from ~/.bmf directory and to run bmf after that:

  rm ~/.bmf/__db.*
  bmf -t < any_text_file

That should solve the problem. Of course, back up your .bmf directory before erasing anything just in case something goes wrong. It worked on my account.