Evolution cannot connect to Exchange backend process

[Giorgos Logiotatidis]

Hi,
I created a new exchange account using evolution and I get this error.
"Error while Scanning folders in "Exchange server es-0.isc.tuc.gr". Could not connect to Evolution Exchange backend process: No such file or directory"

using dapper
evolution-exchange/unknown uptodate 2.5.92-0ubuntu1

[Mike Basinger (mike.basinger)]

Same here with Evolution 2.6.0

[Nicholas Reid (njreid)]

Silly question, but are you using the correct URL for your exchange webmail? I had to play around a bit to get the format right:

Under Account Editor:

Server Type: Microsoft Exchange

Username: <DOMAIN>/<username>

OWA URL: https://email.<company>.com/exchange

I feel this could be better documented, if you didn't know that OWA related to the Outlook Web client then you would probably be tempted to insert the name of the Exchange server to which your corporate Outlook client is connected. In larger corporations this is usually different to the URL used for webmail access.

[Giorgos Logiotatidis (seadog)]

Tested again with evolution-exchange/unknown uptodate 2.6.0-0ubuntu2
 and seems fixed.

[Mike Basinger (mike.basinger)]

Still broken here.

[Tom Worley (tom-worley)]

I can confirm the same problem still on 2.6.0-0ubuntu2, however, no problems in 2.4.1-0ubuntu1.
This makes using exchange impossible until fixed =(

[Tom Worley (tom-worley)]

This bug makes evolution-exchange unusable

[Martin Heick Hansen (martinheick)]

Same experience here. It works with 2.6 in suse 10.1 but here in ubuntu it doesn't work.

Unfortunately, because it makes ubuntu useless for me.

[Vincent Esposito (vincent-ygloo)]

I had the same problem with a freshly installed Dapper, but then starting ximian-connector-setup-2.6 resolved the issue. It now works properly.

Hope this might help...

[Nathan Palmer (nathan1)]

I have the same problem here on a freshly installed 386 dapper. I tried to use ximian-connector-setup-2.6 but still nothing. I have tried every possibly combination of OWA urls and still nothing.

[Christian Kirbach (christian-kirbach-e)]

Running 'evolution --force-shutdown' solved the problem for me with Evolution 2.6

[Jie Zhang (jzhang918)]

The evolution exchange in dapper works very well for me. But when I upgrading it to latest edgy, I encounter this same issue.

[jrmann1999 (jmann)]

To get my exchange working I did the following:

1. Add exchange.conf to /etc/ld.so.conf.d contents are:
/usr/lib/evolution/2.8/

2. sudo ldconfig

3. In evolution, Edit->Plugins->Exchange Operations was enabled.

Works fine now in edgy.

[Jie Zhang (jzhang918)]

jrmann1999's workaround works for me, too.

[Pascal de Bruijn (pmjdebruijn)]

Hmm, I have this same issue. But in my case it's erratic. Sometimes Evolution start without error. Sometimes I get this error.

One note though, I didn't supply a GC.

[Ian Ohr (munk3h)]

I am suffering the same problem with evolution 2.8 on Edgy, obviously I'm connecting to an exchange server. The problem seems to be intermittent.

1. Boot Ubuntu
2. Start evolution
3. Folders are populated an messages appear in the list for the selected folder, but there is no access to the contents of messages.
4. Error message appears:

---
Error while refreshing folder.

Lost connection to Evolution Exchange backend process
---

I looked at top, and unless I close evolution, the:

evolution-exchange-storage --oaf-activate-iid=OAFIID:GNOME_Evolution_Exchange_Component_Factory:2.8 --oaf-ior-fd=34

process is using 99% cpu.

Solutions I've attempted are:
a) evolution --force-shutdown
b) opening and closing evolution about 4 times

Solution b) seems to work, but obviously not a good one to have. I will try and get some kind of debug information to add to this bug report. Are there any specifics that would be good. Also, why is there no assignee to this bug?

[Entotre (snorre-entotre)]

I'm suffering the exact same problem av Ian Ohr.

Deleting the contents of .evolution/exchange seems to fix the problem (none of the config gets zapped).

[Arthaey Angosii (arthaey)]

I had the same trouble (Evolution 2.8., Ubuntu ). The following worked for me: http://www.buggy.id.au/2007/03/06/solved-evolution-loosing-connection-to-exchange/#comment-656

evolution –force-shutdown
cd ~/.evolution
cd mail/exchange

ls (to see what directory is there - in my case only one as I only have one exchange server account)

rm -rfv ./(name of directory)

Restart Evolution - did not have to re-create account

[The_Kirschi (daniel-kirschsieper)]

Thanks Arthaey ! That one worked for me, too.

The problem I had was that I was trying to configure more than one Exchange E-Mail account. So I deleted the account from the Evolution settings but the directory still remained in ~/.evolution/mail/exchange. After removing that directory all is working well.

[jmitchell (jmitchell)]

Thanks Arthaey!!! got me going in the right direction too.

[Brian F (bgfeldm)]

I applied Arthaey fix the first time it did not work, the second time still did not work, after the third or fourth try it worked.

evolution –force-shutdown
cd ~/.evolution
cd mail/exchange

ls (to see what directory is there - in my case only one as I only have one exchange server account)

rm -rfv ./(name of directory)

open evolution.

[darren (darrenm)]

Another one to add to the list.

Randomly I will get "Lost connection to Evolution Exchange backend process"

doing the fix above works for me too.

[Adam Logghe (alogghe)]

happens pretty frequently to me too

[Adam Logghe (alogghe)]

Sorry I should add that the above workaround is effective for a random amount of time but then the error will reoccur.

This bug also has affected 3 coworkers here at the office.

I've seen this on feisty and gutsy.

I notice that evolution-exchange isn't hooked to the upstream bugzilla?

[Adam Logghe (alogghe)]

I see 8 bugs that look possibly related in upstream bugzilla...all unconfirmed

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/buglist.cgi?query_format=advanced&short_desc_type=allwordssubstr&short_desc=&classification=Desktop&product=Evolution+Exchange&long_desc_type=substring&long_desc=backend+process&status_whiteboard_type=allwordssubstr&status_whiteboard=&keywords_type=allwords&keywords=&bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&bug_status=NEEDINFO&emailassigned_to1=1&emailtype1=substring&email1=&emailassigned_to2=1&emailreporter2=1&emailqa_contact2=1&emailcc2=1&emailtype2=substring&email2=&bugidtype=include&bug_id=&chfieldfrom=&chfieldto=Now&chfieldvalue=&cmdtype=doit&order=Reuse+same+sort+as+last+time&field0-0-0=noop&type0-0-0=noop&value0-0-0=

At least these bugs started occuring within the last year.

[darren (darrenm)]

Sorry to be so vague but to add more information to this.

Evolution-exchange was working great in Gutsy until about a week ago. Now it is horribly buggy and broken. It lasts about 5 minutes until it loses connection to the Exchange backend process and I have to --force-shutdown

It still locks up doing LDAP name lookups when typing the address in the bar.

The current version I am using is: evolution-2.11.90-0ubuntu2 and evolution-exchange-2.11.90-0ubuntu1

[Greg Haywood (ghaywood)]

Same here, I am running Ubuntu 7.04 and Evolution 2.10.1

I have tried everything, deleting directory, the ld fix and even starting fresh by deleting everything. It works for a while (random) then "lost connection" errors start. They get worse and worse until I delete the account.

