Kontact gives up before it even starts after upgrade

[Nederjaard]

Yesterday I was asked whether I wanted to upgrade from 11.04 Natty to 11.10 Oneiric...well, sure... I am generally VERY happy since I switched OS from Uncle Bill's package to Kubuntu. However, there were still some small issues and annoyances I hoped would be dealt with after upgrading to 11.10. The reality was that everything seemed to have gone well, except that Kontact (Kmail) also upgraded and asked (again) for mailserver settings. I found that a bit strange. Anyway, after filling out the setting I got the message:
"KMail encountered a fatal error and will terminate now. The error was: Failed to fetch the resource collection."

Again, I'm quite new to Linux, so I have NO idea what this means. Also, after trying again and again, I saw that the above error message was actually already waiting for me BEFORE I even filled in the mail server settings...it just appeared whenever i opened Kontact (Kmail).

Any ideas ? I'm using Thunderbird in the meantime...it works perfectly...but I would still be very happy to go back to Kontact for all the integrated components it has.

Thanks !

[claydoh]

Re: Kontact gives up before it even starts after upgrade

Kmail didn't offer to migrate your data to Kmail2? That means it (incorrectly) determined that you already had migrated to Kmail2, or perhaps you had already tried out the Kmail2 from the experimental PPA. The 'Failed to fetch the resource collection' can mean that the existing kmail2 and akonadi settings are incompatible or are mis-matched.

One thing to try is to look for the AkonadiTray icon hidden in your system tray, right-click it, select "configure" and see if you can remove or edit any broken or mis-configured resource entries. Then you can stop the Akonadi server and restart it (this can be a slow process) and see if that fixes the startup.

One could nuke all the akonadi database and config files, but that would also remove any non-kmail data that was migrated correctly such as contacts and calendars.

[barbolani]

Re: Kontact gives up before it even starts after upgrade

claydoh, how one does nuke all akonadi data and configuration files? I don't have any data to migrate and all this has piqued my curiosity to know how all those things work. And the only thing I have to start is a non working example in my 11.10 install, so it would be nice to have a clean, working slate to start exploring.

[claydoh]

Re: Kontact gives up before it even starts after upgrade

~/.kde/share/config/kmail2rc (if it exists)
~/.kde/share/config/kmail-migratorrc (if it exists)
~/.config/akonadi
~/.local/share/akonadi

Stop Akonadi before going nuclear
But do try just removing the kmail2rc file if it exists, if it existed before you moved to 11.10, it could be the one thing blocking it from starting.

[Nederjaard]

Re: Kontact gives up before it even starts after upgrade

Hey people, thanks for the comments...

Claydoh, I tried and had a look in the folders you pointed out, but nothing there....there were no such folders. In the ~/.config/ I could not find any "Akonadi" folder, nor was there one in the folder ~/.local/share/
There was also nothing to find in the ~/.kde/ folder. To be precise, when trying to open this folder, Dolphin seems to be unable to 'really' open the folder. The contents are not shown, while a bar keeps moving from left to right and back (to show that it is really busy).

Is there a way to go back to Natty Narwhal and get everything back the way I had it ? I'm becoming less and less enthousiastic about this upgrade...

[doctordruidphd]

Re: Kontact gives up before it even starts after upgrade

One suggestion:

Some things, especially trying to fix problems, are best done from a terminal, rather than from dolphin.

Open the konsole, and type:

file ~/.kde/share/config/kmail2rc

if it shows the file, you can then delete it with:

rm ~/.kde/share/config/kmail2rc

Same for the other files.

You can stop akonadi with:

akonadictl stop

[Nederjaard]

Re: Kontact gives up before it even starts after upgrade

And again thanks for the advice and explanations...thanks for the command lines, doctordruidphd...those definitely helped.

I managed to remove the files kmail2rc and kmail-migratorrc, as claydoh suggested. However, to the commands:

file ~/.config/akonadi
file ~/.local/share/akonadi

I get the response: "directory". Which, I guess, is logically correct.

Anyhow, after removing the abovementioned rc files, Kmail offers to migrate to Kmail2. When confirming, KDEwallet asks for permission, but oin the background the modal dialog with the following message is already waiting:
"KMail encountered a fatal error and will terminate now. The error was: Failed to fetch the resource collection."

After some clicking around, I accidentally found the AkonadiTray in the system tray. Right-click gives me the tabs "Akonadi Resources Configuration" and "Akonadi Server Configuration". In the resources configs there's three Personal Contacts "ready", but the Personal Calendar has "no file selected" and the IMAP account 1 has "no server configured yet".

[doctordruidphd]

Re: Kontact gives up before it even starts after upgrade

This is probably more claydoh's area of expertise than mine, but what I would do is make sure kmail and akonadi are not running, then delete the rc files again, and move the directories out of the way, thus:

mv ~/.config/akonadi ~/.config/akonadi-junk

and

mv ~/.local/share/akonadi ~/.local/share/akonadi-junk

That way you still have the directories if this turns out bad.

Then follow the procedure for manually migrating kmail (again, I know...) and see if this gets you anywhere.

[stuartmacg]

Re: Kontact gives up before it even starts after upgrade

I have the same trouble - on initial start up something tried and failed to migrate kmail. Thereafter it dies on start up.

I cannot find out how to stop akonadi. I have right clicked on everything I can find - any hints on where it is lurking?

I could kill some tasks? A ps -leaf gave the attached text.

Thanks

[doctordruidphd]

Re: Kontact gives up before it even starts after upgrade

A couple of different ways to kill the akonadi server:

In your system tray, left click the up-arrow. The "akonaditray" icon should be there. If it isn't, I think you can manually start it from a terminal/konsole with akonaditray &
Right click the akonaditray icon, then choose "Stop akonadi"

The alternative is from a terminal/konsole, type akonadictl stop

You can configure the akonadi server, by the way, from the same icon, or from

System Settings > Personal Information > Akonadi REsources Configuration

You can also use the command akonadiconsole but heed well the warning message it displays, and proceed at your own peril.

[stuartmacg]

Re: Kontact gives up before it even starts after upgrade

Thanks it works now

I had to run kmail-migrator manually - it needed the password for kwallet - that is what was killing it.