[DESKTOP] kontact is broken

[przxqgl]

kubuntu 4.15.0-101-generic
kontact 5.7.3

yeah, i know, kontact is broken, but, broken as it is, i have been able to get it to work, until today.

however, i ran the system updates today, and kontact is now so broken that it won't even start. when i try to start it from the konsole, it says:

Hspell: can't open /usr/share/hspell/hebrew.wgz.sizes.
sonnet.plugins.hspell: HSpellDict::HSpellDict: Init failed
sonnet.core: Missing trigrams for languages: QSet("en_AU", "en_CA", "en_GB")

^C
[1:1:0100/000000.659116:ERROR:broker_posix.cc(41)] Invalid node channel message

and then it hangs until i hit ^C

and, for the record, i AM NOT using the hebrew language for ANYTHING, so why it would hang on that is a complete mystery.

what i'm looking for is one of two things.

the first, which is preferable, but not expected, is, somehow, to get kontact working again on my box.

this may be accomplished by installing the new LTS version of kubuntu. if this works, all the better, but if it doesn't then,

the second, which i have every expectation of doing, eventually, anyway, it's just a matter of time, is to find, and install a new POP email client that actually works.

as a side note, i have tried, a number of times, to install Thunderbird, and that hasn't worked either. if someone could talk me through getting thunderbird installed and running successfully, that would be an acceptable alternative.

[jglen490]

Been running Thunderbird for years. I started right after I kicked the entire KDE PIM gaggle to the curb. For install, I just use synaptic or apt. I don't play with any advance versions, just stick with the stock one. Setting it up is just like any other email client. I set mine as POP and SMTP, and I leave email on the ISP server until I make a backup of my /home, then the files on the server are deleted.

It's worked well for several years.

[przxqgl]

i leave my email on my server only if i am away from my computer for any length of time. i can access my IMAP server anywhere, but i don't like to leave my email on the server for too long, because i'm paranoid.

so i tried installing thunderbird -- AGAIN...

basically, i got to where i got before, and no love.

i got the screen seen in the attached screen-shot, and it found /ONE/ of my email addresses, and it said that it set it up, but...

no email downloaded, and it didn't find ANY of my existing directories, with email from the past few years, up until yesterday... AND

it wouldn't do anything about any of my OTHER email addresses. it does NOTHING when i click "Set up Email". i can't even write new email, because the menu item isn't activated...

THIS is why i'm frustrated with Thunderbird, as well!

[jglen490]

Did you click on the "email" link under the Set up an account line?

[przxqgl]

Did you click on the "email" link under the Set up an account line?

yes, i clicked the "email" link, under "Set up an account"...

it does NOTHING when i click "Set up Email".

[przxqgl]

UPDATE:

i got thunderbird to work.

then i got kontact to work.

i'm not sure how... i didn't do anything different, i didn't install or delete anything new...

but now they both... just... work.

so, i transferred all of my important data to thunderbird.

thunderbird doesn't have an easy way to change the date format, like kontact does, so i'm stuck with DD/MM/YYYY instead of the more logical (to me) YYYYMMDD format, but that's something that i can deal with.

also, thunderbird doesn't give me an easy way to add an X- header line to outgoing emails, like i was able to do with kontact, but that. too, is something i can deal with.

it would be nice if i could figure out how to transfer all of my email from kontact to thunderbird, so that i don't have to start up kontact to reply to messages that are older than a week, or so, but i've been able to use "copy/paste" to fudge my way through, and, eventually, i won't have that problem anyway... that, too, is something that i can deal with, however it turns out.

http://przxqgl.hybridelephant.com/2020/06/09/mua/

[przxqgl]

more kontact vs. thunderbird differences:

thunderbird AUTOMATICALLY places replies that i send into the same thread as the message to which i replied.

in spite of all the other things that kontact does, that thunderbird doesn't do, i would trade them all for this feature, alone.

nevertheless, another thing that thunderbird DOESN'T do, that kontact does, is that it allows me to control the data that comes through when i reply to someone.

with kontact, i was able to say:

On Wednesday, 6 May 2020 16:40:46 PDT, <sender>, an eminent manifestation of divinity, wrote:

with thunderbird, it's

On 19/06/2020 16:11, <sender> wrote:

and NOTHING ELSE!

sigh...

oh well...