This is causing evolution to be unusable for me (I use it all day at work) and I have no other way to connect to an exchange server except going back to windows (uurrgghh) After 7 years with linux that is *not* a palatable option.

Please can someone, somewhere devote a little time to this? I cannot keep encouraging users to switch while this major problem exists!.

Thanks all,

Greg

[mazzystr (mazzystr)]

I have the same problem. Evolution with exchange connector was working good for awhile in Ubuntu Feisty.

The --force-shutdown directive doesnt work for me. I have to literally restart X...then evolution will work for awhile then loose connection to backend process.

Could this be an X issue?

Thanks,
/Chris Callegari

[mvandeg (mvandegiessen)]

I can confirm this bug. I also noticed that the evolution-exchange backend tries to use 100% cpu. Contrary to Chris' experience, II get the error message immediately after I start Evolution. Restarting X does not work for me.

Since I updated to Gutsy a few weeks ago Evolution finally seemed to be usable as an exchange client, but now its broken again. I hope it will be fixed before Gutsy is lauched.

Thanks a lot!

Martijn

[nox216 (nox216)]

Confirming this as existing in Gutsy. I get this error message within seconds of opening Evolution, usually. This is on Evolution 2.12.0.

[Madhan Raj M (madanraj)]

I too got into above situation.

I was trying to add a new USENET new account with wrong server name.

After applying Arthaey's workaround, it worked for me.

Thanks Arthaey !

[Oderus (joel-girard)]

I have the same problem. I upgraded from Feisty to Gutsy just a few days ago and everything was fine until today. Now it can't connect to the backend at all. I tried the --force-shutdown and did nothing, nor does rebooting / restarting X.

I would really hate to go back to Windoze...

I started evolution with the --debug switch and what I got is here..

CalDAV Eplugin starting up ...
** (evolution:30661): DEBUG: mailto URL command: evolution %s
** (evolution:30661): DEBUG: mailto URL program: evolution

(evolution:30661): evolution-mail-WARNING **: Error occurred while existing dialogue active:
Lost connection to Evolution Exchange backend process
Loading Spamassasin as the default junk plugin

Version is evolution 2.12.0.

[Oderus (joel-girard)]

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=3435563#post3435563

IMXUK has a fix that worked for me. Now Evolution is working... damn I love the open source community.

:)

[xtsbdu3reyrbrmroezob (xtsbdu3reyrbrmroezob)]

I can confirm this on Gutsy updated as of 15 minutes ago. Is it a regression? The following resolved the issue, but this is a huge bug for corporate users or people use rely on their email/calendar!!!

$ evolution --force-shutdown
$ cd ~/.evolution
$ rm -rf `find . -name *exch* -print`

[sandalle (sandalle)]

Arthaey Angosii's fix worked for me (though I did run `evolution --force-shutdown` before removing ~/.exchange/mail/exchange/*. This is not just an Ubuntu bug as I have the same problem with Evolution 2.12.0 on another distribution. I don't know when this started as this is the first time I've had to use Exchange. :/

[hotani (hotani)]

Same problem here with 2.12.0. This was working fine in Feisty.

[Mike Luca (mike-luca)]

OK...same trouble here. Trying to put a common thread. My Fiesty-Gutsy upgraded box running Evolution 2.12 was doing the same. I deleted the folders under ~/.evolution/mail/exchange/. Exchange can only be configured for one account. For my part I had 3. I monitor the windows system administrator's box. I tried (apparently twice) to make an exchange box with that account. It failed, and I configured the admin box with an IMAP account. The backend seems to pop when I attempt to forward mail from the Admin box. I will let you know how it works after I noodle around for a while. Right now seems to be back to good.

[jasonmartens (me-jasonmartens)]

Evolution-exchange has been working fine since I installed Gutsy on this laptop. However, today I started getting this error message every time I open evolution. Evolution is now completely useless to me. The above fix ofLost connection to Evolution Exchange backend process deleting *exch* in the ~/.exchange directory did not fix it for me. This is the output when running exchange from a shell:

jmartens@mouse:~$ evolution
CalDAV Eplugin starting up ...
evolution-shell-Message: Killing old version of evolution-data-server...
Loading Spamassasin as the default junk plugin
** (evolution:5809): DEBUG: mailto URL command: evolution %s
** (evolution:5809): DEBUG: mailto URL program: evolution

(evolution:5809): evolution-mail-WARNING **: Error occurred while existing dialogue active:
Lost connection to Evolution Exchange backend process

(evolution:5809): evolution-mail-WARNING **: Failed to refresh folders: Lost connection to Evolution Exchange backend process

[Chris Cooper (ccooper)]

Also occurs in Debian Sid/Lenny using evolution-exchange 2.12.2 and evolution 2.12.2

[dave_mwi (g-launchpad-exby-com)]

Evolution with exchange-connector has also been broken in Fedora for some time now with the above problem happening. This is not a distribution related problem. There was a period of time before I did an upgrade where it worked beautifully - as many of you have indicated above. If my memory serves me right it was version 2.6 or something there abouts.

Evolution version 2.10.3

I've experienced this bug starting back in Fedora 6, about a year ago with evolution then. I check it every now and then to see if they've fixed it. Apparently not.

FYI, removing all of your account cached information in ~./evolution/mail/exchange/ will only temporarily fix your problem. It will come back. The fix has to be in exchange-connector.

I've not yet searched Evolution's mailing list, but at the time I was having the bug I did full dumps of my crashes and they never were able to help me fix the problem.

[casanostra (jonas-granlie)]

I've had this problem on Gutsy/Evolution 2.12.1 for a while. Recently, though, I have been using Evolution without any glitches. I had a feeling that the bug was somehow triggered when searching, so I haven't been doing that. Today I actually needed to find something, so I searched first in 'current folder', without problems, and then in 'current account'. The search was performed, but when I cleared the search box and returned to the Inbox, I promptly got the "Lost connection..." message and had to completely delete ~/.evolution to get going again. I haven't had the time to test whether this behaviour is consistently reproducible, but it repeated itself three times in a row before I was in luck.

Same output as jasonmartens.

[bluesky74656 (bluesky74656)]

I've been having this problem for a long while now. Strangely enough, I have a laptop that worked fine with my Exchange account, but my desktop was utterly unusable. For some I didn't think until now to compare the settings between them. It turns out that there was only one difference: on the laptop I specified both domain and username, as in domain.local/username. On my desktop I was only using the username. I made the change on my desktop and it works great!

I don't know if this is the case for everyone, but it's probably worth checking.

[C de-Avillez (hggdh2)]

rejecting the evo-exchange on Debian. It does not make sense to add an "also affects distribution" without linking a bug there. If the Debian affects should be kept, please add a link to a bug there.

[ltsampros (ltsampros)]

Hello,

I'm having the same problems on Ubuntu Gutsy 7.10 . To debug this issue I installed through apt-get the packages evolution-dbg and evolution-data-server-dbg. In order to obtain more debugging logs, I ran the following on a bash shell

# export E2K_DEBUG=4
# pkill -9 evolution
# evolution --debug=evolution.log

From what it seems, evolution seems to lose the connection to the exchange backend process, when reading a response to a PROPFIND for a specific directory.

Could someone confirm this behaviour too ?

[Mike (mnorwood154-gmail)]

I ran into this error and following Artys solution with an additional step fixed it for me.

evolution --force shutdown
cd ~/.evolution
rm -rvf exchange
cd ~/.evolution/mail
rm -rvf exchange

[Jointtech (yan-jointtech)]

I also experience this. It make Evolution and therefore Ubuntu unuseable. I played with running a VM just for XP/Outlook.

