Bug 408354

Summary: If default maildir folder is changed a new set of folders are stored under "/home/$user/file:"
Product: [Applications] kmail2 Reporter: Nick <nick.craig.law>
Component: foldersAssignee: kdepim bugs <kdepim-bugs>
Status: RESOLVED FIXED    
Severity: major CC: j.straight-kde, kde, Mathias.Homann, montel, rhautz, svckd, Vojtech.Zeisek, vomus
Priority: NOR    
Version: 5.11.1   
Target Milestone: ---   
Platform: Neon   
OS: Linux   
Latest Commit: Version Fixed In:
Attachments: Dialog box where you change the maildir folder

Description Nick 2019-06-05 18:47:28 UTC
Created attachment 120604 [details]
Dialog box where you change the maildir folder

If the default maildir folder is changed using the dialog box as shown in the attached snapshot then kmail fails to use that folder but creates a new folder under your home directory in a folder called "file:"

Example:

If you enter /home/nick/Data/local-mail as the folder containing your maildir files, kmail instead creates and uses /home/nick/file:/home/nick/Data/local-mail.directory/

which of course isn't where your maildir folders and files are !

Why is kmail creating a subdirectory called "file:" in your home directory ?

The problem this creates is that any old emails that are in /home/nick/Data/local-mail don't get indexed or displayed by kmail.

Also because kmail insists on creating a file: subdirectory in your home folder and storing new email there you can't have all your emails on a different partition to your home folder.

KDE INFO
KDE Neon 5.15 User Edition
Plasma 5.15.5
Frameworks 5.58.0
QT 5.12.0
Kernel 4.15.0-50
OS 64 Bit
Comment 1 Laurent Montel 2019-06-05 19:06:20 UTC
it's a problem with url vs string.
I will investigate it soon
Comment 2 Nick 2019-06-05 19:58:25 UTC
That's great!. Thank You.
Comment 3 Laurent Montel 2019-06-11 06:04:07 UTC
For the moment I can't reproduce bug...
Comment 4 Nick 2019-06-11 09:46:21 UTC
I'll do a fresh install and see if I can find specifically what triggers this problem.

One thing that is most likely different from the average install is that /home/nick/Data is a symbolic link to /media/nick/Data_sdb. 

/media/nick/Data_sdb is mounted at boot to /dev/sdb3

The df entry looks like this:
/dev/sdb3            591G  556G  4.8G 100% /media/nick/Data_sdb
(I know the partition is at 100%)

And the /etc/fstab entry is:
UUID=329dc068-a4ed-45fd-9b0b-0ef09ca926ee /media/nick/Data_sdb ext4 defaults 0 2

My initial thoughts are that this symbolic linking and use of a different partition 'may' have something to do with the problem.

So my plan would be to start with a working install using the default maildir location, then change to a valid maildir folder on a different directory. Not forgetting the symbolic link.

I'll update you if I can reproduce this on a fresh install.

Just to note, I have tried deleting  /home/nick/.local/share/akonadi and letting it rebuild but it still would not index the emails.
Comment 5 Nick 2019-06-11 17:36:51 UTC
On the same computer I created a new user. I then changed the default location of the maildir folder from /home/[user]/.local/share/local-mail to a folder called /home/[user]/emails. Both locations are on the same partition. No symbolic links are involved.

kmail (or akonadi) then creates a directory file:/home/[user]/emails/inbox

Even more oddly the ..inbox/ folder that contains the subdirectories new, cur and tmp, if you look inside new you will find another subdirectory called file:

This path in full is shown here. This is created by either kmail or Akonadi.

/home/marmite/file:/home/marmite/local-mail/inbox/new/file:/home/marmite/local-mail/inbox/new/new
Comment 6 Laurent Montel 2019-06-12 05:40:16 UTC
Ok I was able to reproduce it now.
Comment 7 Dan 2019-06-28 05:23:43 UTC
I have the same problem. In case jt helps, I noticed that when you use the dialog to change the Local Folder directory, the path in ~/.config/akonadi_mail_resource_0rc changes from

Path[$e]=$HOME/.local/share/akonadi_maildir_resource_0

to 

Path[$e]=file:$HOME/local-mail

I was able to get my mail back in the default Local Folders by following the steps to recover from a failed migration. The first time reset the location of Local Folders to the default without using the dialog box (so "file:" was not part of the path), and then I moved my mail files there, and went through the steps a second time, and kmail read all of my stored mail in.
Comment 8 Nuno Costa 2019-10-09 19:44:20 UTC
I no longer see the folder file: being created on my home folder but the issue of not being able to use a custom path to the maildir is still present.
Createig any maildir type account always defaults to being created on ~/.local/share/akonadi_maildir_resource_xx.

