GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 236778
ibex files get really large
Last modified: 2006-01-09 15:06:25 UTC
Please fill in this template when reporting a bug, unless you know what you are doing. Description of Problem: I run Evolution continuously 24/7, and this morning when I turned on the monitor, the mail component had failed overnight with 7 new messages in my inbox, and now it won't load any of the folders again. The Evolution GUI starts up, but it just says, "Opening folder file://...," and never actually opens any of the folders. In the terminal, I get the following error: "evolution-shell-WARNING **: Error changing interactive status of component OAFIID:GNOME_Evolution_Mail_ShellComponent to TRUE -- IDL:omg.org/CORBA/COMM_FAILURE:1.0". I tried shutting down the program, running "killev" and "oaf-slay", but it gives me the same problems after starting it up again. I even downloaded all of the newest updates using Red Carpet, and still the same problem. I rebooted the system, still same problem. When I run it as root or any other user, it opens the respective user's folders fine, and I am able to download new mail, but I cannot access any of my existing mail folders under my default user. Steps to reproduce the problem: 1. Unknown... I've been running Evolution for months without problems, and it just failed unexpectedly. I've had component failures in the past, but running "killev" and loading it again always fixed it. I do have a large amount of email in my folders... could there be a limit? I also use many filters for sorting my mail into different folders. I just set up a new one last night to send anything from recipients containing "clickz" or "internet.com" to the subfolder "tech news" under "inbox". But I don't know if that is related to the bug. Actual Results: Folders do not load. Expected Results: Folders should load. How often does this happen? Every time. Additional Information: The summary, calendar, and contacts all load correctly.
Sorry, that should have read: I just set up a new one [filter] last night to send anything from SENDERS containing "clickz" or "internet.com" to the subfolder "tech news" under "inbox". But, like I said, I have no idea if that has anything to do with the bug. I'm just reporting that because of their temporal proximity, not because of any known causal relationship.
BTW, I thought about it being a disk space issue, and I have 13GB free with no quotas.
try killev; oaf-slay; rm -rf /tmp/orbit-$USER Please REOPEN if that doesn't work
Suggestion: killev; oaf-slay; rm -rf /tmp/orbit-$USER Did NOT resolve the problem. Same error message appears on the terminal. Folders still do not open. Also, summary does not open now.
I've discovered the source of the problem. The file .#mbox.ibex.index.data exceeded 2GB, and apparently linux is limited to 32-bit integers, thus the largest possible file size is 2^31-1 bytes. Deleting the offending file returned Evolution to full functionality. While this is technically a linux issue, I would also consider it an Evolution bug that this file could grow to this size considering the mbox file is only 84MB. Now, I'm no expert on the way Evolution functions, but I believe that this has to do with some sort of undelete functionality built into Evolution? There should exist a checking mechanism which warns users to expunge their deleted files (I think this would kill the file size, right?) before it ever gets to this extreme. With the amount of spam people receive, especially with large images and virus attachments, this is only likely to get worse. Please consider it a bug that this file is able to exceed 20 times the size of the mbox file without being checked. Additionally, this should be added to the FAQ. I can imagine some people just give up on Evolution if this happens otherwise.
this is a duplicate of another bug about really large ibex files
Found no duplicates. Leaving this open meanwhile
I think I intended to file a bug (which is probably why jeff considered this a dup) but never did. It's certainly still happening here; just found one of 1/4G in CVS HEAD.
That said, note bug 240755.
*** bug 240755 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
fwiw i have no idea on this bug
*** bug 243755 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** bug 270822 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** bug 269179 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Created attachment 44997 [details] [review] fixed fd issues which may, or may not, be related
closing in the perhaps wildly optimistic hope that the above patch will fix it
*** Bug 318035 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***