GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 721639
Cannot overwrite builtin mail view definitions
Last modified: 2014-02-04 13:38:37 UTC
I have had this happen a couple of times now on Fedora 19 and Fedora 20. I open evolution and I can see the accounts on the left, some will even show a number next to inbox to indicate new messages. However clicking on any folder in any account I cannot see a list of emails in the list pane. Oddly, in the read pane I can see an email as if there is an email selected in the email list pane. When this happens I have to delete my "~/.config/evolution" folder and then open evolution and re-setup all my accounts and all my personal settings (do not group by thread, sort descending on date, etc...). I have included a screen shot to illustrate my problem.
Created attachment 265447 [details] Image of Evolution with missing email list.
Which account type is this about? Gmail IMAP or such?
Also notice that the email headers bar is missing in the attached image. This is related to sorting on date and then saving custom view to replace default view (Messages). If I pick any other view the list appears as well as the headers, the new Messages view breaks evolution some how. When I delete everything under "~/.config/evolution/mail/views" and reopen evolution I get everything back to default, however the default is not acceptable. I want my mail to be sorted so that newest is at the top. I want it that way in all folders. The easiest way to do that is sort by date (descending) in Inbox as needed and then save custom view and pick to replace existing and select Messages. This way I make one change and all folders are updated. When I do this though... I lose the table header bar (Sender|Subject|Date etc..) and email list goes blank. I can replicate this every time. Oddly (and I do not like this method) I can circumvent the issue by adding a grouping section with "<leaf column="6" ascending="false"/>" in the "/usr/share/evolution/3.10/views/mail/Messages.galview" file. This should not have not be done, but somehow when evolution adds that same thing to the custom view under my home directory mentioned above it breaks everything. Sorry for the wordy description, I just want to help pin point this issue by giving a clear view of what I see.
Did not see your question Andre... This happens on all my accounts. I have 2 IMAP, and 1 Exchange Web Services (EWS). This does not appear to be account related, as I mentioned in my previous comment, this is a UI issue I believe.
Thanks for a bug report. I tried to reproduce this, by adding the <leaf/> line to my ~/.config/evolution/mail/views/Messages.galview , but no luck, it shows messages in ascending order by Date column. (I did not add the line to my Messages.galview, I only changes "false" to "true".) Could you run evolution from a terminal and see whether any runtime warnings are shown to you when you enter a folder and the message list is missing, please? I suppose there are some, possibly explaining what is wrong.
None, when I run from command line and try this, I do not see any errors.
Created attachment 267968 [details] Command line errors I just reset everything to default and tried to save a custom view where the newest emails are at top. I tried replacing existing view (Messages) and I tried saving a new view (Name: By Date). What I see is that as soon as I save, the sort order is changed back to newest at bottom and selecting the newly saved view does not change this. I have attached the errors seen on command line. As soon as I can make it show the blank list pane again I will attach another file showing any errors from that and any thing I did leading up to that failure.
Oddly, after again sorting by data (Group by threads: off) and saving custom view to replace Messages, it worked. I did one thing different this time. I selected the top email in the list. Now there are no errors, and my email is properly sorted with newest at the top of the list. I am not sure why this error so badly before, to the point that evolution could not render the email list at all in fact, but I can say that a co-worker is currently still experiencing this issue. He will be adding comments here soon as well.
OK, I was able to see this behavior again. After saving the view and seeing it correctly sort the email list I was good. I closed evolution and then opened it again (from command line) and now I have no email list again. Here is command line output: [ddreggors@ddreggors-mobile ~ ]$ evolution No bp log location saved, using default. [000:000] Cpu: 6.42.7, x8, 3300Mhz, 7872MB [000:000] Computer model: Not available [000:001] Browser XEmbed support present: 1 [000:001] Browser toolkit is Gtk2. [000:005] Using Gtk2 toolkit No bp log location saved, using default. [000:000] Cpu: 6.42.7, x8, 3300Mhz, 7872MB [000:000] Computer model: Not available java version "1.7.0_51" OpenJDK Runtime Environment (fedora-2.4.4.1.fc20-x86_64 u51-b02) OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 24.45-b08, mixed mode) I will attach the new screen shot also.
Created attachment 267977 [details] No email list Please note that I can select any folder on the left and the right side does not list any emails. The reading pane at bottom does change emails though as if an email is selected.
Thanks for the update. I'm still unable to reproduce this myself. The console messages from comment #9 are probably unrelated to your issue, they come from some browser plugins. I tried to get to the same view as on your latest screenshot, and I can see it if I remove all columns from the view. It can be done with right-click above the message list headers and choosing "Customize Current View..." option, and there remove all Fields to be shown. Then I get exactly the same view as you have. The issue is that the context menu works only above any header, not above empty header line, thus the only way back is to change view in View->Current View->(some saved view). Nonetheless, this gives a clue, evolution failed to read list of fields to be shown or it cleared the list after reading it for some reason. I'll try to investigate further.
I figured out how to reproduce this. The thing is to cleanup ~/.config/evolution/mail/views/ especially delete Messages.galview from that folder. With that, repeating your steps I get the issue with empty message list the next start of Evolution. The reason is missing Messages.galview from the config dir. Once it exists there, the next save will store the view properly and everything will start to work. I had there the file, thus the issue didn't exhibit to me.
Yes I was able to do this. I removed all files in ~/.config/evolution/mail/views/ and then copied the Messages.galview from /usr/share/evolution/3.10/views/mail/Messages.galview. I was able to store view and only after restarting did I see my correct view. Here are my concerns/questions: Evolution clearly creates the other view files (custom*, current*, galview.xml, etc...) as needed why would it not create the needed Messages.galview? Also, even after placing this file in that folder, when I click the date header to sort by date the way I want it reverts to old way when I save the view. I have to then close and reopen evolution to see it the way I saved. It seems that when most people read mail they want easy access to the newest mails which means newest at the top, so why default to newest at bottom? Also, if I save a view the way I like, why re-sort when I click save and make me close/re-open to see my saved view? I love evolution don't get me wrong I just think (as with all things) there is room for improvement here.
So, this broke during summer changes (something between 2013-07-03 - 2013-07-05). I tried to fixed it for the next releases: Created commit 0b780cb in evo master (3.11.90+) [1] Created commit c376bb0 in evo gnome-3-10 (3.10.4+) [1] https://git.gnome.org/browse/evolution/commit/?id=0b780cb
I skip questions which are fixed by the above fix, basically because they were real bugs. (In reply to comment #13) > It seems that when most people read mail they want easy access to the newest > mails which means newest at the top, so why default to newest at bottom? Also, > if I save a view the way I like, why re-sort when I click save and make me > close/re-open to see my saved view? I'd rather not do any such research, because for example I prefer the newest mails being at the bottom, not at the top. > I love evolution don't get me wrong I just think (as with all things) there is > room for improvement here. Funnily, another improvement caused this breakage. :) It just happens to all of us.