Bug 55838

Summary: messages turn into subject "No Subject" and sender "Unknown" after clicked for viewing
Product: [Unmaintained] kmail Reporter: Mario Tanev <mtanev>
Component: generalAssignee: kdepim bugs <kdepim-bugs>
Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE    
Severity: grave CC: 1980er, admin, bbeck4x4, fmdf, jay
Priority: NOR    
Version: unspecified   
Target Milestone: ---   
Platform: unspecified   
OS: Linux   
Latest Commit: Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Mario Tanev 2003-03-11 15:16:38 UTC
Version:           1.5.9 (using KDE 3.1.9)
Compiler:          gcc version 3.2.2
OS:          Linux (i686) release 2.5.54

I saw numerous "CLOSED" reports for this, but this problem persists even in CVS HEAD on 03/10/2003 and has for some time. I previously thought kmail developers using kmail would notice that, but I guess I was wrong. In summary:

"Sometimes" when you view a message, after the first read, when you click on it it becomes sender "unknown" and subject "no subject". View source shows no content. Sometimes it reappears again on startup but disappears on click, or sometimes it is available to read. This behavior usually does not depend on restarting kmail. This usually happens to the first few messages in a sequence in the trash folder.
Comment 1 Ingo Klöcker 2003-03-11 17:51:11 UTC
This happens if the index gets out of sync with the contents of the folder. Do you use NFS? If 
yes, are the clock of the NFS server and the clock of the NFS client in sync? Does any other 
program mess with files in ~/Mail? 
 
Comment 2 Mario Tanev 2003-03-11 18:38:31 UTC
Subject: Re:  messages turn into subject "No Subject" and sender "Unknown" after clicked for viewing

I use ext3fs and I only use kmail and it only happens on certain kinds of 
email - for example if one message of a certain sender becomes unknown the 
rest do too. I think this mostly happens in the trash folder (i filter 
messages to there if they contain some forbidden words or http://).

On Tuesday 11 March 2003 08:51, you wrote:
> ------- You are receiving this mail because: -------
> You reported the bug, or are watching the reporter.
>
> http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=55838
>
>
>
>
> ------- Additional Comments From kloecker@kde.org  2003-03-11 17:51 -------
> This happens if the index gets out of sync with the contents of the folder.
> Do you use NFS? If yes, are the clock of the NFS server and the clock of
> the NFS client in sync? Does any other program mess with files in ~/Mail?

Comment 3 Ingo Klöcker 2003-03-11 22:51:18 UTC
Subject: Re:  messages turn into subject "No Subject" and sender "Unknown" after clicked for viewing

Do you expire the Trash folder on exit? Do you empty it on exit? Do you 
compact all folders on exit? Do you quit KMail before you shutdown KDE?

Comment 4 Mario Tanev 2003-03-12 02:49:10 UTC
Subject: Re:  messages turn into subject "No Subject" and sender "Unknown" after clicked for viewing

I don't expire nor empty it on exit. I don't manually compact my folders. I 
sometimes shutdown KDE while kmail is in the tray. 

One more thing that came to mind: also, sometimes trash folder marks old 
messages new.

On Tuesday 11 March 2003 13:51, you wrote:
> ------- You are receiving this mail because: -------
> You reported the bug, or are watching the reporter.
>
> http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=55838
>
>
>
>
> ------- Additional Comments From kloecker@kde.org  2003-03-11 22:51 -------
> Subject: Re:  messages turn into subject "No Subject" and sender "Unknown"
> after clicked for viewing
>
> Do you expire the Trash folder on exit? Do you empty it on exit? Do you
> compact all folders on exit? Do you quit KMail before you shutdown KDE?

Comment 5 Brian Beck 2003-09-08 06:22:51 UTC
one other thing is that I also have seen this with redhat and mandrake and now 
libranet. 
 
I do have group threads turned on. 
 
 
Brian 
Comment 6 Stephan Kulow 2003-09-20 10:54:32 UTC
*** Bug 51072 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 7 Stephan Kulow 2003-09-20 10:56:31 UTC
there is some mean bug hidden and noone of us knows what it can be ;( 
 
Any hint you can provide how to reproduce it, is welcome 
 
Comment 8 Stephan Kulow 2003-09-20 15:05:36 UTC
*** Bug 55914 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 9 Stephan Kulow 2003-09-22 20:13:00 UTC

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 43931 ***
Comment 10 Roeland Th. Jansen 2004-02-27 15:06:33 UTC
my girlfriend reported the same with kmail. it doesn't correlate to crashes or whatever. kmail works for several days and all over sudden it kills off a message and if you're unlucky by clicking next messages they also get killed.

