Evolution Does Not Appear to Correctly Save Draft Email Messages If Using IMAP Folder and Offline

[PC]

Binary package hint: evolution

I am new to using Evolution, having previously used Thunderbird.
I set Evolution up with IMAP access, using the "imap+" option, to three different accounts.

1) Yahoo account
2) gmail account
3) NTL World (Virgin Media) account that is I believe just another gmail account

All works well. I experimented with a few options and set the sent mail and drafts folder to be the corresponding IMAP "folder" for each account. I checked that on creating and saving a draft message that that message appeared in the IMAP draft folder for each account, both as seen in Evolution and on-line via the web portal connection to each account. I did the same for sent mail. All worked well. I had been on-line at this point.

I then wondered what would happen if I was off-line. So I went off-line, I used two different methods, disconnecting the wireless connection and by clicking on the Evolution on/off line icon in the bottom left of the program window. Both methods seemed to produce the same results. This was:

1) Go off-line
2) Create new message
3) Save message, by clicking on icon on menu bar. There is no message when you do this to say if the save is or isn't successful.
4) After the save operation, immediately quit the message using the close button (top left menu bar cross in red-circle). The message window closes with no further dialog or prompt.
5) Now look for saved draft message. It can't be found. It is not in the designated drafts folder (an IMAP "on-line" draft folder). I had previously set the draft folder up for off-line access by right hand clicking on the folder and setting this by a tick-box on the properties item). I also could not find the message in any of the local folders.
6) I repeated this for all three account with the same behaviour.
7) The messages appear to have been lost. Well at least I couldn't find them to re-open them to continue and send them.

Now it might be reasonable to suggest I should use a local folder for drafts (the Evolution default), but I wanted to try to see if I could synchronize send and drafts messages between machines using imap.

What I would hope is:
1) Evolution would not allow a save operation that did not not "work" and then allow the use to quit the message window without any prompt.
2) If Evolution has saved the message it would be useful to make it clear to the user where it has been saved.

Now having said all of this on quitting Evolution I did receive a message pop-up window about I would lose some data (I can't remember the exact message dialog box), and on selecting the safe option not to quit, one of my closed message windows may have re-appeared. I can't be sure about this as it could have been an open draft window that I had not saved. It certainly was not all of the "missing" draft messages.

The other related item is it is not clear how to easily set up all on-line folders in an account for off-line access. I thought I had done this in the main settings, but then when right clicking on each folder:
  Properties -> "Copy folder content for offline operation"
was not ticked. I seemed to have to individually set this for every folder, not ideal. Have I missed an easy way to set this up so that any future created imap folder would automatically be setup for off-line access?

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
Package: evolution 2.30.3-1ubuntu7.3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-25.44-generic-pae 2.6.35.10
Uname: Linux 2.6.35-25-generic-pae i686
Architecture: i386
Date: Sun Feb 6 21:44:15 2011
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Release i386 (20101007)
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_GB.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: evolution

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. The issue that you reported is one that should be reproducible with the live environment of the Desktop CD of the development release - Oneiric Ocelot. It would help us greatly if you could test with it so we can work on getting it fixed in the next release of Ubuntu. You can find out more about the development release at http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/ . Thanks again and we appreciate your help.

[PC (pc101)]

I have downloaded the live desktop CD (alpha 3) for Oneiric Ocelot (11.10) and booted this in live mode.
Thunderbird is now the default email client.

I tried to install Evolution using the software center. Unfortunately this failed with the message:

Failed to download package files:
(Then 8 lines relating to Evolution packages)
Failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/... 404 Not Found [IP: 91.189.92.171 80]

The Internet connection for the computer is working ok.

[PC (pc101)]

Live desktop CD (alpha 3) for Oneiric Ocelot (11.10) and booted this in live mode.

Managed to get evolution installed in the end. However, it failed to start. System offered to report issue.
"evolution crashed with SIGSEGV in g_str_equal()"
This bug is already reported on the system.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for evolution (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[aaron pieper (aaron-pieper)]

This bug is still active. I typed out a lengthy e-mail and went to send it, but there was a temporary connection issue with our IMAP servers. I chose the "Save Draft" option in evolution and closed the e-mail, but the draft was not saved anywhere. Unlike the original poster I did not receive any sort of warning about losing data.

One of my coworkers reproduced the issue by going offline in IMAP mode, and saving a draft. The draft is never saved in offline mode, even though evolution says it saved a draft.