Akonadi goes wild

[geezer]

Running Kubuntu 19.10 waiting for 20.04 to be declared by muon for upgrade.

Akonadi has been going wild the past few days, maybe a week..

I think I've tracked it down to something to do with Korganizer. I have tried to add events to Korganizer both manually and importing an ics file. Looking back I realize that every time I import, everything comes to near halt, the laptop fan is turned on non-stop and when I examine the disk activity and CPU activity with Gkrellm they are both maxed out. Looks like a solid rectangle for both in the charts.

So something was maxing the resource use. The first time it happened, I booted Ksysguard and looked at the processes running. Akonadi was at 3% or 4%. Didn't seem like much but when I used Ksysgaurs to end those Akonadi processes, the fan stopped immediately and the resource charts for CPU and disk dropped to almost zero.

Happened again today. Took a long time for the fan to really catch my attention. For a long time I just assumed it was because I had plugged in to charge the laptop battery.

This time I looked a little closer at the Akonadi lines in Ksysguard, and the processes, 3 , all ended with -ics. Killed them using Ksysguard and and the fan stopped immediately and the resource charts in Gkrellm again dropped immediately to almost zero.

Note this problem persists over a complete shutdown and re-boot.

So, I'm pretty sure the problem is associated with the use of Akonadi by Korganizer.

Is this a known problem?

If so is there a known solution?

If I remove Korganizer using Muon, is Korganizer intergrated with other s/w that would break by removing it?

I don't really use Korganizer and will make sure that in the future I NEVER do so again, but would like the added insurance of simply totally removing it.

Other than the problem of not having an event calendar on my laptop that I don't use, would there be other problems arise with s/w that depends on Korganizer? Any way to find out what s/w needs Korganizer?

I looked at the information in muon on Korganizer and it lists what Korganizer depends on and then lists things under 'breaks' and 'replaces'. I assume that 'breaks' means that removing Korganizer breaks the items listed and replaces the items listed. It seems that kontact is the only 'major' package that would be broken. But then I have never had a need for kontact or used it.

What I don't know is what happens with all of the programs listed under 'breaks' such as kde-l10n-XX. Are those programs simply parts of Korganizer? Or are they also system programs used by other s/w? If the latter, it would seem that breaking them would be crippling.

I would like to remove Korganizer, but if it breaks Kubuntu to do so??

Thanks,
geezer

[chimak111]

Run akonadictl stop if you've decided not to have anything more to do with software that depends on it. That's what I've done.

man akonadictl for more.

[geezer]

Run akonadictl stop if you've decided not to have anything more to do with software that depends on it. That's what I've done.

man akonadictl for more.

I've used that command. It only stops akonadi temporarily until the next boot or the next call by some program.

It just happened again and using that command stopped akonadi and the fan and the resource use of CPU and disk. But that is not a real solution. I would remove akonadi, but am not really sure what other s/w depends on it. The relationships have grown ever more intertwined and unraveling to isolate and remove one program is getting more difficult.

This time akonadi started and took over the CPU and disk for no apparent reason. Must be a timed action by some program that utilizes akonadi. In which case leaving akonadi in it's current condition is dangerous, since it runs rampant and takes over CPU and disk resources.

geezer

[chimak111]

I've used that command. It only stops akonadi temporarily until the next boot or the next call by some program.

For me it's permanent; no restarts on subsequent boots. I think you're using some application that's dependent on akonadi.

[jglen490]

I avoid that whole Akonadi KDE PIM thing. I've stayed away for years, and don't miss it one bit. And I moved off for the very same reason - it's unstable.

[geezer]

For me it's permanent; no restarts on subsequent boots. I think you're using some application that's dependent on akonadi.

That is getting hard to do. In researching I read that the digital clock on the panel uses akonadi. At that that point I abandoned the idea of removing akonadi and it seems that it is going to be darned near impossible to avoid it.

I have tried every thing to avoid even opening Korganizer now I turned off everything in it that I could turn off, not much. It seems the developers want to make it very difficult to turn off.

But I still get a notification about the Korganizer deamon. They really really want to make it difficult. Once you touch it in any manner you are permanently hooked against your will. If I didn't know better I would say the developers are getting royalties :-).

I could not find any anything that turn it off. And the manual is useless. It is like all manuals ever written by s/w developers. :-) speaking as one myself.

geezer

[chimak111]

Hmmm! I don't use the digital clock widget in my panel. I rely on Conky for that. Maybe that's why I didn't notice akonadi's persistence. I'll check this out in a VM later.

[geezer]

I finall gave up and just usedd muon to remove Korganizer. No immediate problems. We'll see what happens. I'm pretty sue that Korgnizer has scheduled events even if the user doesn't set any. Tan activates akonadi to do something for Korganizer and it simply impossible to turn Korganizer off once you have used it for anything. Is that a simply oversight by the delevopers

Whatever. My personal advice to anybody even thinking of use Korganizer: Use at your own risk and avoid if possible.

geezer

[chimak111]

That is getting hard to do. In researching I read that the digital clock on the panel uses akonadi.

Kubuntu 20.04 has the digital clock on the panel without akonadi being installed. Same with KDE neon (based on 18.04).

[kubicle]

Kubuntu 20.04 has the digital clock on the panel without akonadi being installed. Same with KDE neon (based on 18.04).

It uses akonadi if it has been configured to show Calendar events (Holidays, PIM-plugin etc), as it gets this data from akonadi. Otherwise it doesn't.

[geezer]

Finally found the secret to turning off Akonadi.

In the file: ~/.config/akonadi/akonadiserverrc

Change the line:
StartServer=true
to
StartServer=false

On my computer it was the last line in the file.

Hope this helps.