I noted that with mutt this doesn't seem to happen (for the sake of testing. I can't tell my girlfriend to use mutt/vi instead ;-)

I will now, kill off the index as suggested and keep a close look at it. it's hard to reproduce but it does happen unfortunately. if there are specific things to do for me to try, let me know.
Comment 11 Mike Jolley 2008-03-29 23:23:50 UTC
I get this problem every few weeks or so.  I hate deleting the index because I lose all my classifications.  I'm thinking of stopping using KMail, and then that would in turn make me stop using Kontact since the Palm synch stuff doesn't work well either.

I'm using Sidux so I have fairly recent versions of KMail.  I upgrade everything every month or so.  I use bogofilter as my spam filter, but if I recall, the problem was worse when I used SpamAssassin.  I'm using default settings for pretty much everything, POP accounts.

I have a lot of desktops running and I typically don't manually shut programs down.  I usually only reboot the computer when I do an upgrade.  The problem started happening today after an upgrade I did yesterday.  This might be a coincidence.
Comment 12 Mike Jolley 2008-03-29 23:35:15 UTC
This bug still exists as of 3/29/2008.  It's marked as a duplicate of a bug that might be unrelated.

I get this problem every few weeks or so.  I hate deleting the index because I lose all my classifications.  I'm thinking of stopping using KMail, and then that would in turn make me stop using Kontact since the Palm synch stuff doesn't work well either.

I'm using Sidux so I have fairly recent versions of KMail.  I upgrade everything every month or so.  I use bogofilter as my spam filter, but if I recall, the problem was worse when I used SpamAssassin.  I'm using default settings for pretty much everything, POP accounts.

I have a lot of desktops running and I typically don't manually shut programs down.  I usually only reboot the computer when I do an upgrade.  The problem started happening today after an upgrade I did yesterday.  This might be a coincidence.
Comment 13 christophe witek 2008-10-27 13:04:02 UTC
This bug is NOT resolved.

I cannot understand. How is that possible that a problem of a such importance is still not resolved ?
This problem has been noticed 5 years ago !!!
I deleted all index files, removed filters, spamassassin, clamscan, and I still receive zombi emails with a date 1970 !

Help please. I manage a computer park and everybody is just sick of it. I hear all around that everybody wants to abandon linux. Correct this huge bug.
My config: kmail 3.5.10
Problem appeared after migration from 3.5.2 to 3.5.10(ubuntu hardy)
Thank you

Comment 14 Felix Endres 2009-01-23 12:15:55 UTC
I can confirm that this is not resolved. I experience it right now on ubuntu intrepid ibex (8.10).
KDE Version: 4.1.3
KMail Version 1.10.3
Account: Disconnected IMAP
This is also NOT an duplicate of Bug 43931. IMHO someone has mistakenly marked it so.

Trying to solve the problem by rebuilding the index of the folder (my inbox) worked, such that the messages were back in the list. I went offline for this, as I didn't want to affect the mails on the server. 
However, rebuilding the index raised the problem of missing dates for more than half of the 4000+ messages in the folder. The dates appeared again when selecting the Messages, but you do not want to do this for 2000 Messages. So I tried again, this time online. Same problem. Then I chose to fetch e-mail in the hope it would synchronize the problem away. Suddenly there are only about 1700 mails in the folder anymore. Bad! I check my webmail interface whether this has affected the server side, but it is worse: only 109 messages left my inbox. BAD!! Switching back to kmail I see it synchronizing again, resulting in the 109 messages replacing the 1700. Fuck! Four years of mail archive lost, even though I thought having a local copy (Disconnected IMAP) and the mails on the server would protect me from such a loss.
By the way, this is not the first time I lost emails using kmail. It happened to me some years ago, in a somewhat similar way and I stopped using kmail. But I was lured by the shiny interface and nice integration into believing this would not happen again with an up-to-date version.
This is very unfortunate, in particular when considering that 6 year old bugs like this one are marked as resolved but are not. 

So to sum up: Do not use kmail if you want to keep your mails! If you have to, make constant backups somewhere offline. I am sorry to say this, as I know that a lot of work has been done by the developers. But a mail client that loses your mails is as bad as it gets. 
Comment 15 Thomas McGuire 2009-01-23 14:07:27 UTC
> KMail Version 1.10.3
> Account: Disconnected IMAP
> [..]
> Trying to solve the problem by rebuilding the index of the folder (my inbox)
> worked, such that the messages were back in the list.

There is a bug fix in KMail 1.10.4 that fixes possible mail loss when rebuilding the disconnected IMAP cache.