HOWTO Configure KDE and Akonadi so it just works

[Snowhog]

Added Jul 2,2011:
A few days ago, I followed these instructions, this time on HP 64-bit laptop (Natty), and again, it worked flawlessly.

Added May 9, 2011:

I just followed my own instructions below while in Natty Narwal 11.04. Kontact/Kmail works perfectly. I copied my ~/.local/share/contacts/* in Maverick to ~/.local/share/contacts/ in Natty, and I have all my contacts available to me.

DISCLAIMER: The following worked for me. MY CPU IS AN INTEL PENTIUM 32-BIT DUAL-CORE and this was done on Lucid Lynx 10.04. I went through a lot of pain and many posts on KDE Community Forums before I got it all figured out. I am reasonably confident that the following is complete, and that when followed, will get Akonadi working with KDE, and that your Contacts will once again be readily available within Kontact as they are supposed to and as you expect them to be.

Do all the following with Akonadi stopped and Kontact/Kmail shutdown.

System Settings > Advanced > KDE Resources > Contacts
You need to add akonadi as follows:

Click on Add... and click on Akonadi Address Books
If Personal Contacts isn't displayed in the Akonadi Address Books Resource
Settings then you have to:

Click on Manage Adress Book Source > Add... > Personal Contacts
Point the Directory to: ~/.local/share/contacts/

Back in Configure KDE Resources, click on akonadi and click Use as
Standard and click Apply

Akonadi server needs to be running before Kontact is launched to avoid Akonadi
Server Self Test errors, and to ensure that your Contacts will be seen when
Kontact is launched. We accomplish this by adding an entry to Autostart as
follows:

K > System Settings > Advanced > Autostart > Add Program...
In the pop-up, type: /usr/bin/akonadictl start and click OK
Check Enabled Startup

Akonadi requires that Contacts be located in ~/.local/share/contacts/. The default Address Book used by Kontact is located in ~/.kde/share/apps/kabc. If you don't have folders created there, you will have one or more .vcf files. These need to be copied to ~/.local/share/contacts.

Once all this is completed, logout of KDE and do a shutdown/restart. When you
log in (KDM), and your Desktop is presented, Akonadi will have been started,
and if you launch Kontact it will run, Akonadi will not pop-up with errros,
and your Contacts will be available in Kontact.

I went through a lot, with many posts on KDE Community
Forums, before I got this straightened out. Since then, I have had zero Akonadi
errors, Kontact launches and my Contacts are always available.

And yes, a user should not have to go through all of this pain to have Akonadi working with KDE. I personally fault the developers for not having put just a bit of effort into writing a transition program that would do all of this for the user. Such a script could be written, and IMO, needs to be.

[Fintan]

Re: HOWTO Configure KDE and Akonadi so it just works

HI Snowhog nice recap

I set mine up the same way after reading through pages of your "discussion"on kde-forum

Now if I could only get google cal resources to sync with gcal everything would be hunky dory.

Google contacts syncs nicely.

[kle]

Re: HOWTO Configure KDE and Akonadi so it just works

Thank you, Snowhog! It worked perfectly.

[jglen490]

Re: HOWTO Configure KDE and Akonadi so it just works

Akonadi requires that Contacts be located in ~/.local/share/contacts/. The default Address Book used by Kontact is located in ~/.kde/share/apps/kabc. If you don't have folders created there, you will have one or more .vcf files. These need to be copied to ~/.local/share/contacts.

"Good golly Miss Molly." I went blind trying to find whatever I could to make Akonadi work with stability.

This isn't at all intuitive, and I can't believe if that fact was advertised somewhere, I somehow missed it. That needs to be fixed or logged as a bug (if it isn't already). Kontact and Akonadi are supposed to work together, but how can they if they have no common configuration out of the box. No wonder it felt like KDE, Kontact, and Akonadi were at war all the time. I'm still not going to dump Thunderbird/Lightning and go back to Kontact just to try that; too much time invested in the alternative. But thank you Snowhog for that effort.

[Fintan]

Re: HOWTO Configure KDE and Akonadi so it just works

I'm still not going to dump Thunderbird/Lightning and go back to Kontact just to try that; too much time invested in the alternative. But thank you Snowhog for that effort.

I believe that by kde4.5.1 akonadi and kontact should be happily married.

I hope by then they get the syncing of google-resources fixed.

[Guest]

Re: HOWTO Configure KDE and Akonadi so it just works

Well this was jet another effort to fix Akonadi and that did not work.
After I stopped Akonadi and went add went KDE resources -> Add...
-> Akonadi Addressbooks then nothing happened. I tried it a second time
then a window came up, showing the familiar "Akonadi not operational" image.
And clicking on the Details then the usual error messages came up...stuff had already fixed in previous trials.

Actually Akonadi was working directly after the upgrade and converted also my addresses, but then it fell apart and I have not found a way to fix it. Some [solved] issues where temporarily and Akonadi showed again errors after reboot. Same experience for my other 2 PCs where I upgraded to Lucid.

So I have been forced to go to Ubuntu/Evolution, which is much simpler, but WORKS!

[Chopstick]

Re: HOWTO Configure KDE and Akonadi so it just works

It seems to work now, at least for Contacts! Thanks, Snowhog, for posting this!

At the moment when I check the status of Akonadi, I get:

$ akonadictl status
Akonadi Control: running
Akonadi Server: running
Akonadi Server Search Support: not available

What does the line with Search Support refer to?

