GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 665826
E-Mail Lost After Attempted Folder Move
Last modified: 2013-07-01 10:54:51 UTC
I attempted to move a mail sub-folder up one level via drag and drop. After releasing the mouse button the new folder was created, and was deleted from its previous location; however, it was empty. Clicking on the new folder results in an error message: "Error while refreshing folder xxx IMAP command failed: mailbox does not exist, or must be subscribed to". Restarting evolution makes no difference; new folder still empty with same error message. Viewing my inbox over a web client shows the old folder gone, but no new folder. I tried moving the new folder back to its original location using the same method; still empty with same error message. Evolution 3.2.2 (evolution.x86_64 3.2.2-1.fc16) on 64-bit Fedora 16 (3.1.4-1.fc16.x86_64). Receiving mail from an IMAP server over SSL, folders not set to copy content locally.
I can confirm this bug, happened to me using Evolution 3.2.3 and Zimbra. Had to resort to Zimbra's mail backup. Its priority should probably be raised, as it results in lost mails.
Thanks for a bug report. I tried to reproduce with 3.2.3 and IMAP (not IMAP+) account, and it works for me. My folder with 3 messages had been moved to its parent's parent by drag&drop in a folder tree without any issue. Did the folder have its subfolders too, or only messages? I had only messages there, and all of them were downloaded locally.
hi Milan, Thanks for taking a look at it. I can't remember 100%, but I believe the folder had both messages and sub-folders.
Milan: It happened with IMAP+ for me, could you try that?
I tried with IMAP+ too and it works fine for me (it's with 3.4.0). I had Inbox/subfolder/sub2/sub2.1 and by drag & drop I moved sub2 directly under Inbox. It then appeared as Inbox/sub2/sub2.1 with all its messages and other subfolders as well. I then tried to delete local cache and repeat steps and still, it's there. Nothing seems to be lost. I tried with only few messages (less than 10) in each folder and subfolder. There was one strange thing, which I do not know why happened, but I had set "Show only subscribed folders" in account's preferences, and the next start after folder move the subfolder sub2.1 and the other were missing from the folder tree. I then opened to Folder->Subscriptions and saw that the folders are on the server, they are only not subscribed. It was probably something with the movement of them, but I couldn't reproduce when I tried again. I suspect this probably requires quite strict steps to be able to reproduce it.
I observed it once recently, accidentally moving a folder with messages from a mailing list (probably several hundres of them). I don’t recall whether evolution became unresponsive and I had to abort it, but in any case the messages were gone afterwards, which should not happen even if aborted. So this might likely be an issue with large folders only. (Or only then observable.) IMAP+, Dovecot IMAP server.
Anybody has seen this again with 3.4?
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=665826 https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=673599 https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=674112 all seem to be similar.
<mcrha> I think I was fixing something similar some time ago Is this still a problem in Evolution 3.4.3? ==> NEEDINFO
poorpuer: Is this still a problem in Evolution 3.6.x or 3.4.x?
The same also happened to me twice with evolution 3.2.3 (with IMAP). I was not able to reproduce the problem reliably, but at least halfway reliably. Here is what I did: - Create a new folder "blah" and move it around via drag and drop. Then after a few movings, I manage to get one of the following scenarios: (Let's say I moved it from A to B.) (a) After releasing the mouse from the drag and drop, I get: Error while Moving folder A/blah. IMAP command failed: [NONEXISTENT] unknown source folder The folder "blah" still seems to be in the old location A/blah (and it is still selected). Clicking on another folder and then clicking on blah again yields: Failed to open folder. The reported error was "No such folder A/blah" After quitting and restarting evolution, the folder blah has completely dissapeared. (b) No problem right after the drag and drop (moving seems to have worked fine), but clicking on A/B/blah gives the error Error while Refreshing folder 'B/blah'. Cannot write offline journal for folder 'B/blah': No such file or directory After quitting and restarting evolution, the folder blah is still in its new location and seems to work properly. Since I manage to reproduce this problem quite well, I can do additional experiments to provide additional information. (However, I'm not root on the computer where this happens.)
Closing as OBSOLETE since we never got an answer for versions 3.4 or later. If anyone can reproduce this in the current release I'll reopen.