It might very well be that the phony Akonadi setup in 8.10 is responsible for this. You are using 8.10, right? (at least the Qt version suggests it ;-))
Unfortunately we cannot provide support for this type of issue with the PPA packages, the changes involved in making Akonadi work like in 9.04 are just too intrusive. So I recommend that you upgrade or install Kubuntu 9.04 instead.
It might very well be that the phony Akonadi setup in 8.10 is responsible for this. You are using 8.10, right? (at least the Qt version suggests it ;-))
Unfortunately we cannot provide support for this type of issue with the PPA packages, the changes involved in making Akonadi work like in 9.04 are just too intrusive. So I recommend that you upgrade or install Kubuntu 9.04 instead.