kmail + gmail = headache

[x-shaney-x]

I gave up using kmail some time ago since I was so sick of the hassle of it and the constant errors (particularly related to akonadi).

Well I have been using thunderbird since and have switched all my email to various gmail accounts. All those accounts have worked 100% perfectly with thunderbird and the setup is as easy as it gets.
Well today I decided to give kmail another try in the hope the app had improved in recent times.
To my disgust, I have yet again hit one problem after another just trying to add ONE single gmail account.
At one point I did manage to get it to download my mail and then tried moving some mail to different folders and deleted a few to see how the whole imap sync thing was working.
Seemed to work ok at the time so I left things running which I went and did some jobs. Came back to find all the folders were now empty and there was no sign of ANY emails anywhere. Signed into the gmail browser page and all the mail had gone there too (though none of it was particularly important).
I then tried sending a test email and of course that failed with some complaint about a collection error.
To be honest, I can't even be bothered trying anything else with it and have given up.

I am a huge fan of KDE but kmail has been sub par for some time but I though it would at least be able to handle gmail in a straight forward and simple manner by now?

[pookito]

U r not the only one. I am a kde fan, but kmail still needs a lot of work. I have told the developers that I would pay money to have some changes done. But to no success. I have been using Thunderbird since then. I have been happy with that decision since then.

Sent from my SGH-T959 using Tapatalk

[x-shaney-x]

I also find it odd that thunderbird, a non-kde app, works with the kde plasma message indicator yet kmail, a kde app, doesn't.
I was a kmail user for a very long time when I first started with linux and never had any problems with it back then but I just don't know what has happened since.
The whole kontact suite seems to be a complete shambles right now (I also tried using google calendar with korganizer a few months back with similar failness).

[GreyGeek]

For the last couple of years I have been using the KMail client. First with Lucid (10.04) and for the last three weeks with Precise (12.04 alpha). I have my gmail account set to forward my gmail to my ISP mail account, and I have KMail configured to send and receive email from my ISP account. I have FireFox set to "Send Link" to my gmail account.

[woodsmoke]

However, as I posted elsewhere, as of the update yesterday Kontact is now fully functional using akonadi for gmail, that is the mail, contacts, and calendar. RSS works, as does the journal, however, that being said, the Ktimetracker still crashes when attempting to set a date.

But, for the big stuff Kontact is now fully functional.

woodsmoke

[SteveRiley]

How are you setting up your Gmail account?

I'd recommend avoiding the wizard. Instead, configure it manually. My experience with KMail2 in KDE 4.8 with GMail has been uniformly positive. So much so that I am finally able to ditch Thunderbird.

[Fintan]

My experience with KMail2 in KDE 4.8 with GMail has been uniformly positive. So much so that I am finally able to ditch Thunderbird.

How are contacts and calendar synching with gmail contacts and calendar / tasks?

Has akonadi google resources been fixed?

[woodsmoke]

Fintan,
In a word, yes, although I have not tried to get "tasks" to work if you are you are discussing "to-dos" and the main reason for that is that I don't "do" to-dos much. However, I did go a-huntin' for that kind of thing in Google "more" stuff, so I'll try to do that, but if you do them a lot it might be more efficient for you to give it a whack since it will probably take me a while to get up to speed on it.

I have also verified this on two other distros other than Kubuntu.

woodsmoke

[SteveRiley]

Contacts sync fine when you install the package akonadi-kde-resource-googledata (it might already be on your system). But despite appearances, this does not work for calendars. You need to create a CalDAV resource instead. See this post for more information.

[woodsmoke]

I do not have caldav resource installed and the calendars sync for me.

woodsmoke

[SteveRiley]

Hey, you're right, it's now working. Very cool!

Alas, it appears to work only with the default calendar. Secondary calendars don't show up.

[woodsmoke]

Hi SR
Yes there is a "thing" about secondary calendars. One of my first "how tos" mentioned the talk around the net that there was a "bug" between gcalendar and Kontact in that one could not even get AT the primary calendar, I think you were the one who indicated how to get around that.
The bug thing about the primary calendar has been fixed, however, there is discussion back and forth by some people that can get at their secondary calendars and some who cannot.
I have not made a secondary calendar and so cannot address the situation.
woodsmoke

[SteveRiley]

Secondary calendars still work if I use the CalDAV method. Configuring those is, as we've seen, less than intuitive, however.

[woodsmoke]

Hi SR,
If you happen to have the time some day, hows about we get onto IRC or somthun and spend and you give me a walk through about CALDAV and we jointly post a how to, or, if it would be more convenient, maybe you could do one or point me/us to a relatively simple walk through.

I'm wondering if the whole Koallab thing might be given a looksee also in case we get a company dropping by that wants to implement it.

woodsmoke

[SteveRiley]

Sure. The procedure is mostly the same as what Kubicle and I described before, although there's one important change to the calendar's URL. I just tested it now and it's working for secondary calendars. Want to hop onto #kubuntu? I'm there now.

Original instructions:

Your Google Calendar ID for your primary calendar is just your email address, but for all other calendars the Calendar ID will be in the form of long_string_of_characters@group.calendar.google.com.

Modification:

Your Google Calendar ID for your primary calendar is just your email address, but for all other calendars the Calendar ID will be in the form of long_string_of_characters@import.calendar.google.com.