The fix of removeing the folder works. However then you have to wait for the emails to resync.

My exchange mailbox is only about 1.2 Gigs in size. Even Outlook can handle it.

I also notice that many there will be Missing emails. I will look in OWA for an email I kow I saw and there it is. But nowhere to be seen in Evolution. I just had one that I clicked the email and noticed it disappeared before I read it. Then went looking for it later and couldn't find it. Logged into OWA and its right in the inbox.

Having the fear of "is this really all my email" is unacceptable.

[Heming Leira (heming-leira)]

The same problem here. I thought that Linux was ready and it was so much hype around the Ubuntu.
For me To have the possibility to use exchange was very important. No it look like Ubuntu/Linux still isnt ready to be used.
The other folders looks ok but not the inbox.
It dosnt look good when a problem so central havnt been fixed in soon 2 years. My hope for Linux is taking a big hit.

[dnh (dnh)]

Same problem here on Kubuntu 7.10 using Evolution 2.12.1.

The problem does only occur when I searched for mails in all folders (but not when I search in the current folder only).

Shutting down, removing .evolution/exchange and .evolution/mail works.

[Mike Seeley (mseeley)]

Same here on Ubuntu 7.10 using Evolution 2.12.1 started to occur only after doing a search on "all accounts."

as was stated above doing-
evolution --force shutdown
and removing .evolution/exchange and .evolution/mail also worked for me to get things working again.

PS.
Don't give up on (Read: complain or wine about) Ubuntu or Linux in general because of one flaky Evolution problem. There are other ways for you to work around this problem.
Use the web based version of exchange directly.
or
or install wine and run Microsoft outlook. (only 2003 for now I think)
I haven't tried it but I hear it's possible to run office 2007. I think I might try it now though. But I'm going to stick with Evolution because it won't get better if we're not using.

[Henri Cook (henricook)]

I've just tried the LD fix, so far so good - i'll post back if I have no problems in the next ~fortnight (about how often my bugs reoccur)

It should be noted for everyone that removing things under ~/.evolution does NOT fix the problem, it will reoccur in time.

[Teg (teg-123)]

I am running Gutsy with evolution 2.12.1 and had the problem. I had to shut it down and clear out the contents of the ~/.evolution/exchange directory and the ~/.evolution/mail/exchange directory.

[Henri Cook (henricook)]

Obviously clearing out the contents of these directories repeatedly is not an acceptable fix - can anyone help?

[Raphael Bosshard (raphael.bosshard)]

This bug makes eolution-exchange effectively worthless for me. I have to '--force-shutdown' repeatedly, sometimes up to four times per hour. Every second operation or so will block evolution-exchange again. But worse; this also breaks the clock-applet, for whenever the clock-applet tries to read my calendar through evolution-exchange, it locks up. Only killing the gnome-panel helps in those cases. This is a bad blocker for me.

Are there any informations I may provide?

[Noe Nieto (tzicatl)]

After Evolution crash, I get this on .xsession-errors
$ cat .xsession-errors

Loading Bogofilter as the default junk plugin
old group, new source
CalDAV Eplugin starting up ...
evolution-shell-Message: Killing old version of evolution-data-server...
** (evolution:8693): DEBUG: mailto URL command: evolution %s
** (evolution:8693): DEBUG: mailto URL program: evolution

** (evolution:8693): WARNING **: Unexpected kerberos error -1765328164
BBDB spinning up...

After removing completely evolution configuration files:
sudo rm -R .evolution/
$ cat .xsession-errors

Loading Bogofilter as the default junk plugin
old group, new source
CalDAV Eplugin starting up ...
evolution-shell-Message: Killing old version of evolution-data-server...
** (evolution:8823): DEBUG: mailto URL command: evolution %s
** (evolution:8823): DEBUG: mailto URL program: evolution
Loading Bogofilter as the default junk plugin

And all my e-mails went back.

[wilbur.harvey (wilbur-harvey)]

I read through the whole thread of complaints. I have not tried the various fixes, but their experiences mirror my own. I typically have to do an evolution --force-shutdown every few mail operations, or several times/hour which ever comes first. It is basically totally uselessl.
I have been using linux as my desktop for about 3 years in a Windows centric company. Email is essential. I have filed several bug reports and am disappointed to see that a crash on open is considered of "mild" importance.

[Noe Nieto (tzicatl)]

On the lasts days I tried evolution on RHEL WS 5. It suffers the same symptoms.

This is not an ubuntu/debian specific.

[Sean "Diggity" O'Brien (seandiggity)]

This bug is probably a combination of a number of communication problems between the exchange-connector and MS Exchange servers. Before giving up on the exchange-connector, however, I think it's useful to take a look at this Novell info: http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/trench/16234.html

Answering all of these questions (with some help from the people in charge of the MS Exchange server) was very helpful, in my case:

    * Do you have an Exchange account? (necessary)
    * What's the OWA URL? (necessary)
    * Is Outlook WebAccess with WebDav running?
    * What's you Exchange server hostname? (You can get this by checking your Exchange Server Setting in your Outlook client.)
    * What's your Global Catalog Server? (This is the server to which you're authenticating and where your Global Address List is extracted from. To get this information, you must first start nslookup, set type=srv, and enter your Exchange server hostname.
      The servername after the Primary Server Name is your Global Catalog Server.)
    * What's your Public Folder server?

I had similar problems with Kontact/KMail before I switched to Evolution. However, I think I could've cleared up the problems with Kontact/KMail if I had answered the questions above (i.e. known more about the specific MS Exchange server I was connecting to).

[syn4k (griffin-ray)]

Arthaey Angosii, you are a genius! Thanks a TON!

[stereoit (smol-robert)]

Using those tricks solves about 99% of problems I have when communicating against MS Exchange Server from Evolution.

evolution --force-shutdown
try, again

evolution --force-shutdown
rm /tmp/.exchange-<username>
evolution --offline

using gconf-editor
apps->evolution->mail-> accounts, edit exchange account and set enabled=false
start evo and try to re-enable the account

sometimes network failure prevents evo to start up,use:
$ strace evolution
and you might see it tries to connect to AD (directory server), remove the value from gconf (I think it is the same key as the one for disabling exchange account)

Sometimes evo crashes on MS meeting invitations, I then log in via outlook webaccess and process it there.

[Enryfox (enryfox)]

Bug confirmed and still present in ubuntu 8.04 LTS final.

Connection to exchange server is lost typically within an hour of running evolution. Only way out is to close and restart evolution. Situation that seems to trigger this issue:

1) writing a new e-mail (address completion using GAL stops working)
2) locking the screen and unlocking it with password

bye

[Eric Krieger (grammatoncleric)]

To add to what Enryfox stated. I also can confirm that the bug is in 8.04 LTS final. I've also noticed an increase in local drive activity prior to Evolution loosing connection to the backend service. Killing the trackerd process seems to help.

Triggers for me are:

1.) Attempting to switch between exchange folders. Then trying to open a message in the new folder.
2.) Attempting to open a message after about 30mins from Evolution launch.

Thanks,
-GC

[Eric Krieger (grammatoncleric)]

Forgot a trigger: Creating a message filter and preforming a crtl+a followed by a crtl+y.

-GC

[Mariusz Stankiewicz (discobean)]

Can confirm I have the same problem in 8.04 LTS final. With the same triggers as Eric and Enryfox.

