GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 518995
Evolution doesn't handle unix spool files correctly.
Last modified: 2008-09-22 04:56:26 UTC
Evolution 2.12.3 Downstream bug https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=359810 Evolution 2.12.0 can't open up unix spool files for reading mail; it will only allow entry of a directory. Then when mail retrieval is attempted, evolution barfs because it needs to be told which spool file to get the mail from. See below. http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-evolution-maintainers/2007-October/003141.html snip of Comment in downstream bug However, 2.12.3 version also has the same problem, to wit: Configuration for local delivery fails. As described in the gnome documentation below, a user should be able to specify the unix mbox spool file to draw new mail from. However, the configuration system in fact only allows you to specify the directory where the spool file is located; it won't let you specify a file. Then, when the user tries to get new mail, evolution complains about not being able to open the file, and that it has only been provided a directory. This is probably an upstream problem at gnome. Here is what the evolution documentation says about local delivery setup: "Local Delivery:Choose this option if you want to move e-mail from the spool (the location where mail waits for delivery) and store it in your home directory. You need to provide the path to the mail spool you want to use. If you want to leave e-mail in your system’s spool files, choose the Standard Unix Mbox Spool option instead. For configuration instructions, see Local Configuration Options." As noted above, this doesn't work as stated.
It depends on the protocol you choose, see bug #352346 for spool protocol (it didn't hit stable 2.12, but is in trunk since 2007-08-13), the spool protocol has been divided to two, "spool" for files and "spooldir" for directories. Another protocol, mbox, was fixed recently, in bug #500018, so since 2007-12-03 one can choose with mbox-es files, instead of directories. It's also in trunk only. So let him/her wait until 2.22 and mark this as duplicate for the first bug probably (I'm not sure, you cite both mbox and spool, so hard to say).
Adding reporter in Cc
Some more information, including a workaround, can be found at this related bug: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=516162
OK, what will we do with this bug? I know it's fixed (improved, to say better) in 2.21.x and porting this back "is not possible" because of some changes in EDS and Evo.
BTW, Erik's bug can be marked as duplicate of this or vice versa.
Erik: Can you retest and let us know if it works fine for you? TIA
*** Bug 516162 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Please feel free to reopen this bug if the problem still occurs with a newer version of GNOME 2.22.3.1 or 2.24, thanks.