On Fedora 30, KDE Spin:
kmail 19.04.2-2.fc30
akonadi 1.13.0-113.fc30
plasma-desktop 5.15.5-1.fc30
Comment 9 Jason Straight 2020-02-04 22:16:14 UTC
This just happened to me on Kubuntu 20.04

Thank goodness for the trash bin.

I saw "file:" in my ~ and figured I probably did something stupid to create it with a bad redirection. So I trashed it.

Few hours later, I realize 250MB of archived mail is gone.

Ver: 19.04.3
Comment 10 Vojtěch Zeisek 2020-02-13 14:49:20 UTC
I can confirm it on openSUSE Tumbleweed, KMail 5.13.2 (19.12.2), KDE Frameworks 5.66.0, Qt 5.14.1 (built against 5.14.1).
Comment 11 Igor Poboiko 2020-03-01 18:44:59 UTC
Git commit 93ecfacfb9f21ee027dbcfc7d5d47ddbbb253ba1 by Igor Poboiko.
Committed on 01/03/2020 at 18:44.
Pushed by poboiko into branch 'master'.

[resources/maildir] Don't save "file:" schema to the config

Summary:
`ConfigWidget` uses `KConfig` underneath, and utilizes `KUrlRequester` custom
widget. The `USER` property of this widget (which is used by `KConfig`) is of
type `QUrl`, and thus when dialog is accepted, the `path` config property
gets overriden with `QUrl::toString()` value, which prepends `file:` schema
(this is basically because `KCoreConfigSkeleton::ItemPath` is inherited from
`ItemString`, and when someone calls `ItemString::setProperty`, it gets
casted as `QVariant::toString`).

Inside the `ConfigWidget::save` the code calls `setPath` method on
`url.toLocalFile`, which drops the scheme. Because of that, the `pathItem`
and `path` property of `mSettings` have different values, first has schema
and the second hasn't. Eventually, the value stored by `pathItem` wins, and
`mSettings->path()` returns URL with schema. However, `Maildir` doesn't expect
it and misinterprets it as the relative path to current WORKDIR (which is home
directory), thus creating `/home/user/file:/home/user/...` file structure.

The proposed solution is to simply call `mSettings->save()`, which overrides
`pathItem` value and drops schema from it.

It also fixes the `AkoNotes` resource, which uses the same `ConfigWidget`.
Funny enough, `Contacts` resource, which is somewhat similar, is not affected
as it has the same `Settings->save()` call.

Alternative approaches include:
1) Teach `Maildir` to drop the schema (if it's there).
2) Teach `KCoreConfigSkeleton::ItemPath` to work with `QUrl` and don't append
schema (it makes sense, because `ItemPath` corresponds to local file. Although
it's not documented that it shouldn't have schema, it seems from the tests that
it was the original intent). This could save the headache of having such issue
in the future, but it could mess up with other programs in funny ways (as
currently `file:` sometimes gets prepended, and some code might implicitly rely
on it)

Additional note:
There are `ui.kcfg_Path->url().isLocalFile()` checks around, which doesn't make
sense to me, as `KUrlRequester` is used for local files and it seems like it
always returns `QUrl` pointing to local file (i.e. have the `file:` schema).
Related: bug 411269, bug 413588

Test Plan:
1) Open `akonadiconsole -> Local Folders` properties, change the folder, save
2) `cat ~/.config/akonadi_maildir_resource_0rc`. `file:` schema gets prepended
2.1) `akonadictl restart`. `file:` folder gets created inside homedir
3) Apply patch, repeat (1)-(2.1). `file:` schema is dropped.

Reviewers: dvratil, mlaurent

Reviewed By: dvratil

Subscribers: kde-pim

Tags: #kde_pim

Differential Revision: https://phabricator.kde.org/D27722

M  +1    -0    resources/maildir/configwidget.cpp

https://commits.kde.org/kdepim-runtime/93ecfacfb9f21ee027dbcfc7d5d47ddbbb253ba1
Comment 12 Igor Poboiko 2020-03-05 14:10:14 UTC
*** Bug 411307 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 13 Wolfgang Bauer 2020-09-07 07:32:26 UTC
*** Bug 424579 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***