Only way to fix it is to restart Exchange.

[Andreas Berger (andreas-berger)]

I can also confirm this bug in 8.04 final. I've already recreated my account, but this didn't help. As others already reported, evolution loses connection to the exchange backend. I can especially confirm the behavior that Enryfox described:

Creating a message filter and preforming a crtl+a followed by a crtl+y -> connection to exchange backend dies.

cheers, a.

[Enryfox (enryfox)]

This morning i updated Evolution allowing hardy pre-release update. Not a single crash in the whole morning, it has been stable for more than 6 hours (and i wrote several e-mails ... ). I do not know if it has been fixed or it is just a lucky day, i just wanted to share this possible solution.

chhers

[Andreas Berger (andreas-berger)]

What do you mean by 'hardy pre-release update'? Where did you get the new evolution version from?

Thanks, a.

[Enryfox (enryfox)]

in system->administration->software sources go to the "update" pane and check "pre-released updates (hardy proposed)"
In synaptic update the package database and install all available upgrades: it should includes some evolution packages and it looks like issues are fixed.

bye

[Greg Haywood (ghaywood)]

I would have to agree, at this point in time it appears to be fixed,
also the problem with mail filtering (if using the exchange connector)
seems to be fixed also.

I hope so :-)

Thanks to all who worked on this

-g

On Tue, May 6, 2008 at 12:07 AM, Enryfox <email address hidden> wrote:
> in system->administration->software sources go to the "update" pane and check "pre-released updates (hardy proposed)"
> In synaptic update the package database and install all available upgrades: it should includes some evolution packages and it looks like issues are fixed.
>
> bye
>
> --
> Evolution cannot connect to Exchange backend process
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/34199
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

--

http://www.virtualcellardoor.com/
Cellar Door wine - Cellar Door prices

[Andreas Berger (andreas-berger)]

@Enryfox: Thanks, seems that the mirror I use received the updates later than your one.

I've now also installed the evolution update and have seen no further crashes of the exchange backend so far. Thanks a lot!

[tskytta (timo-skytta)]

Well... I had the pre-released updates (hardy proposed) enabled and got my Evolution updated on Tuesday morning. I run Ubuntu 8.04 and Evolution 2.22.1.1.

Since then it's been pretty much nightmare, the rare occurrences of losing connection to Exchange backend process now happen pretty much
every 10 minutes making Evolution with Exchange totally unusable.

I have done all the tricks above (I have a scipt that deletes the needed directories, files etc.. that I have used to survive for the last years...) and I have deleted my account, and re-created it using /usr/bin/exchange-connector-setup-2.22 but still have this problem....

One thing I haven't yet tried is to completely remove Evolution installation and then re-installl it.

any advice or traces that I should take ?

[cnkbrown (charles-brown)]

Same here. I updated last night, and now crash every time I access calendar or tasks.

[Joe MacDonald (joeythesaint)]

Yeah, pretty much the same thing here. Until I updated (as in: when was using the base Hardy install) evolution I'd get a half-dozen crashes a day of the exchange connector. Since then it's been completely unusable. I can't open my inbox to even read mail now and trying to enable my calendar is a guaranteed way to kill all of evolution (as in no evolution processes are running at all anymore).

I've done all the "force-shutdown. force-shutdown, delete files in /tmp. force-shutdown, delete files in /tmp, blow away cache files in .evolution. force-shutdown, delete files in /tmp, blow away everything in .evolution/exchange. force-shutdown, delete files in /tmp, blow away everything in .evolution/exchange, log out. force-shutdown, delete files in /tmp, delete exchange account in evolution, log out." dance and still no joy. My next steps are: create a new user and see if evolution still barfs there or if it's something else in my environment, then roll back to the version from my Hardy cds and lock the package version assuming it still works.

Other suggestions welcome, but right now this is more of a train-wreck for me than it has been in probably two years so I'm very close to just wanting to cut my losses and run.

[Greg Haywood (ghaywood)]

Yup, me too.

My previous "stable" evolution is now unusable with the exchange
connector. This is getting really bad.

-G

On Thu, May 8, 2008 at 12:57 AM, cnkbrown <email address hidden> wrote:
> Same here. I updated last night, and now crash every time I access
> calendar or tasks.
>
>
>
> --
> Evolution cannot connect to Exchange backend process
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/34199
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

--

http://www.virtualcellardoor.com/
Cellar Door wine - Cellar Door prices

[Enryfox (enryfox)]

I had the same problem yesterday: on 05/02 the pre-release updated fixed most of the issues, but the new 05/07 pre-release update renders evolution unusable (exchange connector loses connection after few minutes from start-up). I then uninstalled all evolution packages, disabled hardy pre-released updates and installed evolution from the officially hardy updates repository. This version seems quite stable and usable; i sincerely hope the evolution 05/07 pre-release update will never be officially released !

cheers

[tskytta (timo-skytta)]

Ok, after a bit of a nightmare I recovered and it seems that it's the combination of Evolution update + library updates that brakes the Evolution and makes it to lose contact to backend process in a few minutes. The following set of files from Hardy Updates seems to work for me:
evolution Version 2.22.1-0ubuntu3.1
evolution-common Version 2.22.1-0ubuntu3.1
evolution-data-server Version 2.22.1-0ubuntu2.1
evolution-data-server-common Version 2.22.1-0ubuntu2.1
evolution-plugins Version 2.22.1-0ubuntu3.1
libecal1.2-7 Version 2.22.1-0ubuntu2.1
libedata-book1.2-2 Version 2.22.1-0ubuntu2.1
libedata-cal1.2-6 Version 2.22.1-0ubuntu2.1
libexchange-storage1.2-3 Version 2.22.1-0ubuntu2.1

I tried only to downgrade evolution files, but it didn't fix the problem so downgrading the lib** files also fixed the problem.

I use Evolution in my daily work so I didn't have time to debug which library specifically is broken.....

This update is still available on Hardy Proposed, please remove ASAP since it absolutely brakes Evolution in Exchange environment.

[Enryfox (enryfox)]

I have the same combination of package as Tskytta and, more or less, i'm back to where i started: when i create a new message, half of the times evolution loses connection with the backend process, CPU usage goes to 100% and the only way out is to close Evo and restart it.
I do not know what happened, but the temporary fix of older proposed updates seems lost; present updates seem not to fix issues and present proposed updates completely break Evo.
If anyone need to use Ubuntu in a corporate environment with exchange servers, i highly suggest to stick to ubuntu 7.10; as for now, ubuntu 8.04 looks like major step back.

[Vikesh (vikesh-rambaran)]

Hi

What can we do to help fix this problem ?

I am running 8.04 LTS.

My previous installation of Ubuntu 7.10 only lost connection to the exchange server occasionally.
The 8.04 LTS version loses connection every few minutes, with my CPU usage hitting 100 % on one of the CPU cores

Tried deleting the /exchange/* as mentioned above. Does not work for me(:

Have now removed all filters on incoming mail for the exchange account. Will see if that helps

Thanx
Vicki

[Vikesh (vikesh-rambaran)]

Update

Removing all filters as well as clearing the "automatically check for email every 10 minutes" did not help
Still loses connection (:

[Stéphane Girault (sgirault)]

Same configuration and same problem as everybody here.

