Ubuntu One Contact Address Book does not migrate correctly

[David Clayton]

Using Evolution on 12.04 B1 when migrating from 10.04 LTS system (existing /home folder from 10.04 used) results in CouchDB "Ubuntu One" Address Book not working on 12.04 system. Evolution version on 10.04 is 2.28.3, 12.04 version is 3.2.3. All other Address Books seem to migrate ok.

Error message is:
---------
This address book cannot be opened. This either means that an incorrect URI was entered, or the server is unreachable.

Detailed error message: Invalid source
---------
And you cannot delete this Address Book to remove the error whenever you access this book.

I believe that the issue might be that CouchDB is no longer used in 12.04, but it still gets migrated from the old 10.04 /home folder setup.

Given that many 10.04 LTS users may well stay with Evolution in 12.04, this could be a significant issue for those of us who will do this.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: evolution 3.2.3-0ubuntu3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-18.29-generic 3.2.9
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-18-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 1.94.1-0ubuntu2
Architecture: amd64
Date: Thu Mar 15 14:13:33 2012
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Beta amd64 (20120301)
SourcePackage: evolution
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to precise on 2012-03-12 (2 days ago)

[iMac (imac-netstatz)]

There is a couchdb package that is probably the right place for this; I think I can change the tag

ii evolution-couchdb 0.5.91-0ubuntu7 Evolution support for CouchDB databases
ii evolution-couchdb-backend 0.5.91-0ubuntu7

[David Clayton (dcstar)]

The issue is that currently in 12.04 the CouchDB packages are now not installed by default, and a migrated system that wants to keep using Evolution needs the user to manually install the evolution-couchdb package (which installs all the other CouchDB components) - this fixes the issue after a reboot.

It is going to be a big ask to get an ordinary user to jump through this many hoops just to keep the e-mail package they have been using previously.

The evolution-couchdb package really need to be made a dependency of the basic Evolution install to provide compatibility with upgrades from 10.04 LTS for the many of us that will continue to use Evolution.

[iMac (imac-netstatz)]

Maybe dpkg suggested or recommends... there must be policy around this a package maintainer can quote to help with the decision.

[David Clayton (dcstar)]

I have found further that the Ubuntu One CouchDB components aren't installed on my working 10.04 system (which was originally installed when 10.04 was released) but were installed on a subsequent 10.04.3 system that I used to do the migration test. Possibly Ubuntu One didn't exist when the original 10.04 was released and these packages were only included in the base install of the subsequent version updates. If that is the case, then possibly not as many 10.04 users will be affected as I first thought.

There almost needs to be a script written to test if the Ubuntu One Contact list exists in the pre-migration Evolution setup and then have them installed if so.

[dobey (dobey)]

Can you clarify please how exactly you performed this "migration" to 12.04? If you upgrade to 12.04 using the update-manager, the related packages should appear under a heading of "No longer supported by Canonical" in a listing somewhere, and should give you the option to keep or remove them, assuming that they aren't simply just upgraded when doing the upgrade.

If you're just installing over top of an existing install, then you will have to migrate some data manually. For example, Evolution is not the default mail client in 12.04 either. It has been replaced with Thunderbird.

[David Clayton (dcstar)]

I migrated both 10.04 systems by copying the functional /home folder to a new 12.04 Beta system.

I had Evolution installed on the 12.04 system and when run it converted the existing 10.04 Evolution user data and config to the 12.04 version of Evolution with the results as posted above.

Personally I always install a new Ubuntu release from fresh and then enable my separate /home partition. Any conversion to new structures is usually done smoothly with this method (a lot more smoothly than people doing any direct "Upgrade" from an existing working system if the last 8 years are any guide).

[dobey (dobey)]

OK. The way you are "migrating" to the new version will require you to manually install some packages, if they are no longer supported or maintained. There isn't really anything that can be done in evolution-couchdb here. Certainly installing a clean 12.04 system, you would have had to install evolution itself manually as well, to get it back. It would be the same for any additional plug-ins for evolution as well, which this is.

[David Clayton (dcstar)]

Then perhaps someone can move the bug report back to Evolution or a more appropriate place?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.