OS: Fedora 28 64bits

Exactly one year ago, I posted some complaints about kmail breaking down and/or freezing the desktop:
viewtopic.php?f=215&t=141683

For the last few months, kmail has been working well, almost without glitches, but since the last update issued a couple of days ago by the fedora updates repo about KDE things, the hurdle started all over again.
Exactly the same behavior as before: kmail works for a short time then it breaks down and/or freezes the desktop. Some times I can open a new session with Ctrl-Alt-F2 and send a KILL signal, but sometimes I cannot do even that and have to force a reboot.

Anyone else out there having the same issues lately?

Also on Fedora 28, I haven't noticed this problem. Does it only happen when you have Kmail launched?

jamanfred wrote:Also on Fedora 28, I haven't noticed this problem. Does it only happen when you have Kmail launched?

Yep. Works for some time and then vanishes. I think it happens when it tries to access the servers for a second time. Perhaps something wrong with Akonadi...

What's your account configuration?
My work computer has Kmail set up with only one account running through DavMail to a Microsoft Exchange server. It never has any issues (except that it has given me so many problems with cryptography that I'll have to use a second client for encrypted emails).
My laptop and desktop both have three or four email accounts set up, one to an account on Microsoft Exchange but with simple IMAP access and three to various gmail accounts. The gmail accounts in particular are very inconsistent with syncing; sometimes they'll work, other times I'll get a "Resource is broken" error. If the hang occurs when it tries to sync your emails, it may be dependent on your account configuration.

jamanfred wrote:What's your account configuration?
My work computer has Kmail set up with only one account running through DavMail to a Microsoft Exchange server. It never has any issues (except that it has given me so many problems with cryptography that I'll have to use a second client for encrypted emails).
My laptop and desktop both have three or four email accounts set up, one to an account on Microsoft Exchange but with simple IMAP access and three to various gmail accounts. The gmail accounts in particular are very inconsistent with syncing; sometimes they'll work, other times I'll get a "Resource is broken" error. If the hang occurs when it tries to sync your emails, it may be dependent on your account configuration.

I don't get any of these errors. The app will simply vanish! No info on the reason, no crash dump, nothing! I guess it's happening at each second access to the mail servers, but that's all I can say at this point unless you can give me some tips, like looking at the logs or something.

rgaelzer wrote:

jamanfred wrote:What's your account configuration?
My work computer has Kmail set up with only one account running through DavMail to a Microsoft Exchange server. It never has any issues (except that it has given me so many problems with cryptography that I'll have to use a second client for encrypted emails).
My laptop and desktop both have three or four email accounts set up, one to an account on Microsoft Exchange but with simple IMAP access and three to various gmail accounts. The gmail accounts in particular are very inconsistent with syncing; sometimes they'll work, other times I'll get a "Resource is broken" error. If the hang occurs when it tries to sync your emails, it may be dependent on your account configuration.

I don't get any of these errors. The app will simply vanish! No info on the reason, no crash dump, nothing! I guess it's happening at each second access to the mail servers, but that's all I can say at this point unless you can give me some tips, like looking at the logs or something.

Today Fedora distributed another update of kmail (v. 18.04.3-2.fc28.x86_64). I was hoping they'd fixed the bug, but... still the same...
I start kmail, it stays up for some time and then, without any warning or error message, it goes away...

The WebEngine (or rather Chromium inside WebEngine) unfortunately has its own crash handler that prevents DrKonqi from showing up.

The first step to try figuring out what goes wrong is to run KMail from terminal: just launch Konsole and from Konsole start KMail with the following command:

Code: Select all

QT_LOGGING_RULES="*=true;qt.*=false" kmail 2>&1 | tee kmail.log

You should see a lot of warnings/debugging messages in the terminal and they will also get logged into "kmail.log" file. Once KMail crashes, go back to the console and see if there's anything that looks like an error or crash report. If there is, please open a bug report on bugs.kde.org and attach the log file to it (double check it for personal information you may not want to publish, like email subjects etc.).

If you feel more adventurous, you can also try to obtain the crash backtrace manually afterward. You can follow the guide here: https://community.kde.org/Guidelines_an ... e_with_GDB

progdan wrote:The WebEngine (or rather Chromium inside WebEngine) unfortunately has its own crash handler that prevents DrKonqi from showing up.

The first step to try figuring out what goes wrong is to run KMail from terminal: just launch Konsole and from Konsole start KMail with the following command:

Code: Select all

QT_LOGGING_RULES="*=true;qt.*=false" kmail 2>&1 | tee kmail.log

You should see a lot of warnings/debugging messages in the terminal and they will also get logged into "kmail.log" file. Once KMail crashes, go back to the console and see if there's anything that looks like an error or crash report. If there is, please open a bug report on bugs.kde.org and attach the log file to it (double check it for personal information you may not want to publish, like email subjects etc.).

If you feel more adventurous, you can also try to obtain the crash backtrace manually afterward. You can follow the guide here: https://community.kde.org/Guidelines_an ... e_with_GDB

Thank you for the reply.
I did as you suggested. Another thread at the FedoraForum suggested the same and it seems that the problem is with a known bug with Nouveau, the "pushbuf" bug.
This is the relevant (I think) excerpt of the log:
========
....
KMMsgSignatureState: 78
kmail: ../nouveau/pushbuf.c:723: nouveau_pushbuf_data: Assertion `kref' failed.
Received signal 6
#0 0x7fcb36444a2e <unknown>
#1 0x7fcb36444b40 <unknown>
#2 0x7fcb36445177 <unknown>
#3 0x7fcb4234af30 <unknown>
#4 0x7fcb4234aeab __GI_raise
#5 0x7fcb423355b9 __GI_abort
#6 0x7fcb42335491 __assert_fail_base.cold.0
#7 0x7fcb42343612 __GI___assert_fail
#8 0x7fcb0d254cd7 nouveau_pushbuf_data
#9 0x7fcb0d254c37 nouveau_pushbuf_data
....
===================
Will try to submit the bug report at bugs.kde.org as suggested.

progdan wrote: If there is, please open a bug report on bugs.kde.org and attach the log file to it (double check it for personal information you may not want to publish, like email subjects etc.).

Turns out there's no need to open a new bug report, because other people have exactly the same problem.
This is the bug report:
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=381955
According to the reports, using the nVidia driver instead of nouveau avoids the bug.

So, as was mentioned in other threads, I decided to install and use nVidia's driver.
Been doing that for some days already and kmail has been behaving.
I conclude that the ultimate cause for this problem must be indeed some bug with Nouveau.
I'd like to mark this thread as SOLVED, only I can't find how...