If it can help, I've noticed that the process which makes the CPU usage hitting 100% is gnome-keyring-d

It only occurs when I try to write a message in evolution

Thanx

Stéphane

[Greg Haywood (ghaywood)]

I have noticed a something about this (on my machine at work)

The last 2 days I have been experiencing "backend connection" errors
much more that the week before and it was driving me crazy, I did not
remember doing any updates.

When I logged on a terminal server session I noticed I was getting the
windows prompt for "password will expire in 7 days" messages, so
inside evolution I turned off the "password expiry warning period" in
my account preferences, and for the last day I have had no backed
crashes. It may be coincedence but you never know..

Greg

On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 9:30 PM, Stéphane Girault <email address hidden> wrote:
> Same configuration and same problem as everybody here.
>
> If it can help, I've noticed that the process which makes the CPU usage
> hitting 100% is gnome-keyring-d
>
> It only occurs when I try to write a message in evolution
>
> Thanx
>
> Stéphane
>
> --
> Evolution cannot connect to Exchange backend process
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/34199
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

--

http://www.virtualcellardoor.com/
Cellar Door wine - Cellar Door prices

[tskytta (timo-skytta)]

I don't know if anybody actually monitors this bug, but last night my time these broken Evolution + library updates appeared in the normal Hardy Updates
and I was dummy enough to accept them assuming that somebody had actually seen our reports and prevented the broken update from moving from Proposed to Updates, but obviously not......

I am back on the totally unusable Evolution with Exchange situation as reported 7th May, as a Fix I will downgrade Evo + libraries.

PLEASE REMOVE THE BROKEN UPDATES FROM HARDY UPDATES !!!

[Enryfox (enryfox)]

I agree with tskytta, latest evo updates (05/30/2008) do not fix anything: calendar crashes within minutes and email folders are stable at best for an hour if not intensively used. My fear is that this bug is getting too old and no one is caring about it. Latest stable evolution release is 2.22.2, but ubuntu is still offering 2.22.1, which seems pretty bugged. Any change of seeing this new version in ubuntu repos ?

Enrico

[jan2ary (jan2ary)]

the same, with last updates I've got broken evolution.
For any folder I'm getting 'Error while Refreshing folder', with any letter - 'Lost connection to Evolution Exchange backend process'.

[jan2ary (jan2ary)]

Looks like simple uninstall-install solves the problem, now I have working evolution.
I hope this workaround is permanent.

[clakomy (carlos-lakomy)]

So I was just about to uninstall everything and start over after having tried everything on this thread (including consulting my witch doctor for ideas), when I chose to just uninstall/reinstall the exchange plugin. I removed the plugin and deleted the /mail and /exchange directories and then reinstalled the plugin. Guess what; it works again.. Not exactly the best solution, but it will do until a permanent fix is identified.

[Dale Anson (danson-grafidog)]

Does anyone have instructions on how to do a complete uninstall? I went through Synaptic and checked "completely remove" on everything that looked Evolution related to me, then I deleted my ~./evolution directory. Then I reinstalled via Synaptic, and apparently I missed some configuration files, because Evolution asked me for my login and the old accounts were still known to it. I did to 'evolution --force-shutdown' prior to doing the removal.

I upgraded to Heron over the weekend, and tried to run Evolution at work today. I can't do anything with it -- I was able to send only 1 email. If I try to check my calendar, I get a series of messages about lost connections. I've tried the various tips offered in the previous comments to this bug, but I'm not having any luck. I'm thinking to do a complete uninstall, then a reinstall, possibly even going back a revision or two.

[clakomy (carlos-lakomy)]

Best way to do a reinstall is to do it from terminal "sudo apt-get install evolution". I have to also update everyone on my earlier posting; the problem came back. So, I did the scary thing and added "pre-release updates" in software sources. This lead to a complete upgrade of Evolution and its components. I did that about 6 hours ago and so far not one problem. Be sure to delete the entire ./evolution directory and the temp directory under /tmp. I also recreated my Exchange account as well just to cover all bases.

[Johan Walles (walles)]

Here's how the Evolution developers want these things debugged:
http://www.gnome.org/projects/evolution/bugs.shtml

Some experiments from a few different people with running with E2K_DEBUG as described in the above page could help. Try to find out when it fails and attach as detailed logs as possible around that point. ltsampros did that once, getting more (different) people to do it should hopefully highlight the common factor on all those systems. If you have successful runs, try to figure out how they differ from the failed runs.

Try attaching those logs to the upstream bug report at http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=498099. It has been commented by at least one person titled "Evolution developer", which is more than what has happened here.

As for myself, I'm just an innocent bystander. And I don't have to use the Exchange connector any more, so I'm off the hook here...

Happy bug hunting! Some E2K_DEBUG logs to the upstream bug report should help!

[Enryfox (enryfox)]

I can confirm what clakomy said: in the "pre-release" repository (06/03/2008) there is the whole set of packages to update evolution to 2.22.2: i updated it this morning and it has been running since (it's mid afternoon now) with no issues. I tried all operations which caused previous versions to hang and they all worked flawlessly. Calendar too seems stable enough...
Let's hope this issue is finally fixed.

[clakomy (carlos-lakomy)]

Two days and counting and not one single problem. It does seem that the pre-release updates have resolved the issues we've all been experienced around the Exchange connector. One item that is of a concern is that I've noticed that the invites I'm getting are not being presented in the proper format. Rather, they show up as email messages. I am hoping that this is just a random occurrence, but I would like to hear if others have noticed anything similar after the pre-release update.

Regards,
-C

[tskytta (timo-skytta)]

Yes, after installing the whole update set a few times I am also now ok and have been a few days.

I did experience the same problem as you re. calendar invitations showing up as emails with no way to accept/reject etc....

This seems to be due to the new evolution-plugins module, since as soon as I downgraded it from 2.22.2-0ubuntu1 (the most recent)
back to the previous version 2.22.1.1-0ubuntu3 my calendar invitations show up ok and work ok....

[Myron Uecker (myron)]

I think they broke it again in the last couple of updates. Today I cannot get Evolution to keep its connection more than a few minutes. Yesterday it worked most of the day. I enabled pre-release updates and even that is not helping now.

Every few weeks I'm on support and get added to a couple of different mailing lists. Yesterday I came in after the weekend and had about 6800 messages in my inbox. I have been working ever since to get the filters to run long enough to clear them out. Yesterday I let it run all day and it slowly worked its way through and had about 1500 when I walked in. I have restarted many times so far today and each time it seems to crash faster than the previous restart. Earlier I was getting about 60 messages at a time, now it crashes after about 15 messages (about 2 minutes).

I guess that's what I get for accepting updates to Evolution :(

[Brad Johnson (kkhww1902)]

You would need to provide a backtrace of the evolution-exchange-storage process to determine what is really going on with this bug.

[Terje M Mjelde (snobfox)]

Regarding 'gnome-keyring-d' eating CPU when you write a new message:
On my computer this was caused by the address autocompletion feature trying to connect to the global address list. Disabling Autocompletion fixed it.

