Bug 126837

Does it happen in ALL the emails with such a header? Or just some?

I don't know. I didn't check ALL emails. After checking some of the last messages in my folders I would say it happens always...

Please make sure that you didn't accidentally force KMail to use another encoding, i.e. check that the "Override character encoding" in Settings->Configure KMail->Appearance->Message Window is set the "Auto". If it is set to "Auto" then I'll need a sample message demonstrating the bug.

Created attachment 16208 [details]
sample message demonstrating the bug.

"Override character encoding" is set to Auto, therefore I attach this example
message.

Hello, Ronny.  I had the same problem since several months ago, until I sit down today with KMail sources determined to fix this bug.  It was then, trying to reproduce the bug with your mail, when I noticed that in my domestic Kmail I can read UTF-8 as was usual.  A fast diff showed the problem:

In .kde/share/config/kmailrc, section [Reader], I had these two statements:
[...]
autodetect-encoding=false
[...]
encoding=ISO 8859-1
[...]

    I bet that if you remove them, your problem will be fixed.

    Best regards,


        Ender.

Yes, that did the trick! But how can it come that KMail stumbles over its very own configuration file!?

An additional comment: In my config file it read before removal:
[...] 
autodetect-encoding=true
[...] 
encoding=ISO 8859-1 
[...] 

You must have set the Override character encoding (that's what "encoding" refers to) to latin1 (iso 8859-1) some time in the past.

"autodetect-encoding" is no longer used by KMail. It must come from an older version of KMail.

Closing as INVALID because KMail did what it was told to do, i.e. always to use latin1 encoding.

I think you are a little bit too overhasty with marking this bug as "INVALID". 
KMail definately has a problem. If you have "encoding=ISO 8859-1" in kmailrc it does very stupid things:
First problem is that if you open "Settings -> Configure KMail... -> Appearance -> Message Window -> Override character encoding" the combobox shows "Auto".
Second problem is that even when closing the configuration dialog with "OK" the encoding is not set to "Auto" and in kmailrc it still reads "encoding=ISO 8859-1".

It's probably just and old leftover from prior kmail version. You have to switch from "Auto" to another encoding, hit "Ok", reopen prefs and set it back to "Auto". This is probably one of the rare cases where kmail fails to properly update kmailrc when a newer version is started.

SVN commit 568026 by kloecker:

Fix bug 126837 (KMail does not correctly detect UTF-8 encoding)
Fall back to automatic encoding if we encounter an unknown encoding.

BUG: 126837



 M  +7 -0      configuredialog.cpp  
 M  +7 -0      kmreaderwin.cpp  


--- branches/KDE/3.5/kdepim/kmail/configuredialog.cpp #568025:568026
@@ -2309,6 +2309,13 @@
     }
     i++;
   }
+  if ( i == encodings.size() ) {
+    // the current value of overrideCharacterEncoding is an unknown encoding => reset to Auto
+    kdWarning(5006) << "Unknown override character encoding \"" << currentOverrideEncoding
+                    << "\". Resetting to Auto." << endl;
+    mOverrideCharsetCombo->setCurrentItem( 0 );
+    GlobalSettings::self()->setOverrideCharacterEncoding( QString::null );
+  }
 }
 
 void AppearancePage::ReaderTab::doLoadFromGlobalSettings()
--- branches/KDE/3.5/kdepim/kmail/kmreaderwin.cpp #568025:568026
@@ -1103,6 +1103,13 @@
           break;
         }
       }
+      if ( i == encodings.size() ) {
+        // the value of encoding is unknown => use Auto
+        kdWarning(5006) << "Unknown override character encoding \"" << encoding
+                        << "\". Using Auto instead." << endl;
+        mSelectEncodingAction->setCurrentItem( 0 );
+        mOverrideEncoding = QString::null;
+      }
     }
   }
   update( true );

Additional Comment #10 From Stefan Gehn 2006-07-30 13:20 ------- 
> It's probably just and old leftover from prior kmail 
> version. You have to switch from "Auto" to another 
> encoding, hit "Ok", reopen prefs and set it back 
> to "Auto". This is probably one of the rare cases 
> where kmail fails to properly update kmailrc when 
> a newer version is started. 
 
What if the organization has multiple versions of KDE in different
workstations with shared home dir? 

I think it would be better that programs would safely ignore
old settings and let them be there, so users would be able to
mix KDE/kmail versions, new and old, constantly.

My ~/.kde/share/config/kmailrc contains

[...]
[Reader]
[...]
FallbackCharacterEncoding=iso-8859-2
[...]
encoding=automatikus
[...]

And I have the same problem. I never edited kmailrc by hand. I agree with Juha that kmail should not get confused by the settings written out by its older versions.