Hi! I really like Kmail---it's the most powerful and configurable graphical email client for Linux that I've used. In general, it meshes really well with my work flow. Unfortunately, for the last several several days, I have had several disappearing emails. This has come to a head where I have lost at least 1 important email (and as many as 3) each of the last five days.

I am using Kmail 4.10.5 on Fedora 18 (kdepim-4.10.5-1.fc18.x86_64 and associated libraries) to access a Microsoft Office 365 email account via IMAP. I have many folders in the mail account to keep track of various messages. After reading and responding, I usually move (via a keystroke) a message out of the Inbox to a different folder. I have never noticed a message immediately disappear, but the next day (or several hours later), I've gone to the folder to look at the message, and the message is not there. I've checked directly on the server (using Microsoft's web access), and the message is completely gone (ie, not just accidentally filed to the wrong folder).

It seems that sometimes Kmail's move does not actually copy the message into the new folder before deleting the message from the Inbox. Or perhaps Kmail's view of what is in each folder does not match that of the server: perhaps Kmail thinks the message has been copied to the folder, but in reality it hasn't. Then when Kmail syncs with the folder, the message is not there and is removed from the message list.

My Wifi Internet access for the past month has been somewhat unreliable. I have noticed discrepancies between Kmail's message list and the server that get corrected when the message list for the folder is updated. In one instance, the next day after copying an email to a folder, I changed to that folder, and saw my desired message in the message list. I clicked on it to read the contents, and Kmail attempted to fetch it while updating the message list. After the message list updated, the message was gone. (This makes it sound like some other email client is changing the status of messages on the email server, but I don't use any other email client. I only use the Microsoft web client to determine if a message has been deleted or not, and I don't write, move, or delete messages using that client.)

Thank you for any and all suggestions. It is very frustrating to lose important emails, especially when they are crucial to my job. (It just happened again!!!!! Aaaarrgh!!!)

Best wishes, Stephen

Please file a bug on bugs.kde.org, raise priority and ensure you mention that there is data loss involved. I'm not sure if 4.11 fixed this issue, so you may want to try (if possible) to update to 4.11.x first.

Thank you for your response---I will post a bug on bugs.kde.org. Surprisingly, I didn't lose any mail yesterday (that I know of!).

Is there a way to configure Kmail (or Akonadi) to locally backup a copy of each message it touches? Perhaps a debug setting? That way at least none of the messages would be lost. I discovered the automatic archiving tool which I'm using on my Inbox, but it only runs once per day.

Best wishes,
Stephen

On disconnected IMAP, you have a local copy of each mail in .local/share/akonadi/file_db_data/ .

I've posted the bug at https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=328298

I looked in .local/share/akonadi/file_db_data/, but none of the missing messages were there. In fact, I'm quite confused by what is in that directory. There are mostly recent messages, but also some very old messages. Most of the messages include just the headers, and not the bodies. It didn't seem that messages that had hit the Inbox for only a short time before being moved to a folder were kept.

Thanks for your help!
Stephen

Are you using IMAP or IMAP in disconnected mode?

How do I tell the difference between IMAP and Disconnected IMAP? When I go to create an account, there's only one IMAP option.

Check in the "advanced" tab of the account properties. You're using disconnected IMAP if "Enable disconnected mode" is ticked.

I checked, and no, I'm not using disconnected mode. Should I try it? I have stopped using KMail for the last several days because of disappearing messages (see the bug report). I want to make sure that I have some means of backing up mail before using it again.

Thanks, Stephen

I made a filter that processes all incoming messages and sent mail, and makes a copy in a folder called "backup" in my Local Folders. Thus, I have a copy of every email received and sent. This has been a life saver! I have been able to restore several messages over the last day that were lost.

Disconnected mode also stores your IMAP mail locally (in the directories I pointed at you earlier). It's a matter of preference and/or setup (I can't really find convincing arguments for one way or the other).

I just wanted to let people know that this bug has been solved (see https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=328298). The problem stemmed from two issues:

1) I use two KMail accounts for one IMAP account: one "Incoming" account for just the INBOX that is polled regularly, and one "Mail Folders" account for all of my folders. I have over 300 mail folders, and regularly polling them takes a long time. Since the polling options are per account, I use the two separate accounts to get around this issue. So "moves" of messages really are inter-resource deletions and adds.

2) The wireless in my apartment for the last month or so has been really flaky, and connections are frequently dropped.

The combination of these things meant that messages interrupted when being copied to the IMAP server were not correctly marked as having failed. The bug in Akonadi has now been fixed.

Part of the reason this cropped up is because of my setup as described in 1). Is this the way that other people deal with the issue of many mail folders? Are there other ways of dealing with this?

Thanks! Stephen

Unfortunately for now KMail only supports IDLE on INBOX folders, otherwise the operations would be a little bit faster.
I don't have that many folders but so far I haven't seen the issue w/polling (note: I host my own email and there aren't that many other users).

Anyway, thanks for making the bug report, since this led to a very grave bug getting fixed (you distribution may patch the relevant packages as there is data loss).