[OoberMick (oobermick)]

I'm running version 2.22.2-0ubuntu1 on Hardy and I'm seeing this it crash fairly regularly:

Thread 1 (Thread 0xb64b6960 (LWP 30857)):
#0 0xb6f1a307 in g_str_hash () from /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
#1 0xb6eeb6ab in g_hash_table_lookup () from /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
#2 0x0805f049 in message_removed (stub=0x80ae510, mfld=0x0, href=0x0)
    at mail-stub-exchange.c:400
#3 0x0805f599 in sync_deletions (mse=<value optimized out>, mfld=0x8575898)
    at mail-stub-exchange.c:1177
#4 0x08064a46 in connection_handler (source=0x80f3d28, condition=G_IO_IN,
    data=0x80ae510) at mail-stub.c:170
#5 0xb6f2cc5d in ?? () from /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
#6 0xb6ef8bf8 in g_main_context_dispatch () from /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
#7 0xb6efbe5e in ?? () from /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
#8 0xb6efc1e7 in g_main_loop_run () from /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
---Type <return> to continue, or q <return> to quit---
#9 0xb7121a93 in bonobo_main () from /usr/lib/libbonobo-2.so.0
#10 0x0805b8f3 in main (argc=1, argv=Cannot access memory at address 0x4
) at main.c:238

[OoberMick (oobermick)]

Should have attached a core file

[OoberMick (oobermick)]

Sorry I needed to remove the core as it contains some sensitive information

[Henri Cook (henricook)]

This still happens for me on Ubuntu Hardy - Evolution 2.22.3.1

[oss_test_launchpad (oss-test-launchpad)]

This still goes for an Ubuntu 8.10 Alpha with all updates, 64-Bit, Evolution 2.23.91. I wonder why a software that is still so buggy is part of Ubuntu (tested Ubuntu 8.04 before - there I got continuous crashes).

[JasonSpradlin82 (jaspradlin)]

I really, really have to agree... I mean, evolution with Exchange is an extremely useful application to me, being that it is the only email application I can use to access my Exchange account at work, with the exception of the Exchange Web interface that Microsoft offers. I use it on a nearly daily basis, though, and it crashes more than once per day. I have crashes just from switching to a different message, pressing forward, pressing reply, switching to another folder, etc. And this particular bug happens during almost every session. This software should not be considered a stable release, but at the same time, so many people need an email application that connects to exchange, and aside from the frequent crashing, this software is fairly good for that.

[Henri Cook (henricook)]

Dear all,

There is another way of checking exchange via OWA using Thunderbird on Ubuntu I have recently found - this evolution problem still needs to be fixed as a matter of priority as this method I consider to be pretty 'hacky'.

I share everyone's frustrations that evolution can still be accepted with these faults and hope that one of the developers sorts it ASAP.

Information on the Thunderbird-plugin way is on my blog here: http://blog.henricook.com/?p=55

[Thomas Novin (thomasn80)]

Since evolution-exchange is kind of obsolete (it doesn't support Exchange 2007), I guess the progress of fixing stuff is going pretty slow.

I think there is more concentration on the MAPI provider (http://www.go-evolution.org/MAPIProvider). However, on that project there only seems to be a handful very active developers doing all the work. They seem to have done good progress though because now it's now included in Debian Lenny and Fedora 10.

[oss_test_launchpad (oss-test-launchpad)]

Since fully updating Ubuntu 8.10 Alpha a ouple of days ago, I get

----
Unable to retrieve message
Lost connection to Evolution Exchange backend process
----

all the time. Evolution loads email headers, but not the actual messages, which means that is completely unusuable by now.

I wonder why this bug report is still marked "incomplete". None of the developers told any of the bug filers here how to acquire information needed to investigate this bug. Maybe the fact that this bug is still marked "incomplete" is the reason why there is no progress on this?

[oss_test_launchpad (oss-test-launchpad)]

PS Does any actual developer read this anyway, or is it of no use at all posting here?

[oss_test_launchpad (oss-test-launchpad)]

After restarting a few times, it now works, but only with newer messages. Older messages are not being displayed. Clicking "Send-Receive" leads to nothing.

Is there any way of manually making evolution re-sync mails?

[oss_test_launchpad (oss-test-launchpad)]

I also linked this against evolution, hope this was right. Sorry I did not find a link to the GNOME bug tracker.

[Jamie Jackson (jamiejackson)]

@oss_test_launchpad

Since evolution flakes on me periodically, I created a fixevolution.sh script for myself, consisting of the following two lines:

evolution --force-shutdown
rm -rfv ~/.evolution/mail/exchange/<myEmailAccountFolder>/

Obviously, you'll "ls ~/.evolution/mail/exchange/" to see what your folder name is.

After this, evolution will re-sync when you open it (account settings are preserved).

[oss_test_launchpad (oss-test-launchpad)]

Thank you for this information.

[oss_test_launchpad (oss-test-launchpad)]

1) - Has there been any progress on this issue?
2) - Is there an automatic connection between Launchpad and Bugzilla, or are these discussions here all in vain unless someone once more forwards this?

[Johan Walles (walles)]

At least for now there is no forwarding of comments between Launchpad and Bugzilla.

If you want to get closer to the developers, you should probably add comments to the Bugzilla rather than here.

[oss_test_launchpad (oss-test-launchpad)]

Could there be implemented an automatic connection between Launchpad and Bugzilla? Suppose most bug filers would prefer to stay in one system.

[Johan Walles (walles)]

The Ubuntu guys have already thought of that:
http://news.launchpad.net/cool-new-stuff/bugzilla-and-trac-plugins-now-in-beta

[jon_herr (jon-net-widgets)]

I have this same issue about 5 times a day on my work machine which is a dual core Xeon powered Dell Precision 490 running Hardy.

At home, I rarely have this issue - maybe once a week - on my AMD Athlon 64 X2 home-made machine running Hardy.

Might this be a kernel / CPU compilation issue? Both machines are dual core, but the AMD PC is more reliable?

Thanks,
Jon

[clakomy (carlos-lakomy)]

Folks,
   I'm not sure if you guys knew about the product called "Crossover", but it has allowed me to run Office 2007 and Outlook 2007 natively within Ubuntu 8.04. It is lightning fast and leaves WINE in the dust. It is well worth the $40. Here is the URL if you are interested; http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxlinux/download_trial/?done=1. Sorry to post this here, but I am excited to know that the one program I sorely missed from my XP days was Outlook and now I can run it in Ubuntu. My work life is complete.

-C

[oss_test_launchpad (oss-test-launchpad)]

This is a bug tracker, so the information provided by you here is of little use, I am afraid.

[oss_test_launchpad (oss-test-launchpad)]

Aynone going to hand over this information upstream?

[oss_test_launchpad (oss-test-launchpad)]

Anyone going to hand over this information upstream?

[C de-Avillez (hggdh2)]

@oss_test_launchpad: anyone can add data to upstream bugs. Please feel free to do it yourself.

[oss_test_launchpad (oss-test-launchpad)]

@ hggdh: I suppose upstream should only be bothered with comments from people with some technical knowledge, so not "anyone" can do it.

General remark: Noticed that when there have been "backend process" problems while loding messages into Evolution the first time, you cannot acces them later, either. This is dramatic and makes Evolution not usuable for professional use.

[jan.tore.korneliussen (jantoremailbox77-launchpad)]

The problem is still present in Ubuntu 8.10

[mizu (michal-zimen)]

I agree, evolution in Ubuntu 8.10 has the same problem.

I attached strace output. I hope it could be usefull.