Also, when I use the Akonadi resource for my Calendar (in Kontact) it crashes quite often... it's the same file as in the standard resource (std.ics). Should this be copied to a special folder as well? (currently it resides in ~/.kde/share/apps/korganizer/std.ics)

So, is there anything else I can do with Akonadi? Except Contacts and Calendar in Kontact.

[Snowhog]

Re: HOWTO Configure KDE and Akonadi so it just works

Chopstick@

Don't have an answer for you, but suggest that you post your question on KDE Community Forums

Likely, both the location of, as well as adding the KDE Resource is required, just as it was for the Contacts.

[Chopstick]

Re: HOWTO Configure KDE and Akonadi so it just works

I found the reason for

Akonadi Server Search Support: not available

It was because I had Nepomuk disabled... so it is not really a problem.

With Nepomuk enabled I get

$ akonadictl status
Akonadi Control: running
Akonadi Server: running
Akonadi Server Search Support: available (backend: Virtuoso)

Which is what is what is supposed to happen, I believe.

Of course I'm not indexing any files (Strigi disabled), but maybe it is indexing my contacts?
And in KDE 4.5 also my email?

Chopstick

[kle]

Re: HOWTO Configure KDE and Akonadi so it just works

Hi Snowhog
I just crossed over to 64 bit Lucid, and there seems to be a lot of things that are different from the familiar 32 bit.

You wrote:
We accomplish this by adding an entry to Autostart as
follows:
K > System Settings > Advanced > Autostart > Add Program...
In the pop-up, type: /usr/bin/akonadictl start and click OK
Check Enabled Startup

However, when I started writing the string, there appeared a list of no less than 23 items starting with
"usr/bin/akonadi_", none of them adonadicti. There was no way of convincing the gui to accept "akonadicti". So I tested the one that offered "/usr/bin/akonadi_contacts_resource"
No go.

Then I added two:
"/usr/bin/akonadi_knut_resource" and "/usr/bin/akonadi_vcard_resource"
Rebooted: One of them worked. I don't know which.

I tested "distribution lists", which has been an issue. It's still not working.

[Snowhog]

Re: HOWTO Configure KDE and Akonadi so it just works

Well, it isn't akonadicti that you have to type; it's akonadictl (that's a lower case L at the end).

paul@mybrainonlinux:~$ locate akonadictl
/home/paul/.config/autostart/akonadictl.desktop
/usr/bin/akonadictl
paul@mybrainonlinux:~$

[kle]

Re: HOWTO Configure KDE and Akonadi so it just works

My mistake: worked now, or rather, adding the akonadictl worked, but after reboot, the familiar error message appeared again. I threw it out and tried various combinations. The one that works is the one I described yesterday:

/usr/bin/akonadi_contacts_resource (did not work alone)
/usr/bin/akonadi_vcard_resource (did not work alone)
usr/bin/akonadi_knut_resource (I just tagged this on for good measure - have no idea what it is)

[Snowhog]

Re: HOWTO Configure KDE and Akonadi so it just works

Also, when I use the Akonadi resource for my Calendar (in Kontact) it crashes quite often... it's the same file as in the standard resource (std.ics). Should this be copied to a special folder as well? (currently it resides in ~/.kde/share/apps/korganizer/std.ics)

I was having issues with the Calendar as well. I had also set up the akonadi resource for the Calendar. That, according to one of the Moderators on KDE Community Forums, is the problem. Akonadi isn't yet configured to work with Kontacts Calendar. So remove that akonadi resouce from KDE Resources > Calendar, so that you only have ~/.kde/share/apps/korganizer/std.ics and it is checked and set as Standard > Yes.

[kle]

Re: HOWTO Configure KDE and Akonadi so it just works

DISCLAIMER:
Akonadi requires that Contacts be located in ~/.local/share/contacts/. The default Address Book used by Kontact is located in ~/.kde/share/apps/kabc. If you don't have folders created there, you will have one or more .vcf files. These need to be copied to ~/.local/share/contacts.

I just thought I'd mention this: In 32 bit Lucid I followed your instructions to the last comma, but there was no need to copy the contacts - they were there.

However, in the freshly installed 64 bit Lucid, it turned out that not only were there no contacts in ~/.local/share/contacts, there was no such folder at all. In spite of my having checked that the directory was pointed to in the "manage address book...add" box. So I created ~/.local/share/contacts and now akonadictl works.

[kle]

Re: HOWTO Configure KDE and Akonadi so it just works

Sorry to be a bore, but having reinstalled Lucid 64 bit (AGAIN! - still experimenting), I again found that the relationship between Akonadi vs Contacts was unstable. Sometimes Akonadi started first, sometimes not. I found a post on Launchpad that has so far seemed to settle my issue. (Have rebooted at least 5 times and each time found my contacts waiting in Kontact.)

IN ADDITION to adding to KDE resources as described by you, Snowhog:
QUOTE
Go to System Preferences
-> Open Autostart
-> Add program...
-> insert: akonadictl start
-> Select "start in terminal" (or something like that)
-> Ok
-> Ok
-> Close program and restart (K)Ubuntu
ENDQUOTE

In other words, not /usr/bin/akonadictl start, JUST akonadictl start
Source: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...di/+bug/564263
Written by Cra**** on 2010-05-26 (last post to date)