[mizu (michal-zimen)]

Further, output from gdb:

Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
[Switching to Thread 0xb622e720 (LWP 18305)]
0xb6e35d07 in g_str_hash () from /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0

and backtrace of stack:

#0 0xb6e35d07 in g_str_hash () from /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
#1 0xb6e04e87 in g_hash_table_lookup () from /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
#2 0x0805fb2c in ?? ()
#3 0x0806008e in ?? ()
#4 0x08065643 in ?? ()
#5 0xb6e496fd in ?? () from /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
#6 0xb6e126f8 in g_main_context_dispatch () from /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
#7 0xb6e15da3 in ?? () from /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
#8 0xb6e162c2 in g_main_loop_run () from /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
#9 0xb7057cf3 in bonobo_main () from /usr/lib/libbonobo-2.so.0
#10 0x0805b96b in ?? ()
#11 0xb6c91685 in __libc_start_main () from /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6
#12 0x080562c1 in ?? ()

[mizu (michal-zimen)]

OK; again me:)
 I've found out, there is exchange with debuging information, about I didn't know before.

so here is the output:

Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
0xb6fafd07 in g_str_hash () from /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
(gdb) bt
#0 0xb6fafd07 in g_str_hash () from /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
#1 0xb6f7ee87 in g_hash_table_lookup () from /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
#2 0x0805fb2c in message_removed (stub=0x8b36438, mfld=0x8bce5b8, href=0x0) at mail-stub-exchange.c:405
#3 0x0806008e in sync_deletions (mse=<value optimized out>, mfld=0xb5a056b0) at mail-stub-exchange.c:1193
#4 0x08065643 in connection_handler (source=0x8b3a850, condition=G_IO_IN, data=0x8b36438) at mail-stub.c:168
#5 0xb6fc36fd in ?? () from /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
#6 0xb6f8c6f8 in g_main_context_dispatch () from /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
#7 0xb6f8fda3 in ?? () from /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
#8 0xb6f902c2 in g_main_loop_run () from /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
#9 0xb71d1cf3 in bonobo_main () from /usr/lib/libbonobo-2.so.0
#10 0x0805b96b in main (argc=1, argv=Cannot access memory at address 0x14
) at main.c:278

Actually I don't have a time to read source code, or even tracing this bug. If someone has, I can help him.

[Adam J Richardson (fatman-crackmonkey)]

The Arthaey/Leonard fix worked for me in Intrepid. Could it be a file permission problem?

[mizu (michal-zimen)]

I have download deb sources of evolution-exchange with the same version as binary and recompile it manually. Suddenly my problem disappeared and till now I haven't found any problems. I didn't change any permission of my mailbox.

I don't understand how could it be possible. :)

Does anyone have some hints ?

[C de-Avillez (hggdh2)]

@mizu -- neither do I... what exactly did you download? How did you recompile & install it? What version are you running?

[mizu (michal-zimen)]

apt-get source evolution-exchange (from Intrepid repository)
....

./configure --prefix=/usr --enable-maintainer-mode (config.h is attached)
make && make install

[C de-Avillez (hggdh2)]

@mizu: thanks. Now, please check if there was a ./debian directory created under the ./evolution-exchange-2.24.1, but I think this might be more of a rethorical question...

Here's the deal: when you 'apt-get source blah', 3 files are downloaded:

- blah_version.orig.tar.gz
- blah_version-ubuntuMod.diff.gz
- blah_version-ubuntuMod.dsc

'apt-get source' will download the 3 of them, will untar the original and apply the diffs -- *iff* you have the development packages installed (at least devscripts, I think). This is important because (a) the Ubuntu install may want to put things at a slightly different place than the original upstream code; (b) we may have our own fixes to apply over the original.

Let's leave aside, for a moment, the issue of the ./debian directory. What you did -- './configure --prefix=/usr --enable-maintainer-mode && make && make install' (and you probably meant, for the last one, 'sudo make install') will bypass *all* Ubuntu customisations (if any). So... your install *may* be a bit different from a Ubuntu install. Your install may not have any additional patches applied.

And, of course, this may mean something. Or nothing.

Now, going back to the ./debian: *even* if you had it created, if you did a 'make && sudo make install' you would still not apply any Ubuntu fixes and changes tot he upstream source. Worse still, there is no guarateed way of backing out your local install (since it was done outside of dpkg/apt control.

You can find what is being changed locally by the Ubuntu package by looking at the ./debian and the ./debian/patches directories; a similar (but more difficult to follow) way is to look at the .diff file.

No matter what: if it is working as you built it, then it is something we can research, and try to find what is different.

A quick guide to packaging, and patching, for Ubuntu is at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PackagingGuide.

Thank you.

[oss_test_launchpad (oss-test-launchpad)]

Anyone with some knowledge going to hand over this information upstream? Suppose it's rather futile to describe problems here when the people who would be concerned do not read this forum.

[mizu (michal-zimen)]

Hi,

Sorry, I was out for a longer time...

So, I tried to upgrade evolution-exchange with last update 2.24.2, but there is still the same problem.

The fix which helps me looks like this:

--- mail-stub-exchange-old.c 2008-12-04 12:43:18.000000000 +0100
+++ mail-stub-exchange.c 2008-12-04 12:43:45.000000000 +0100
@@ -1190,7 +1190,8 @@
    */
   while (my_mmsg->seq != mmsg->seq) {
    mfld->deleted_count++;
- message_removed (stub, mfld, my_mmsg->href);
+ if (my_mmsg->href != 0x0 )
+ message_removed (stub, mfld, my_mmsg->href);
    changes = TRUE;
    my_i--;
    my_mmsg = mfld->messages->pdata[my_i];

No guaranty, it's only workaround fix until I will be able to find true reason.

[era (era)]

oss_test_launchpad: as long as the bug is in "new" / "incomplete" it cannot meaningfully be communicated upstream. Once there is a reasonable understanding of the root cause of the problem, it can be marked as "Confirmed" and passed upstream. For further information about the lifecycle of a bug in Launchpad, see e.g. http://news.launchpad.net/general/of-bugs-and-statuses and the pages under https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Triaging (regrettably, I have been unable to find a single understandable authoritative up-to-date source for this type of information, but at least that's a start).

It looks like mizu is making good progress with nailing down the nature of the problem -- please keep us posted!

To my limited understanding, it is correct to assign it to the package "evolution-exchange" and should be marked as "Invalid" for Evolution proper. But I'm just a random volunteer, and use neither Evolution nor Exchange.

[mizu (michal-zimen)]

Hi,

  If the patch isn't going to be accepted, then this case might be
closed :)

-
 Michal Zimen <email address hidden>

       [ I am Beloved, Therefore I am. ]

On Fri, 2009-01-23 at 09:00 +0000, era wrote:
> oss_test_launchpad: as long as the bug is in "new" / "incomplete" it
> cannot meaningfully be communicated upstream. Once there is a
> reasonable understanding of the root cause of the problem, it can be
> marked as "Confirmed" and passed upstream. For further information
> about the lifecycle of a bug in Launchpad, see e.g.
> http://news.launchpad.net/general/of-bugs-and-statuses and the pages
> under https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Triaging (regrettably, I have been
> unable to find a single understandable authoritative up-to-date source
> for this type of information, but at least that's a start).
>
> It looks like mizu is making good progress with nailing down the nature
> of the problem -- please keep us posted!
>
> To my limited understanding, it is correct to assign it to the package
> "evolution-exchange" and should be marked as "Invalid" for Evolution
> proper. But I'm just a random volunteer, and use neither Evolution nor
> Exchange.
>

[oss_test_launchpad (oss-test-launchpad)]

Well, there is an upstream bug anyway (http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=498099). Point is that there has NEVER been a reaction of any developer there even though the bug has been posted on 2007-11-19.

Btw. I attempted to register for a Bugzilla account a couple of weeks ago but a technical error in Bugzilla wouldn't let me.

[P0per (chrispope)]

(I've mirrored this comment in the upstream bug)

I've confirmed by debugging that the root cause of this issue is http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=522277. That bug's got a patch attached, which resolves the issue for me. Please push for inclusion into evolution, as without this fix, Evolution + OWA is crippled for anyone with a large volume of email.

[C de-Avillez (hggdh2)]

P0per, thank you for your work on this. Can you please tell us what version of Evolution and Evolution-Exchange you applied the upstream patch to?

[P0per (chrispope)]

Patch is only against evolution-exchange.

I applied it to the latest from svn trunk, from http://svn.gnome.org/svn/evolution-exchange/trunk.

[sandalle (sandalle)]

I tried the patch from http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=522277 and all it does is make the error not appear anymore in Evolution, but when I try to click on an unread e-mail I still get:
Unable to retrieve message
Lost connection to Evolution Exchange backend process

[sandalle (sandalle)]

After restarting Evolution a few times this fix seems to have taken affect. :) The first few times I saw the behaviour in my prior post, but it fixed itself it seems.

[Darxus (darxus)]

I am having this chronic "Lost connection to Evolution Exchange backend process" problem with evolution 2.26.1-0ubuntu2 / evolution exchange 2.26.0-0ubuntu3 / Ubuntu 9.04 / Outlook Web Access 2003, over a lan (2 hops, 0.556ms pings).

I have 970 emails in my inbox.

Why do the error messages say nothing about attempting to reconnect to, or restart, the exchange backend process? This makes me wonder if evolution is also to blame, not just evolution-exchange.

How could I help debug?

[Darxus (darxus)]

According to comment #92, no work will be done on this bug until someone provides a "backtrace": https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Backtrace#Already%20running%20programs

[Jack Nash (jack-nash)]

All,

I have not read everyone's posting's, but I had Evolution working very well and stable when my exchange mailbox was fairly empty. Once I loaded all of my mail messages from my .pst file (approx 4GB) onto the server and tried to use Evolution, I received the same error message "...unable to connect to backend process...".

This makes me think there might be a relationship with the amount of data within the mailbox.

Any thoughts on this idea?

[Darxus (darxus)]

Jack: I agree that the problem seems to correspond to the amount of data in a mailbox. As I posted in the comment before yours, this bug is waiting for a backtrace. In the short time I managed to put up with evolution since I posted that comment I was not able to reproduce the backend crash to get a trace.

[Jack Nash (jack-nash)]

Darxus,

Ok, thanks. I did not read all of the post, but the ones that I did
read did not seem to mention the amount of data in the mailbox. Thanks
for confirming.

Regarding the trace, are you saying that work on his issue is stopped
until someone provides a backtrace?

Thanks,

Jack

On Thu, 2009-11-05 at 06:05 +0000, Darxus wrote:
> Jack: I agree that the problem seems to correspond to the amount of
> data in a mailbox. As I posted in the comment before yours, this bug is
> waiting for a backtrace. In the short time I managed to put up with
> evolution since I posted that comment I was not able to reproduce the
> backend crash to get a trace.
>

[Chuck Hamilton (chuck-hamilton)]

My mailbox runs between 50 and 100m. I find that most of the time when I have a problem with evolution losing contact with the backend process it's after I've been using windows/outlook for a while. When I switch back to ubuntu/evolution I almost always have problems the first time I start evolution. The fix seems to be to delete evolution's local exchange folder and force it to completely resync. This is the command that fixes it.

rm -rf ~/.evolution/mail/exchange/myID@server

Occasionally while resyncing it loses contact and needs to be restarted. After that it runs fine until I switch back to using windows/outlook.

[Gary Mansell (garymansell)]

I agree with Chuck Hamilton, switching from Evolution to Exchange and then back to Evolution causes this bug to appear

[Darxus (darxus)]

Jack: Yes, this bug's status of "incomplete" indicates that work on this issue has stopped until necessary information is provided. The status was changed in comment #92 in June, stating that a backtrace of the process evolution-exchange-storage was needed.

Directions to obtain such a trace are here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Backtrace#Already%20running%20programs

Chuck: I suspect the reason you're seeing the bug after "using outlook for a while" is because of the amount of data evolution has to sync at that point.

[Wayland Chan (wayland-chan)]

Just starting using Ubuntu and came across this same problem. What amazes me is that this bug affects so many people and no one has provided a trace yet.

Well, hopefully I can get things rolling again. I've attached my backtrace.

What I did in Evolution was simply click on Calendars, then check the "Calendar" for my Exchange account and then I got the inevitable "The Evolution calendars have quit unexpectedly."

[tvicol (tiberiu-vicol)]

I still have this problem in Ubuntu Lucid Lynx; Evolution 2.28.3
¨Lost connection to Evolution Exchange backend process¨

Still hope that someone will get a solution.

Regards,

[Adam J Richardson (fatman-crackmonkey)]

@Darxus, Mizu provided a backtrace in comment #122 (and a patch in comment #129). Did he trace the wrong process?

[Darxus (darxus)]

Adam: I missed that, thanks. I don't actually know enough to positively identify #122 as a backtrace, but at the point a backtrace got posted anyone should have changed the status of this bug from "incomplete" to "confirmed" to get the attention of developers again. Doing that now. And now I see #121 actually uses the word "backtrace".

[Darxus (darxus)]

Upstream bugs look like a fix was included in version "2.27.5+" which is older than both Karmic and Lucid. (But not in jaunty or jaunty-updates.)

So if you're still seeing this problem with a newer version, we need to know.

And I'm due to try evolution again.

If you need this in an older Ubuntu release, you should nominate it at the top of this bug. Not sure what happens from there, and I see it's already nominated for a couple.

I also see it's nominated for Karmic, where the bug should already have been fixed.

[Darxus (darxus)]

Somebody should make launchpad notice and report when upstream bugs' statuses are changed. This was (supposedly) fixed over a year ago.

[Darxus (darxus)]

Upstream says to delete ~/.evolution/exchange and ~/evolution/mail/exchange directories.

[Darxus (darxus)]

Lame. Doesn't support Exchange 2007 which my company recently upgraded to, only 2000 and 2003. I hate undocumented protocols.

[Chris Johnson (raugturi)]

I apologize if this is a stupid question, but should this be resolved for 2.28.3 without having to apply the patch? That was the understanding I got from reading the thread. However, I am on Lucid Lynx using 2.28.3 and continue to have this problem. I only recently installed Ubuntu on this laptop, so I was pretty sure it started out with 2.28, but I still deleted everything in my ~/.evolution/exchange/ and ~/.evolution/mail/exchange/ folders just in case it was created initially in the old version and needed to be cleared out to have the updated version correct the issue. Unfortunately it still continues to give this error. Before I go to the trouble of compiling the source from scratch with the patch included I wanted to make sure I wasn't wasting time by doing so.

[Theodotos Andreou (theodotos)]

It also affects me on Lucid. The OWA functionality of Evolution has been crippled since 9.04. I am now using !0.04. Same thing!

[Reece (reece)]

Same problem here with evo 2.28.3 on Lucid. Specifically:

- Connection to mail works (albeit very slowly, but that might be a hoster problem)

- Switching to calendars results in "The evolution calendars have quit unexpectedly." Mail ceases to work until I evolution --force-shutdown .

Receive mail configuration:
username: domain\shortname
owa url: https://mail.xxx.yyy.ms (mailstreet)
(checked) mailbox name is different than user name
mailbox: <email address hidden>